January 2014 saw me achieve a superb accolade of becoming a UKAS Accredited Breeder

For this achievement, I was thoroughly inspected by the Kennel Club and received a '3'

with no recommendations for improvement so I am extremely pleased with this result!

The Kennel Club is the only organisation accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to certify dog breeders,

under the Kennel Club Assured Breeder Scheme. This means that the Kennel Club is recognised as an impartial and competent inspector

by the government’s sole national accreditation body. This gives the puppy buying public additional confidence that Kennel Club Assured Breeders are committed to meeting and maintaining

high standards for caring for the health and welfare of their puppies and breeding bitches, and are the best point of contact for buying a healthy, happy puppy.

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How it all began.........

My name is Joanne and I live in the beautiful Cheshire countryside with my partner & family and all the Ravendane Gang.

Before we meet the gang, I would like to tell you a bit about how I started on the road to breeding Champion Great Danes.
I grew up on my mothers Arabian Stud Farm so I wanted a big dog that was compatible with horses.

That's when I acquired my first Dane a blue dog in 1979 called 'Steel Blue Knight' (Spencer). He was a true Dane and hooked me on the breed forever!

He was not on his own for long as I was given a black bitch 'Gerandesta Fantasy' (Asti), who lived to be 15 and a half years old.

She in turn had 14 puppies, 7 black and 7 blue. I made so many friends through the puppies that I was encouraged to show a black bitch.

This set me off on the lifelong road to successfully showing and breeding Champion Great Danes.

This means that my dams are 2 years old or over before they are bred from, and both sire and dam are tested

to ensure they do not have dysplasia under the British Veterinary Association scheme and have relevant certificates to validate this.

It is sadly a known fact that hip dysplasia is present in some great danes. This is why I personally test for it,

to ensure we know that the parents are healthy before they are bred from - from this I know they will of course have healthy puppies.

Anybody breeding from untested parents has no idea if the parents being bred from have intact joints or are free from the above condition -

hence they cannot possibly know if this condition will be past on to the puppies that are produced.

At the Assured Breeder Schemes inception, it was essential for members to test ALL danes that were being used

as part of a breeding program to ensure they were healthy enough to be bred from.

Some years later, it was decided by the Kennel Club to relax elbow scoring and just keep hip scoring - we as a breeder still continued

to test as we feel it is essential information to ensure we were breeding healthy puppies from known healthy parents.

In 2012, it was decided by the Kennel Club to then further relax hip scoring in danes, making it a recommendation and not a requirement.

Despite this, I still continue to score ALL my adult dogs before they are used as part of our breeding program -

it is considered essential to do this in other parts of the world so personally I feel the UK should not be any different.

I am also an ongoing participant in the Liverpool University Dilated Cardiomyopathy Scheme to eradicate heart issues within the breed so some

of my adult dogs are also heart tested, I intend that in time they will all have been tested

The Past Danes page has photos of Danes from earlier days that are now retired from showing or sadly no longer with me.

My Puppies page has some photos of our previous & current puppies and also information on upcoming litters.

Finally, the 'Links' page has information about the organisations and clubs I belong to as well as links to other interesting websites.

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Ravendane specialise in Harlequins, Mantles, Blacks & Blues