When did you get your first Great Dane?

My first Great Dane was adopted through the SPCA in Philadelphia in 1975.  He was a large unneutered fawn male who had been living on the streets.  I named him Prince.  He lived in the fraternity house at Temple University School of Pharmacy.  After I graduated from Temple I bought an uncropped black female Dane named Aries from a backyard breeder.  Having just moved to Pottstown, PA I was living in a very small row house; my father was not happy about the dog!  He was concerned about how big she would get.  I told my parents she was a ‘Lab mix’ who grew very large!  About this time I met and married my husband Dave.  He came along with a Lab/boxer mix.  Dave was sold on Labs until he met Aries my Dane.  You know the rest…we were hooked!  We did not get another Great Dane until we moved into the house where we currently live.  My son was a one year old and my daughter was three at the time.  It was then that we purchased another Dane.  She was the only fawn in a black to black litter.  We named the puppy Chelsee and had her cropped by our local veterinarian.  Chelsee was wonderful.  She watched over my children like a mother.  There is hardly a photograph of my children where Chelsee wasn’t in it, too.  When Chelsee was about four years old I met a very nice gentleman in the store where I worked.  The man was wearing a Great Dane hat so I sparked up a conversation with him.  He turned out to be Harry Bauder of Loxley Danes.  We became great friends with Harry and his wife Sue.  We got our next Great Dane from them.  She was a brindle female named Lily.  We promised to try showing Lily and she became our first champion and she was our foundation bitch.  Her name was Ch. Loxley’s Ming Tiger Lily. 

Tell us about your first experiences with showing Great Danes.

Well, our first experiences with showing were rather mixed.  We made some good friends along the way and have learned many lessons.  Overall, most exhibitors were friendly and eager to give advice.  But as with everything else, some were rude to us because we were newbies and they did not take us seriously.

How did you come up with the name Larchwood and tell us about showing your dogs since your first champion?

The area where our house was built was once an old camp called ‘Camp Larchwood’.  We liked the sound of it so we stuck with the name Larchwood.

We exhibited our Danes on and off through the 90s but due to family obligations our dog showing was limited.  We actually showed standard wirehaired dachshunds during that time and bred two dachshund champions.  After our two-legged kids went off to college we picked up seriously showing our Danes again.  We finished three champions which live with us and bred a total of nine champions in the last several years.  We are proud of our accomplishments.  Our champions, in no particular order:

Ch. Shill Rest Larchwood Xena
Ch. Larchwood’s Legally Blonde
Ch. Larchwood Del Lagos Bright Light
Ch. Larchwood’s Come Fly With Me
Ch. Larchwood’s Gina Rees of Shill Rest
Ch. Shill Rest Larchwood’s Hot to Trot
Ch. Larchwood’s Pretty Hot and Tempting
Ch. Larchwood’s Texas Tea of Lonestar
Ch. Larchwood Rees Rising Star
Ch. Shill Rest Larchwood’s Sizzling Hot
Ch. Larchwood Talk of the Town
Ch. Larchwoods Cedarglade Kialar
Int. Ch. Larchwoods Mad About You Delta

One of our most recent home-bred champions, ‘Tempe’, won all of her points from the Bred-By Exhibitor class handled by my husband Dave.  They took four majors including two major wins at Specialties.

Kate Kurtz, of Shill Rest, purchased her second Great Dane from us.  The bitch puppy was our pick of the litter.  We really did not know Kate well at the time.  Kate had exhibited German shorthaired pointers.  Long-time Dane breeder Joan Piehl had referred Kate to us as a good show home.  Since we were still very busy with our children’s school activities at the time, we decided to let the pick puppy go to Kate where we knew she would be shown.  After a rocky start Kate finished the brindle bitch owner-handled.  This bitch is Ch. Shill Rest Larchwoods Xena.  Kate later bred Xena to fawn BIS, BISS. Ch. Lagarada Reach For The Stars.  Xena whelped just two fawn babies, a male and a female.  Both puppies finished their championships very quickly.  The female ‘Liza’, Ch. Shill Rest Red Hot, went on to be specialed owner-handled by Kate.  Together they garnered an all-breed Best in Show and made it into the Top 20.  Kate bred Xena again, next time to fawn top producer BISS Ch. Lagarada’s Aspen Gold.  This breeding produced three champions including the brindle dog ‘Rowdy’.  BISS Ch. Shill Rest Sure-Fire One N Only, AOM.  Rowdy had a successful specials career and won the GDCA Top 20 in Lancaster, PA in 2007.  We are very pleased that our dogs are behind such lovely winners and producers.

You breed fawns and brindles.  How do you feel about cross-color breeding?  And what are your views on health testing and the CHIC number program?

