They’re large, lumbering, loveable goofballs. You can’t help but smile when you see a Great Dane. Those faces. Those impossible frames.
On Oct. 5, you’ll get a chance to meet, and maybe adopt , one of these big-headed sweethearts.
For me, this story conjures up images of my mom walking her beloved Dane “Duke” up and down the street decades ago. Losing “Duke” crushed her, and now as her end-time creeps it’s her dogs whose memories she tries to hold onto. She and her husband recently lost their mutt Beemer. My Mom tells me every visit that she misses Beemer but cries she because she can’t remember his name. Duke’s name is gone from her memory for sure, though she recognizes it when she hears it. But I know the visions of him, the love of him, is still in her lost mind somewhere.
Dogs do that to us. They make us happy. They make us, inevitably, sad at the end . But the joy and love fostered survives always.
So bravo to the good folks over at the Northwest Florida Great Dane Rescue for their efforts to find homes for some of these gentle giants looking for homes here on the Gulf Coast. The Rescue group will hold its 8th annual Danetoberfest from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Seville Square in downtown Pensacola.