A LOVING TRIBUTE TO...


"Amazing Gracie 1996 - Valentine's Day 2008 "

I found Gracie in fall of 1999. She was attached to a dog house that was made for a small dog -- no more than twenty pounds, I'd say. I suspect that the dog house was bought for her when she was just a pup and then she grew. When I found Gracie, she could fit only her head and two front feet into the doghouse and that is what she was doing that day. I always loved Danes and always wanted to have a Dane. But that's not what drew me to walk over to the fence and look. All I could see from the road was her skinny frail body. But as I approached the fence out popped Gracie's head from the dog house. She was radically underweight, she was covered in cigarette burns, and the edges of her ears were bitten raw by bugs and they were bleeding. But she stood up and looked at me and I headed straight for the front door.

I knocked and a small timid woman with three young children hanging on her clothes answered. I told her that I had come for the dog and she replied that they were "meaning to get rid of her" and without a seconds thought she went to the back door to collect Gracie.

They brought her in and handed me the dog attached to a filthy red leash and offered me a few parting words of advice. I don't remember much of what they said that day. But I do remember this: they told me that I should never ever let Gracie inside the house. When I asked why, they said it was because she had a tendency of going through the trash. I insincerely said "OK" and that was the last I ever saw of those people.

I walked Gracie to the vet immediately. As I was walking her, passers by would glare at me the way anyone would at the sight of someone walking a dog that was half dead. From time to time Gracie jumped up into the air to catch a bug -- sometimes as much as five feet -- and it was at that point that I realized that that is how she had stayed alive so long. I handed Gracie over to the vet and I told him that I would return once he had a handle on her condition.

A few days later, I brought her home and gave her a bath. She lived near the train tracks, so it took me six baths to get the coal dust out from her coat. So much black washed away from her body that I began to wonder whether she really was a black Great Dane. Then off we went to the airport to meet Zac. Of course, she was terrified of him as she was of all men for a long time -- especially men who smoked. But eventually she gained weight, had a nice bed to sleep in, good regular meals and warmed up to Zac.

Gracie went everywhere with us. She lived in West Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, and Missouri. When she was happy, she would get a glimmer in her eye and tear around doing what Zac and I called the "Great Dane zooms." She would hop hop when she wanted food. She knew how to snort like a pig. We even taught her to growl on command because we thought it would give her confidence. But when she growled she always would back away from us as if to say "OK -- I will do the trick; but I am not really growling." She loved to soak up the sun and she loved to go to school with us. If you need Gracie to mind, you could say "Gracie, school" and she would head straight for the truck.

We have rescued other Danes since Gracie. But Gracie was our first. She was exactly what you want in a Dane -- she was noble and gentle and kind; she was opinionated and strong willed, loving and beautiful.

The picture below of Gracie just a few months ago. She will be greatly missed.