About Us: Heartland Great Dane Rescue, Inc.

About HGDR, Founding HGDR and Our Founders

Serving Oklahoma Danes in need since 2001.

Heartland Great Dane Rescue Inc. (HGDR) is an all volunteer Oklahoma Non-profit Corporation. HGDR volunteers stretch across the state to save abandoned, abused, and neglected Great Danes with the goal of creating good matches for stable adoptive homes, providing suitable vet care, training, and educational awareness of the needs and responsibilities of Great Dane ownership.

HGDR partners with....Petfinder, Pets Incredible, Animal Planet, 1-800-Save-A-Pet, Dogz.org, and pupforum.com to promote the adoption of Rescued Great Danes. And support the spay and neuter of pets for the purposes of better animal health and population control, animal identification programs, the no kill shelter movement, basic obedience pet training, and support like-minded breed specific rescues, all breed rescues, and animal shelters in the state of Oklahoma.

Most Great Danes entering the HGDR program are taken from animal shelters as unclaimed strays. The last stop before euthanasia in many cases is a rescue group. Some are animal control seizures for abuse or neglect. Some are simply owner surrendered for various reasons where the Great Dane no longer fits the lifestyle of the family. ALL Great Danes accepted into the HGDR program are temperament tested, given a thorough vet exam, tested for parasites, including Heartworms, provided Spay/Neuter Surgery, and Vaccinated.

Vaccinations HGDR uses... Rabies, Parvovirus, Distemper, Adenovirus, Hepatitis, Parainfluenza, Coronavirus, Bordatella. Many need additional care including but not limited to treatments for... Extensive Internal Parasites, Mange, Ehrlichia, Heartworms, Canine Flu, Parvo, Thyroid disorders, Amputation of tail or limb, Orthopedic Surgery, Extensive Wounds, Malnourishment, Eye Surgery, and this is just to name a few.

Foster families open their hearts and houses to nurse, love, and prepare each Great Dane for its new life! Here they become members of the family mingling with other dogs, cats, kids, etc. Learning house manners as well as being further evaluated for temperament, and personality as well as physical needs. This helps HGDR make better matches to the lifestyles of the Adoptive Family. Some Danes stay in foster care more than a year usually because of physical or emotional rehab issues. Others stay just a few weeks before they are ready for a new permanent family relationship.

It is no secret that Foster Families do most of the hands on work with each Dane. They oversee feeding, at home medical care, emotional care, basic training, including crate training, potty training, basic house manners, basic obedience training, observe, and report to HGDR on each Dane monthly.

In short, they heal emotionally and physically shattered Great Danes by taking them into their homes and loving them one baby step at a time. Many Heartfelt Thanks to our wonderful foster homes!

Think you have the stuff to Foster a Great Dane?

Still other volunteers oversee adoptions, public education (trying to keep Great Danes out of danger and out of rescue if possible) fundraising events, monitor animal shelter activity, field emails, phone calls, and network with others on improving rescue, training, and vet care methods.

Want to help?

Want to Adopt?

Founding Heartland Great Dane Rescue.

HGDR came into being almost by accident. In 1999 Ron and Jan Cates decided to have a Great Dane. They let their vet clinic know and received a call in March of 2000 about a Dane in the care of the Guthrie Animal Shelter. Soon they met a beautiful merle girl who would soon become the inspiration for all that would follow.

A victim of abuse and neglect "Babe" as she would be called, was very skinny and had multiple wounds both emotional and physical. Surprised by her size, Ron, Jan and Family wondered what they had got into! She quickly became their Babe-girl and the love of their lives. Falling head over "heals" for Great Danes happens just that quick!

Within a month of bringing Babe into their lives and finding out as much as they could learn about Danes and their wonderful special personalities, they began doing a little independent rescue work.

The dane rescue at that time in Oklahoma was small and struggling. Ron and Jan were told it would be closing soon. The idea of just rescuing Great Danes on the side a few at a time quickly changed when the rescue did indeed close and calls began coming in from all over the state from agencies and private citizens with Dane in need. Eventually Ron and Jan had a decision to make. There were more Danes in need than they could possibly help alone. So they gave organizing a new Great Dane Rescue for the state of Oklahoma a try. In 2001, with the help of talented friends and dane lovers Heartland Great Dane Rescue, Inc. was born!

