Meet our Great Danes who love to travel

Martok

The current face of Have Dane will Travel

Eleven month old Martok entered our lives after we lost K’Ehleyr. Who is this new personality? I keep being reminded of David Tennant’s first episode of Doctor Who discussing with the leader of the Sycorax who he is and his response “I DON’T KNOWWW!” That is where we are with Martok, who is he, is he the type that will want to push the big shiny red button or will he go hide in a bathtub? So far the bathtub is not the answer. Tried get him in the bath, no-go, used the hose on the patio instead.

Other things we have learned:

not afraid of noises (good)
doesn’t bark at delivery trucks (yeah)
update – he barks at delivery trucks now
does bark when alone (boo)
update – now he mostly just cries instead of barking
was afraid of orange construction cones but got over that when it didn’t attack back
chases birds and all flying things, this may be bad for my (borrowed) drone, haven’t had the courage to test them out together yet. Google the story of tigers taking down their exercise drone as an example
talks back when he doesn’t get his way (i.e. belligerent youngster)
likes to find new toys (i.e. steal things) since he has played with every toy in the house and they are now all boring. This is where I have to insert another movie analogy. Remember the scene on Dagobah when Luke first meets Yoda. Yoda runs around taking, throwing and tasting everything, that is what I feel like when I’m trying to do anything besides play with the dog. “Don’t touch that, no, give that back, drop it, drop, let go, that’s not yours, stop….”. And yes I know, he doesn’t understand any of that.

Selar

Selar was our first Great Dane, a harlequin. We adopted her in 2001 when she was probably 4-ish. To be more correct she adopted us, while we met different Danes at the rescue she waited by the window wanting to see us again and she was the only Dane that was happy to see us a second time so we took her home. Her story was that her family moved across the country and couldn’t move her with them. I’ve never understood that and as it turns out she loved to travel. She was a kind and gentle soul who touched many people’s lives as she became our first traveling Dane.

The day after we adopted her she was introduced to hot air ballooning but she really enjoyed boating including floating down the Rogue River in Oregon in a 2-man inflatable boat towed behind our kayak.

Her name was chosen because of her ears, the previous owner cropped her ears so small that they looked like Vulcan ears so she was given a Vulcan name. Maybe she was from Vulcan because she hated cold temperatures.

Varel

Selar was getting older and we thought it best get another dog. A local Boxer rescue had taken in a Great Dane from a neighbor and posted her photo in the local paper adoption insert. We took Selar with us to meet her, they hit if off so she came home with us. Her name is Romulan because she had pointed ears and her color was gray like Romulan uniforms.

She was a merle Dane who was 1.5 years old. Her family had to put her up for adoption because they needed to move from rural San Diego to downtown and could only find a rental that took one dog so they kept her brother figuring it would be easier for her to find a home than for him, he had a condition which required minor but repeated treatment.

She was always happy and would try just about any activity we did. She logged 3 balloon flights, enjoyed kayaking, hiking and playground climbing walls and slides. She also had an extremely strong hunting instinct and almost took down a sheep once.

She also had cropped ears, most of the time they would flop but if she was interested in something 1 would go up and if she was REALLY interested in something both would go up and the more interested she was the closer the tips would get to each other.

K'Ehleyr

K’Ehleyr, at 9 months, was our youngest adoptee. She needed a new home because her first mom couldn’t keep her and we had recently lost Selar. Varel was not dealing well with being an only dog and we thought she needed a dog of her own so we took her in. K’Ehleyr had a unique color and character to match.

She didn’t like ballooning very much, had trouble sitting still in the truck and hogged the bed. She was clumsy and accident prone but she did like swimming and she loved digging and flirting with boy dogs. She quickly got the nicknames “Princess Oafish Bigboote” and “super model”. She loved traveling to balloon rallies where she was fawned over by her adoring fans.

A couple of months before her 10th birthday she developed osteosarcoma and lost her front left leg but that didn’t stop her from making trips to Arizona, New Mexico, Baja and Idaho. She even learned to dig as a tripawd.