Well as we all know, the Dane is not really noted for being a water babe, infact many shy away rather than even test out the possibilities. Here at Apollodane Great Danes we feel water exercise is by far the best option for our Danes from puppy through to adult, all really enjoying their days in the pool. We start them as young as 6 weeks old, just slowly getting used to the water until they are happy to go it alone. Then what we get is the bold steps taken as shown in the video and we hope you like it.

We had a lot of emails thanking us for the links in our last post to Jill Swedlow’s books.

Another area on which we often have information requested in on feeding our dogs and feeding Danes in general. We’d therefore like to point you in the direction of The Barf Diet: For Cats and Dogs by Ian Billinghurst.

Well 2006 is at a close, Christmas day has passed us by and the frantic shopping days are now just a distant memory, all wrapped and given to our friends and loved ones as a sign of our love and affection for their involvement in our lives. For those who like ourselves have spent many days out on the road traveling to dog shows, it is a time to reflect on our efforts, bask in our successes and dream of future expectations at forthcoming shows.Like many of you, we follow the achievements online of our dog world colleagues around the world, cheering them on from our armchairs and hoping that success and glory follow them from show to show. Oh how technology has helped us in our quest for reaching wider horizons, forging friendships with people we have never met and strengthening the ties with our competitors in the show ring.

We have been very fortunate to meet some wonderful and fascinating people on our travels, and to those people who have become part of our circle, we would like to thank you for sharing our experiences and making our days spent at shows enjoyable. We would also like to take this opportunity as the year draws to a close, of thanking all the judges who have so kindly seen certain qualities in the dogs we have shown, giving them recognition and placing them on the days in question to the titles achieved. We are grateful that they take the time to visit countries far from home, sometimes in all extremes of weather to grace us with their knowledge and wealth of experience. Already many of us will be planning the shows for 2007 and like at so many shows of the past year, all our paths will cross at some time or another in 2007. Thank you also to the show organisers who without the hard work and extremely long hours we would not see some of the spectacular shows presented. Special recognition to the individual kennel clubs for ever improving the quality of shows, for stamping out many of the bad practices that were creeping in and for ensuring variety is offered throughout the year. Last but not least, the breeders who continue to strive for perfection, who continually produce beautiful puppies and who spend many sleepless nights hand feeding because of their love and dedication to the breed. This is really the start of the chain and without these dedicated individuals dog showing would not be what it is today, so hats off to each and every one of you, raise a glass to the New Year and may you continue to offer quality and good breeding in the years to come.

We have had our own little corner of success this year with our boy Zsacharias and our girl Heidie who I am sure you have followed on our web site www.apollodane.com. Both have proved much beyond our expectations and we are delighted at their achievements. We have all covered some miles in search of success and our Danes now have their very own "frequent flyer cards" an initiative set up by our local kennel club and our regional airline carrier, something I personally feel we should all be perusing, as between us all we must cover some flying miles and let's face it, any saving on excess luggage with our dogs means we are able to visit more shows in support of other countries. Cyprus Airways to their credit and recognition give a 50% discount to members of the scheme, so for those of you out there and actively involved in your own kennel club, this is a benefit supporting two very worthwhile causes. The next thing would be to get the member cards accepted on ALL airlines, that really would be a great achievement. Anyway, back to the success of 2006 with Heidie and Zsacharias. For 2007 Zsacharias will cover Heidie and for those interested in this mating, more information can be found on our web page, copies of pedigrees and copies of the pedigrees of the potential offspring. Heidie will be given a break to concentrate her efforts on motherhood and our lovely girl Odette will take to the show circuit. Let us hope she sees similar success in 2007 to follow in the lines of Heidie.

From all here in Cyprus, especially at Apollodane Great Danes, we wish you all the very best in 2007, we wish you continued success in forthcoming shows and we wish you good fortunes in future matings throughout the year.

 

 

Today, a cold winters day in Cyprus. I think it got as low as 28 degrees today by the pool. We didn’t actually swim today, but we had swimsuits on and took in a few sun tanning rays ready for the Christmas photo’s.

Dogs were really enjoying themselves. Zac and Star were excluded for obvious reasons but they have been up on the mountain today for a good run individually. We love to get them all together as often as we can as it just breaks up their bonds with their kennel partners so as not to get to territorial. Heidie & Odette as so bossy with Polo as you can see from the photos, they really give him the old rough and tumble.

Summer normally brings with it a collection of visitors, one of the advantages and sometimes disadvantages of living in such a beautiful country. There is a tendency for these people to sometimes forget this is our home and visits weekly to the water park or the Baths of Aphrodite can sometimes lose their appeal.

