It was in 1997, in Aug., the day after I had to have my brindle dane, Simba, put down. He was 10 years, two months,
two weeks, and two days old and I had had him since he was nine and a half weeks. We missed him a lot and my wife, Marianne,
said that it was too lonely without a dane and that she would try to find another one. While I was at work that day she got
on the internet and found Anita Dunne listed as a breeder and called her on the phone and asked her if she knew of anyone
that had a dane available. She said that the only one she knew of was a black male that was 13 months old. My wife got the
information on how to contact this person and called and talked to her and said that we would come down after I got out of
work. We started out and I wasn't very sure at all about this. I had not even thought about a black dane and certainly not
a 13 month old one at that. About half way to Fenton, which was about 50 Km from Saginaw, it started to rain very hard. I
could hardly see on the highway and wanted to turn around but Marianne said that we were going to see this dog and that was
all there was to it. By the time we got to Fenton and arrived at the address where the dog was it had stopped raining and
we saw this LARGE black dane head looking out of the window at us. That was how we met Melanie and Raven. I found that Raven
had been returned to Melanie and after I walked Raven around and looked him in the eye I said to myself that this was a really
good dog. We took him home that day and I was certainly right about Raven. Now bear in mind that although I had had a dane
since 1979, I knew almost nothing about the breed. It never occured to me to look on the internet about danes and I had
never seen another dane all the time that I had my first dane, a merle male that had been given to me. When we went to see
Melanie to get Raven's papers she said "I think we could have fun if you would show him". She said that she would
handle him for nothing and all I would have to do was pay the entry fee for each show and bring him to the ring. Well, that
was the only time that Melanie lied to me. I found out there was a lot more to do and to know and soon I was reading about
danes and taking him to classes on showing and by spring he was in his first show. It turned out that Raven did not do well
in the show ring. He has a few conformation faults that kept him out of the points but I call him "The Peoples Choice"
since he draws a crowd wherever he goes, even at dog shows, and he loves to meet new people. Anyway, as time went on I found
I was learning more and more from Melanie about danes, shows, and showing, and dog people. I started reading Great Dane lists
on the internet including, the Great Dane Mail List, Danes On Line, MyMentors, Great Dane Breeders and Exhibitors and learned
even more. I now have learned enough to know how little I know. In March '99 I got Geisha and she has turned out to be just
terrific in shows and finished her championship June 2000. Melanie kept saying last summer (1999) "Don't get used to
winning every time." But it seemed that she was winning in every show. Melanie said "This just doesn't happen".
Anyway we had a lot of fun, I even handled Raven in a few shows, and I have learned to greatly respect Melanie's knowledge,
and all that goes into breeding quality dogs.
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