@ellmack1 #greatdane #puppiesoftiktok
Meet Howard – a 5-month-old Great Dane who hasn’t quite gotten used to his fast-growing body.
“He’s all legs now,” Howard’s mum Alan MacKenzie told The Dodo. “He’s still trying to figure out how these work.”
Ellen Mackenzie
So far, Howard has gotten the hang of activities like swimming in Lake Superior and peacefully walking through dog-friendly shops with his mom.
Still, he’s still trying to sit gracefully in his car, whether parked or sporty.
Although Howard has full control of the back seat during the ride, the curious pup loves to explore other spaces in the car. If the car stopped and his seatbelt was not fastened, he would happily jump into the front seat.
Howard likes to stand on four legs and stick his head out of the open sunroof when the car is in motion.
“He’d stick his head out and you’d just see the ears and chops fluttering in the wind,” McKenzie said.
If the hatchback’s privacy screen is gone, Howard likes to lean back in the back seat and smell the contents of the trunk. When something smells particularly good, its long front legs roll over obstacles, while its rear legs hang over the back seat.
Whenever that happened, MacKenzie knew she only had seconds to get Howard to eat anything that would lure him back there.
That’s why, one day, after filling her suitcase with groceries, she looked back and saw a floating Great Dane leg in the back, and she frantically started calling Howard’s name.
“I didn’t want him in the bread bag,” McKenzie said. “I kept yelling, ‘Howard! Get out of there!’”
MacKenzie was able to get Howard’s attention, but the tall pup didn’t rock back into his seat after hearing his name as she had hoped. With his front legs still in the trunk, he simply turned his head and leaned against the edge of the headrest, creating the funniest optical illusion.
Once the car was parked, MacKenzie made a split-second decision to record the funny moment in a nine-second video and send it to her friends. They suggested she put it on TikTok, and when she did, it went viral.
MacKenzie caught the viral video at just the right time. Howard soon grew too big to wrap himself in the middle headrest like that.
“Now when he does, he can’t turn around,” McKenzie said. “His rear end got stuck between the middle and side headrests. I had to come to a full stop to get him out of the way.”
Howard is getting taller by the day, which means he can’t do trunk surfing for long. But the growing Great Dane that reminds MacKenzie of Scooby-doo still has a cheeky car habit that he enjoys.
“I found a Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine car sticker and it’s on the back of my car now, while Howard’s ears and ribs are enjoying life outside the window,” McKenzie said. “He’s definitely a character.”
