I've had one all my life... When I was born, there was one already in the house when I got home from the hospital... We have had 7 generations of Dalmatians and a total of 9 so far... She helped raise me and was like my second mother... She taught me the ways of the Dalmatian...
My grandparents started the Dalmatian streak back in 1948 and they have been in our family since... Until I had to put the last one down Feb 2020 and can't get one now unless I can get my breathing doing better so I can train it to stay in the yard by itself without a leash... I don't feel right not having a Dalmatian... They keep me grounded...
They are very smart and keep you on your toes... You have to keep them busy or they will get into mischief when they get bored... They are also clowns and do goofy things that will make you laugh... Fun loving dogs that like to have fun, run, and will die to protect their families... They are just as good of a watchdog as a German Shephard or Doberman, but are half the weight so they don't take as much room in the bed... They learn your habits and try to manipulate you to maximize their food input as much as possible... They can be sneaky... And stubborn... But very loyal... They also need to be loved, if you give some love to a Dalmatian and you will get some in return...
They are great with kids when raised with them (there are rumors that they are not - but they aren't true)... If the Dalmatian is the only 'child' in the house and a new baby comes in, they may be jealous at first because of the lost attention... But be patient and give it some attention, and when the baby starts to eat solid food and throw it to the Dalmatian from it's high chair, the Dalmatian will re-evaluate the situation seeing another source of food and think, "I can hang out with this baby for a while/this baby isn't such a bad thing"...
They got the job of coach dog in the horse and buggy days because they needed a dog that could chase the rodents off the trail to keep them from spooking the horsed and making the horses run out of control with the stage... They had to be short enough to run under and around the horses, and keep up with them for 30 miles in a stretch without resting... That's why they are very high energy and you need to let them run to get rid of that energy or they will bounce off the walls in your house... Dalmatian rescue requires a fenced in yard for anybody to adopt one... They love to run and are great for people that like to run for exercise, they will run along right next to you if you like to go for daily runs/jog...
When the coach got to town the Dalmatian was trained to sit at the back wheel and guard the coach so nobody would steal it... That's why they make good watch dogs as they were bred for it since the 1800's...
I've heard that they can run 40 MPH and believe it because one of ours kept up with us on snowmobiles in 6" of snow doing 34 MPH (and he may not have been at full speed, just keeping up with us as that's how fast we were going and he was following)... And factor in no snow and he could have reached 40 MPH on clear ground in the summer... I love watching them run in an open field and 'kick in the afterburners' when they go to a full all out run....
They also liked to ride on firetrucks with the fireman back in the early days and were trained to get equipment off the truck for the firefighters... They liked to live in the fire stations with the firemen... That's how they became known as 'fire dogs'...
They don't even know the true origins of the Dalmatian as there are pictures of them in hieroglyphics in Egypt...
With their intelligence they can be trained to do anything...
I have many stories about how intelligent the Dalmatians we have had are... They can understand everything you say when you talk to them, they can think and reason, and solve problems... They are much smarter than some people think, sometimes smarter than some people...
Here's some videos of them:
This one is of my last Dalmatian that I taught to eat corn off the cobb... I would leave him a 3 - 4 rows lengthwise and he would pull it off the cobb... He was 9 years old when he learned to do this...
Here's the one I had before him singing to opera and smiling when we made him feel guilty...