This week we have had a young lady we were asked by to be her guardian, following her divorce from her father and her parent’s separation. Sky has really balanced herself now and she has settled in to a routine at the London Fashion College which she has been studying at now for 12 months. She is majoring in shoe design and we can really see a future star in the making.

 

       

We have also had our dear friends Carol & Brian from Bristol visiting. They purchased a home in readiness for their retirement and are here for three weeks just breaking in slowly to retirement mode. Gary & Wilma, dear friends from Manchester have called in to see us, enjoying one of our housekeepers lovely Sri Lankan curries, so good was it, they returned the following day for a second helping.

 

      

Next week we have Dipak and family and then it’s time for our big event, the Hills daughters christening (Tamsin) Both Craig & I are Godparents, a responsibility we will have to take very seriously, we don’t want Tony & Pauline on our case over Christmas lunch over at their place, telling us we have been irresponsible Godparents.

So, did I say something about summer!!!!!! This period in the middle of the year that is consumed in other peoples holidays. That period were we are lucky if we see a full week of sunshine without interruption from yet more guests, or a time when your time is never your own.

 

     

Maybe next time Outer Mongolia would be lovely to buy a home in, I wonder then would we still see the same number of visitors. Why is it, they never want to come in the winter, Cyprus has so much to offer and really is at it’s best. The flowers are in bloom, the temperatures are more acceptable to sightseeing and the tourist attractions are not bursting at the seams with school children. Goodness me, why would anybody want to go away in the middle of summer. We had a rule that “no visitors in July or August” at least this way we were guaranteed a summer of our own, but to be honest, we love seeing people and we really enjoy their company, but maybe not all together as cries of Basil Faulty come to mind.

 

    

So we will continue to entertain and we will continue to pretend we love the sights we see every time we do the tourist run, but one thing is for sure, when our home in Thailand is finished, that will be our very own little winter hideaway. Mind you, how could we exclude our dear friends from Roxmann Dogs, who this year entertained us with their dog show stories during their summer visit.

Well, the day starts as usual with glorious sunshine beating down on our hill top villa, the Mediterranean sea on the horizon and the most spectacular site of all, that of our family of Great Danes waiting to have their morning feed and their first run and exercise of the day on the mountain. (by clicking on any photo, you will automatically be taken to that particular set to see more) or click on any of the “LATEST” items down on the right hand column to see what we have been up to, or just click on the rosettes on the top right to find out about our multi winning Grand Champion Zsacharias;

How very fortunate we feel to be in such a privileged position, sharing our lives with each other and having our Great Danes as wonderful companions.

Feeding starts in earnest at around 0730 hrs, always taking the Alpha male first, followed by the more dominant members in their respective pecking orders. Somehow, I always appear to be last to sit down for breakfast, so that just about sums up what my position is over the dogs (very low down the list) but we would not have it any other way, as our dogs will always come first over anything we do.

 

We have one person responsible for the feeding and that tends to be me. This way I and only I can monitor the food levels correctly given and eaten by the Danes. Food has been a little erratic in it’s consumption these past couple of weeks, partly due to the fact that we have two of our lovely bitches who have just come through their season, which means the dogs have had other things on their mind, plus the temperatures and weather conditions have been hitting well in to the high 30c, which again is enough to put anybody off food. We are at the end of the bitches season now and hopefully a return back to normal eating habits. All dogs now happily fed, watered, walked and exercised, it’s time for them to find their spot to settle and relax after their start to the day. The picture above is typical of the sort of morning they are about to have. All happy together and mostly out of the mid-day sun. We like to leave them to relax when the weather is hot, but in the early evening, when the sun has gone down and the temperatures more acceptable to learning conditions, we take a ride down to the harbour which is normally quite busy. We do a few practise rounds of show work, normally atracting a little audience and then we let the dogs socialise and pose for photographs with the tourists. It’s a really good way of getting the dogs used to noise and crowds and they love all the attention. We are also very fortunate that our beautiful villa adjoins a spectacular mountain which is ideal for building stamina, building muscle and strengthening bones as we run them to the top when fully matured. Oh!!!!!!!! I always say, when I come back, I would like for it to be as a house cat or a Great Dane. To me it just sums up the sort of life we bestow upon our animals as something we to would like to experience in afterlife (here’s hoping). *** Hello wonderful guests! We’re really enjoying your comments and we’ve already starting posting more entries to our blog. Click here or click on ‘home’ in the top right of this site to bring you to our main page which lists all our entries in date order! Hope to hear from more of you soon. Don’t forget to forward the link to your friends for them to enjoy. xx