Founders: The Cates Family

Here’s a little about our family; we are quite the smorgasbord.

Ron, a mechanical engineer, is the Plant Operations Supervisor for Norman Regional Hospital. He has been working in hospitals for a long time, but did have a brief stint in law enforcement…something his wife is grateful he left. He also teaches as Metro Tech in OKC so other folks can enjoy the same type of career he has spent his life doing. He works hard to provide for his rather large family. He tried to be tough on his wife, kids and critters, but has a VERY big soft side.

Jan is the matriarch of the family. She is a retired nurse and gymnastics coach who now spends her time trying to keep things going at home. She spends most of her free time home schooling the only child they have left in school, babysitting her newest grandbaby and taking her youngest daughter back and forth to gym practice, meets and events…this of course, when she isn’t busy working on rescue. Between the two of them, they have 5 children and 2 grandchildren. Before you think they’re nuts, know that their children are all wonderful!

Christa, their oldest is 27. She graduated high school a year early and immediately went to college to live in a dorm! One of the hardest thing to do is let that first child go out on their own, but Christa now has a degree in Theater Arts.

The next oldest is Derek at age 22. He is a great guy who works as a CNC Machinist. He just recently married a great local girl named Christy. They have moved of to Haskel just recently, also.

Derek recently donated 16 inches of hair to ‘Locks for Love’ which is a great organization helping out children who have various issues causing loss of their own hair. We’re wondering if he’s going to grow it out again! We were sure relieved when it was long enough to donate!

Matt is next, and is 20. It’s so hard for us to believe our children are getting so old! This is another wonderful guy who works in drilling. He also met and married a wonderful local girl, Ann. They gave us our first first grandbaby! (more about Lucas later) Matt works very hard to take care of his little family and again, we’re so lucky to have them still living close by!

Our 18 year old daughter, Meghan is next. She was a competitive gymnast & tumbler for several years competing at a National Level. Her last year of competition was 2005 when she became the National Synchro Trampoline Champion! She knows how to go out with a bang! She too has a local boyfriend and they gave us our second grandbaby, a girl this time! (more about Emily later). Our children are so cooperative! Meghan is a very special girl who overcame many obstacles early in life with an immune disorder and severe asthma. She has grown into a beautiful woman who we cherish.

Our youngest is Jackie. At 13, she continues to amaze us on a daily basis. She is the only child we have left in school and what a challenge! It’s hard to go from multiple children to only one, but we are beginning to adjust to the fact that our babies are all growing up too fast! Jackie is a competitive tumbler with many championships to her name. She continues to compete on a National level and will be competing in the 2007 Jr. Olympics this summer. She is very dedicated to the dogs and adores being an aunt!

Now for our grandbabies!

Lucas is 20 months old now…it’s hard to believe. He is walking and talking and growing so fast! Sometimes, he just isn’t sure what to think about such big dogs. We don’t get to see him nearly as much as we’d like, but he just gets sweeter and cuter every time he drops in!

Emily is almost 11 months old…about to have her first birthday. She pulls up and points at everything. She lives here with her mommy, Aunt Jackie and Grandma & Grandpa…needless to say, she’s spoiled completely rotten with all the ‘big’ people around to spoil her. She has adopted for herself one of our Danes and we’re pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

As you can see, we’re a pretty big family and pretty confusing all at the same time. We all work pretty hard to make sure our family works, everyone can get where they need to be and someone can be here all the time to be sure all the 4-legged babies are cared for. We’ve even been known to do Holidays in shifts to accommodate family and fur kids! We are owned by, Babe, Zuess, Meg, Recon and Blue.

-Jan Cates, 2007

Gallery in Progress, the frames are up but the pictures are not. Do not adjust your set. Can you believe Jan doesn't have enough free time to sort through mountains of pictures? Amazing! LOL!