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This is Greta, she’s a black (pet coat) Great Dane which means she’s got too much white on her black coat to be loved as a registered show dog. Black coated Great Danes are the most common color of Dane, and the least wanted unless they are pure black. So if you’re thinking of adopting a huge sized dog and don’t mind that eventually it will grow just as lazy as we all dream of being please consider rescuing a black Great Dane to ensure that one of these wonderful goofy dogs get a good home.

Be warned though: Great Dane puppies are cute when they are little and even though they might be tempting, if you are short on patience rescue one between the age of ten months to 2 years because some Great Danes (Greta included) don’t have control over their bowel movements until they are around a year old, they are hyper, they are nervous, and they resemble giant crazed Chihuahuas until they are about 2 years old– after that they live up to the “Gentle Giant” reputation and prefer guarding the couch or bed by cleverly pretending to be asleep (on it, all day if possible) and annoying the cats by simply existing.

Greta tends to think if I’m on the couch that she morphs into a tiny lap dog, this drastic change in size is only in her head, but she’ll start by putting her chin on my knee. A few minutes later her chin is on my lap and a paw is next to it. Then the other paw. And if I pretend that I don’t notice long enough I’ll have 120 lbs of pure love curled up on my lap and seriously cutting off any blood flow to my legs. It’s amazing at how small such a large dog can configure herself if she really really believes she’s tiny.

It’s nice that Greta is easily bathed with a microfiber cloth and a spray bottle of water with a little Dr. Bonners lavender soap in it. Sure, I don’t get much in the way of chiengora from brushing her, in my opinion her lack of shedding material makes her the ideal fiber lover’s dog.

And Greta is the only one that will hang out with me when I’m knitting or spinning and seems perfectly content to do nothing at all; doesn’t ask why I knit and frog the same item eight times before “really” starting to knit it, or question my sanity when I stay up late to finish ‘just one more bobbin’ no matter how many times I said “just one more bobbin” prior. She keeps the cats from attacking moving yarn, drop spindles or spinning wheel treadles, and I particularly like the well placed (and loud) “Woof!” that she’ll let out if a cat is trying to climb into a basket of rovings for a nice comfy nap.