Owning a Great Dane requires speed, agility and balance...

They certainly don't mention this in the Great Dane Ownership Manual - but it is very true!! I can't tell you how many times my years of yoga have saved me from disaster where Zeus is concerned. Dogs are quick and they can be sneaky... I can see it in Zeus' eyes when he's scoping something out, thinking about eating an abandoned morsel of food on the counter. He'll look at the food, he'll look at me, he'll look back at the food... waiting for me to turn my back. Remember - he's 38" tall at the chin and my counter tops are only 36 " tall... so he can see everything on the counter and he's certainly able to reach it, too!!
The problem isn't just that his head is above the tops of the counter tops, but also since he can't hear me, I can't just say "Zeus... I SEE you. No, no... no!!" and have him look at me and then walk away. So this is what happens: he looks at the food, looks at me, looks at the food and if I'm not able to walk over to him quick enough to touch him and distract him, he'll snatch the food. However, I can't even remember how many times I've been able to intercept his attempt while I'm washing dishes, my hands or preparing food at the sink. I glance back at him, see that he's eyeballing something and with a quick raise of my leg and a swift tap or push with my foot, I'm able to save the morsel. It's kind of like a TaeKwondo move. There have been times when I'm eating lunch or something quick in between clients and I'm also switching over loads of laundry while Zeus is asleep in the living room. I assume that he's going to stay asleep, I put my lunch on the counter and run down into the basement... and next thing I notice are his big feet shuffling around upstairs -thank goodness for hard floors. I quickly drop what I'm doing, run up the basement stairs (usually skipping every other step) and pounce into the kitchen just in time to grab my lunch before he does!
On several other occasions, my agility has come into play while defending my cats. I have one cat who's kinda slow, mentally, and another who is paranoid and skittish. The slow one, Mittzy, lays down anywhere and everywhere and big 'ole Zeus comes trotting through like a bull in a china shop paying no attention to who or what is in his path. He's stepped on Mittzy I don't know HOW many times! And the skittish cat? That's Smokey... he's so nervous around Zeus that sometimes watching him try to escape Zeus' giant legs and paws I feel like I'm watching a squirrel that sees the car coming but keeps going back and forth not really sure which is the safest direction to run to... My job as the 'Keeper of all Peace' is to save the felines from pain and mental torture. So what do I do? I pick whichever one is about to be obliterated, hold it in my arms like a football and throw a stiff arm at Zeus to keep him at a distance. See, when he was a puppy he would torture the cats, chasing them around the house everywhere. We would pick up whichever one was being tortured and run with it in our arms and take it to a safe spot - which was usually just the other side of the gate we used to keep Zeus from going upstairs. This daily ritual became a game to Zeus and he would try to nip at the cats while they were in our arms during their rescue. Still to this day, there are some times he wants to play a quick game of Cat & Mouse and when he sees me pick up the cat he'll come at it in my arms. I've been known to react with a quick karate kick at him to fend him off. One time my motion was so quick I even hurt my hip! OWWEEE!!