Category Archives: ANIMALS

GEORGE – THE GREAT DANE

As told by Dave Nasser – his owner………

The first time we saw George, our beloved Great Dane, he was no more than a tiny, cowering  ball of fuzzy fur. He tentatively  pushed his little nose forward  and gave Christie her first lick

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Puppy love: A young George with  Dave’s wife Christie.

Even as a pup he had  comically large paws.  

He came  into our lives in January 2006

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Magnificent: George measures more than  7 ft from nose to tail and weighs  18 stone and is the world’s biggest dog, but he’s  terrified of Chihuahuas… 

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Paws for thought: George’s giant feet  dwarf Dave’s hand

In the summer of  2006, we had to buy him his  own queen-sized mattress. A male Great Dane typically weighs from 9 to 11 stone,  but by Christmas 2007 George  weighed 15 stone — bigger than most men.

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With size comes problems: George the  giant barely fits in the back Of his owner’s SUV 

George loves dolls, especially a stuffed green one that plays a nursery rhyme when squeezed. Whenever he can, he places it between his paws and presses it so he can hear the tune. It is like a security blanket.

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A doggone miracle: George the Great  Dane with the Nasser’s daughter Annabel at home in Arizona

Christie applied to the Guinness World Records people on George’s behalf. That February, one of their adjudicators came to watch George being measured in the  presence of a vet. He was officially declared not  just the world’s tallest living dog (43  inches from paw to shoulder) but the tallest dog ever. 

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Man’s biggest friend: Devoted owner Dave Nasser with George.

George weighs 252 pounds!!! 

 

DESERT LION ATTACK

After our recent blog post showing tourists getting too close to a desert lion in Namibia, our attention was drawn to similar incident that took place about 8 years ago. We thought we would share the pictures of that incident with you.

This sequence of photos were sent to the Predator Conservation Trust in 2006 and shared on Safaritalk. They show a tourist vehicle being attacked by one of the desert lions in Namibia in September 2006. George Marquart managed to get the pictures as the vehicle was reversing away from the scene. The incident took place near the Skeleton Coast Park and according to the guide driving at that time it was the first one to be spotted in the area since 1972. Normally the closest sightings are 40kms to the south.

Dr Flip Stander of the Desert Lion Project said that he arrived at the scene two days after the event, and spent almost four months there, following the lion and reconstructing the incident. It is believed that in this case the lion had been harassed by tourist vehicles and had finally lost his patience however in July of 2007 Flip Stander’s Desert Lion Project research vehicle was also attacked in a totally unprovoked incident.  Although the lion never recovered from the incident and was eventually shot, the good thing is that the incident led to their current tour-guide training programme.

In an interview with Safaritalk Dr Flip Stander said that the long-term goal is to have the desert lions range from the Orange River, in the south, to the Kunene River, in the north. Despite these incidents, he encouraged tourism to the area saying that tourism will have a big and (hopefully) positive impact. Much of his work focusses on ensuring that the local communities derive benefits from lions through tourism that out-weigh the costs of living alongside them. However he went on further to say that the tourism development is not without its problems such as the harassment of wildlife by tourist vehicles. In response to this problem, Dr Flip Stander developed a training course for tour-guides on approaching and viewing lions.

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