Personally, I am not in favor of cross-color breeding.  My lines are probably at least 10 generations or more color pure at this point.  Cross-color breeding takes a very knowledgeable person to be successful.  One must know the genetics behind the colors they are using and be very selective about what they keep and further breed.  Some of the lack of black masking on some fawns and brindles is due to indiscriminate breeding.  Black and blue has no masking gene.  Non-standard colors and un-expected colors may pop up even after several generations.  Genetics is a funny thing.  I think we need to take genetics seriously in order to preserve our breed standard.  Changing the rules or changing the breed standard to fit the dogs being bred today is not the answer.  I also think that when GDCA allowed get from cross-color breedings to be shown in the Futurity, we lost something very important.

As for health testing; I am a health care professional in the human world and I know what testing can and cannot do.  While I do think good health is important and testing can be beneficial, one must realize the limitations of the results.  OFA can be a good thing but then with discriminate breeding this should be non-issue.  I don’t believe OFA can be considered standard.  The results of an OFA reading is at the opinion and discretion of the reader(s).  In the real world, if you don’t like the result of the first reading you can get a second opinion.  However, with OFA you must accept the results of the one x-ray and reading.  Testing eyes is easy and non-invasive.  But for how long are the test results accurate?  This also goes for heart testing.  Basically, the test result is for the day the test is done.  The tests are very costly and unless they are done yearly they tell you little other than what is the result on the day.  The CHIC number is basically useless.  All it means is that a dog took all the tests.  It doesn’t mean that the dog was free of disease or carrying for a health problem.  In my opinion, unless science comes up with DNA markers which can guarantee that a dog cannot develop or produce any of these health issues, then we are just experimenting and wasting money with health testing.  We would be better off giving our money in the form of a grant for canine DNA research and the development of DNA markers for breeders use.

How do you see the current quality of the Great Danes being bred and shown today?

I feel the breed as a whole has become weak.  I am seeing poor examples of conformation out there being shown and bred.  Very straight shoulders and incorrect shoulder placement are common.  I see lack of angulation and incorrect tail-sets and steep croups.  All of this affects the movement of a dog.  Danes no longer have the reaching, driving movement of a working dog.  Many Danes are falling over their own feet or running around like huge terriers.  Many have over-done heads which are out of proportion with the dog.  I think as a whole we breeders should be striving for better conformation.  We need to get away from ‘sensational’ breeding.  We need to really look at our own dogs and not be kennel blind.  We should look at what we have and what needs improvement and strive to find the correct match to make that happen.  The ‘stud’ cannot ‘fix’ it all and neither can the bitch.  It needs to be the correct combination of two with knowledge of dominate and recessive and what is in the pedigree.  I think breeders would be surprised to learn what is dominate and that it is not always what is desired!  A very good friend and mentor over the years always said a stud needs three qualities; He must be a very good example of the Standard.  He must produce what his pedigree says he should.  And he must produce what he is.  This is what I look for when I do a breeding.  Champion in front of his name is not a prerequisite.  Champion does not change his genetic make-up.

What do you like to see when you look at a Great Dane?

I like a Dane which holds him or herself up with self confidence.  He or she must be conformationally correct.  As close to the breed standard as possible.  The dog must move correctly.  Balance is what catches my eye and is basically what I strive to breed.  Personality is a must.  Danes must be true ‘gentle giants’.

What bloodline other than your own has produced the ‘style’ you prefer?

Our favorite bloodline was Mountdania, Anna Mary Kauffman.  We like that look and most of my dogs go back to Mountdania lines.  Of course living near Lancaster, PA where the Mountdania kennel was, we have spent much time talking to Anna Mary.  She has always been very pleasant and willing to help with our questions and idea.  Our first show bitch Lily was mostly Mountdania and was a Mountdania Maestro grand-daughter.

Do you or Dave have any aspirations to judge Great Danes?

I would like to be a judge in the future but as of now my schedule does not allow it.  Dave would rather sit ringside and watch.

What would be your advice to someone new to Great Danes?

I would encourage a new owner to read everything possible about Great Danes and seek out other Dane owners for help and advice.  Helping guide a new Dane owner to a good vet who is familiar with giant breeds is important.  I would encourage them to visit some match and point shows and if their dog was quality and the people might like to show I would try to explain the ups and downs of exhibiting.  If they were interested in becoming breeders I would encourage them to find a good mentor.  I would tell them to seriously give breeding a lot of thought before they jumped into it.  I would explain all the possible scenarios that could occur when breeding a litter.  As another of my mentors always said, Great Danes are like hot house plants.  They are very fragile.  Breeding can be a wonderful experience or a very big heart-break.  One needs to be prepared for this.

You are an extremely talented artist.  Could you tell us about your work?

I wanted to be an artist but my father said I would be a starving artist!  So I went to college to become a pharmacist and just dabbled in my artwork when I could.  Now I love doing pet portraits.  I also design artwork which I convert to stitches for my embroidery business, Thread Heads, which I run from my shop at home.  Thread Heads has really taken off specializing in Great Dane stitchery.  I’ll take the chance to plug our web site here:

http://www.danesoflarchwood.com/threadheads.html

Thank you very much, Karen.  Readers, please visit the Danes of Larchwood web site at:

http://www.danesoflarchwood.com/

 (For pictures of Larchwood danes, please see slideshow below)