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| Name: |
Echo
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Age: |
One year old
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| Gender: |
Female |
Breed: |
Great Dane
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| Home: |
Niagara Falls, New York, USA |
In
March of 2014 I fell in love with a scrawny white Great Dane puppy through
a few pictures that were shared in a group chat. The nameless pink-nosed girl
had been saved from being put down by a friend of mine, her previous owner
didn't want her anymore because she was "too much to deal with".
You see, Echo (that's what we named her) is the product of a backyard breeder
in Tulsa, Oklahoma who didn't know or didn't care what happens when you breed two
merle Great Danes together. I won't go into all kinds of health and genetic
details but long story short, they ended up with a bunch of white puppies in
the litter. We know for sure that at least two of them are deaf. And both were saved.
Echo was carried into my girlfriend's house and and her tail was wagging
before she had even set foot onto the floor. And it hasn't stopped ever
since. She has to be the happiest dog I have ever met. The people that
initially took her home as a "gift" from her breeder really don't know what
they are missing out on. If they somehow come past this, I want to say thank you
for bringing her into our life. She may have been tiny and skinny but her
big, loving heart showed immediately.
Seeing every bone in that little body of hers made me feel sick and angry. I
wanted to pick her up and hold her, but was afraid to hurt her. Yet she
wasn't scared at all. She took a look around her new environment, walked up
to me and gave me lots of puppy kisses. Then she went on to greet our two
other Great Danes and it seemed as if they've known each other already.
That's when I knew she belonged to us.
Echo has learned a handful of ASL signs and is trained to walk off leash
(much better than on leash!) with a vibrating collar. She's an absolute love
bug and is always happy to meet a new person or dog. I have never not seen
her wag her tail when someone approaches us. When we go to the dog park, she
will greet every new dog that enters through the front gate. I have started
training with her to become a therapy dog since people, especially children,
seem drawn to her. And when they learn that she's deaf and a rescue they seem
to like her even more...
We didn't really teach her any tricks but she knows to ring the cowbell on
the handle of our back door when she wants to go outside. We also just
started teaching her to ring the bell on our bedroom door handle if she has
to go out at night.
I have never had a heart dog before but I can say that it is Echo. She
follows me around wherever I go and I call her my "white shadow". She really
tugs on my heart strings.
See more images of Echo!
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