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The Great Dane she called a Jack Russell
Robert Markham didn't want a big dog in the house. His wife, Sue, came home with a puppy and told him he would grow up to be a tiny Jack Russell terrier. more
It was a joke. Sue worked at the kennels next door, which is how she came to have him, and she worked to pay for him. His name is Yogi. A terrier, the kind that stays under 20 pounds, would have suited Robert just fine.
The joke wore off fast. By five months old, Yogi was already bigger than a grown terrier. "He started growing and growing," Sue says, "and the joke was gone then."
Nine years on, he's a Boston Great Dane, 36 inches at the shoulder and 6 feet 1 inch from nose to tail. He weighs about 15 stone, or around 210 pounds, which is big even for his breed, since the average Great Dane weighs about 135. "We didn't imagine he would be this big," Sue says. Friends and family call him Bear, and you can see why.
SaveHe's so much larger than most Danes that he keeps warm in the colder months under a horse's blanket. Some mornings he gets scrambled eggs for breakfast, and he likes yogurt and ginger biscuits.
As for Robert and his rule about big dogs, it did not last. He couldn't say no to that huge face. The man who wanted a small dog now lives with one the size of a small pony.
SaveYogi loves attention, most of all people stroking him wherever they go. Sue thinks that is why he's so eager to get into the car. "He just wants to get everywhere to see everybody," she says. One little boy asked her how to make a dog grow that big, because he wanted his own dog to be that big too.
The Markhams are not his only fans. Toffee, a cat from the neighborhood, comes by their place for one reason, and it is not the people. Toffee is there to hang out with Yogi.
