Being one of the world’s biggest dog breeds, Great Danes are truly mesmerizing and quite unique animals. One of the biggest factors that makes them stand out so much is their elegant appearance, as there are 10 officially recognized coat hues and/or patterns: black, black and white, blue, brindle, fawn, harlequin, mantle, merle, white, and silver. 

And yet, despite their humongous size, these Gentle Giants are exactly as their nickname suggests—gentle. One of their best-known traits is their ignorance of their size; they almost always neglect the fact that they’re too big to be lap dogs.

There are plenty of other ways in which these adorable dogs seem to reject the idea that they’re supposed to be elegant and intimidating. For example, Zeus who, back in 2022, received the Guinness World Record for being the world’s tallest living dog at just over 41 inches, was afraid of rain, which says a lot about his character. 

Incidentally, the tallest dog ever recorded in human history is another Great Dane with the same name. Receiving his record way back in 2008, 155-pound Zeus measured 44 inches, reaching a whopping 7 feet 4 inches when standing on his hind legs. For reference, this would’ve made him as tall as Serbian basketball player Boban Marjanović, who can almost dunk without jumping.

However, aside from their impressive size, Great Danes have plenty of other interesting facts. Descending from the Molossian dogs of Ancient Greece, they’re actually neither Greek nor Danish, despite what their name or origins might suggest. Instead, they come from Germany, and are even its national dog breed. 

Or perhaps you’d like to know that Chinese writings dating as far back as 1121 B.C., as well as ancient Egyptian drawings, depicted dogs exactly like the Gentle Giants? And if you found that interesting, you might also like to know that in the Middle Ages, these mesmerizing dogs were thought to protect people from nightmares and ward off ghosts and evil spirits.

This last bit is actually part of the reason why Scooby-Doo himself is a Great Dane. Of course, arguably the more important part of the character’s creation was the fact that his creator, Iwao Takamoto, was inspired by a dog of the same breed and name—minus the ‘Doo’—that he owned at the time. 

Ultimately, if there ever were dogs that you could call the embodiment of the saying “Don’t judge the book by its cover,” it’s Great Danes. And that’s exactly what’s so great about them because it shows us that no detail beyond our control can ever define who we truly are. In the end, it’s all in our hands, and everything is up to us.

But hey, who knows? No one can say for sure that there aren’t any super serious and fearless Not-So-Gentle Giants out there, fighting nightmares and ghosts, protecting the world from evil spirits. After all, most myths and legends carry at least a grain of truth. 

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