Harmons Catawba Chief
a.k.a. Tiny

Tiny's Baby Face

How could you simply not love this adorable baby face? This is how my baby looked at 8 weeks old when we brought him home. He had such an angelic look, I should have known that this boy was gonna be trouble! I hope you enjoy the numerous photos I have here of my boy. Please click on any of the smaller photos to see them full-sized.

Family Portrait

The trouble wasn't in falling in love with Tiny. The trouble was not falling in love with the whole litter! There were nine of them. Nine adorable, black, Great Dane puppies. Cheryl Harmon, Tiny's breeder, certainly had her hands full! She did a wonderful job, though! Cheryl is a responsible, ethical breeder that insists on health tests on any dog she uses in her breeding program. Her puppies are raised in her home (I can't imagine NINE Great Dane sized puppies underfoot!), and get lots of love and socialization.

The Incredible Shrinking Chair

This picture is probably my most favorite of all the photos I have of Tiny. When he was a puppy, he loved this chair. He claimed it as his own early on when he chewed up the legs (bad Mommy for not watching him closer). Anytime we were looking for Ty, we checked his chair first. Well, obviously, he grew and the chair did not. He would get this terribly accusing look on his face, as if blaming me for shrinking the chair he thought he should still fit into. No matter that he was allowed on the furniture and could have moved to the couch or bed. Nope, he only wanted his chair. Silly dog.

The Oil Incident

Tiny was famous for getting himself into trouble. When he was only six months old, we experienced what will forever be known as the "oil incident". Whenever I left the house to run errands, Tiny was gated in the kitchen. One time after I had been out for a few hours, I took one step into the kitchen and my legs went out from under me and I went "splat"! Now, I've fallen a few times in my kitchen, but I've never went "splat". I looked up quickly to see the reason for this and the site was one that I'll never forget. Sometime, in the few hours that I was away, Tiny had pulled a "Fry Daddy" off a shelf almost 5 feet tall. For those of you that don't know, a Fry Daddy is a home, deep-fryer for veggies. Not only did Tiny manage to spread about a half-gallon of vegetable oil over every square inch of my kitchen floor, he also ingested quite a bit of it. Need I mention that vegetable oil, when consumed by a dog, makes an excellent laxative. Here I was, sprawled across my kitchen floor as the reality of what happened dawned on me. What a slimy, smelly, gross, disgusting mess! I looked up at my ahem... precious puppy. My normally shiny BLACK Dane puppy, was BROWN, as was my floor, his crate, and now, my pants as well. I managed to get myself up and over to the gated doorway, and bent over to unlatch the gate. Tiny, not wanting to be left behind, barrels up behind me (where he got the traction, I'll never know). Now, huge Dane puppy crashes into human already in precarious postion and both crash through the gate. Well, this was the moment he'd been waiting for all night. He apparently wasn't thrilled about being coated in smelly brown oil anymore more then I was, and took this opportunity to clean himself off... on my WHITE dining room carpet! Now, I'm a patient person, but I was rapidly losing my mind. I screamed, "BED"!!!! Where does he sleep? Where did he go? Yup, my bed. I put on some old clothes, threw my bed sheets out the window, wiped up some of the oil in the kitchen, ran some soapy water in the tub and turned towards the garage where one unhappy puppy waited. Heeeeeere Puppy, Puppy, Puppy.....

The Overdose

This is quite a long story, so I'll keep it brief. If you'd like to read the whole, roller-coaster experience, you can find it here.

In the fall of 2003, Ty got into a closed cabinet and helped himself to a bottle full of pills and a bag of cookies. The cookies he was allowed to have, the pills in the bottle nearly killed him. Being a nurse, I'm cautious about disposing of medication. At that time, I kept a large pill bottle in a closed cabinet, and as medication expired or dosages changed, I dumped the pills into this bottle. When it became full, I'd take it to the hospital to a paramedic friend of mine who disposed of them properly. At some point overnight, Ty took the pill bottle, chewed on it and ate most of it's contents. I found him unconscious in the morning. A week in intensive care and half a savings account later, I had my boy back. I take full responsiblity for what happened. We changed a number of things in our home to prevent anything like this from ever happening again, but I'll never forgive myself for the fact that he had to pay for my carelessness.

Saying Goodbye

After surviving Parvo as a pup, gastritis from the oil incident, and kidney damage from the overdose, we were beginning to think that Ty had nine lives. There was one thing that Tiny was unable to fight however. A condition that strikes fear in the hearts of most giant breed dog owners, bloat. Just after Thanksgiving last year, we had a run of lovely warm weather here in southeast Pa. Tiny loves to spend warm days in the backyard, soaking in the rays of the sun. He was out most of the day, but that's not unusual on nice days. By the time I went out to him, to offer him his dinner, he was well into the stages of bloat. I called my friend, we rushed him to our vet, but being that it was a Saturday evening, there was only one vet available and she couldn't do the emergency surgery alone. We x-rayed him to confirm the diagnosis, started IV's and headed to the emergency vet. It was there that they told us that his chances for survival were not good. I opted to say goodbye to my boy while I could hold him in my arms instead of putting him through a surgery that he probably would never recover from. He was only five years old. I know that giant breeds don't have long life spans, but I certainly thought we'd have more than five years.