NEW GLOUCESTER — It can be difficult to find a home for the average abused, abandoned or neglected pooch.

For dogs that grow to the size of small ponies, sometimes suffer from serious health issues and can have out-of-control behavioral problems? It takes Above and Beyond Great Dane Rescue.

“We try to focus on the sickest ones,” group President Stephanie Cattabriga said. “The ones nobody else wants.”

Like 3-year-old Lady, who has a condition that causes debilitating calcium formations around her joints, and 5-year-old Hannah, who arrived overweight, hurting from arthritis and so afraid of humans and other animals that she cowered and barked when they got near her.

Above and Beyond takes in 10 to 12 Great Danes a year, rehabilitating, training and finding new homes for one of the largest dog breeds in the world. The dogs come from throughout the Northeast, often from owners who can’t afford their dog’s medical needs, can’t handle the behavioral problems or can’t deal with the care and feeding of an animal that can weigh anywhere between 100 and 200 pounds.

Cattabriga helped found the group in 2007 after Maine’s only other Great Dane rescue dissolved. That group had been around for more than a dozen years, and its operation largely fell to one woman.

Based in Lewiston, the nonprofit Above and Beyond has about 10 volunteers, including those who serve as foster homes. Cattabriga herself is fostering Hannah, a puppy-mill dog whose skittishness led her to try to bite a baby in her former home. Hannah was also treated harshly by past owners, which is a problem for sensitive dogs like Great Danes.

“For big dogs, they’re just babies,” said Carol Grover, who serves as Above and Beyond’s vice president and has fostered Great Danes for the group. She and her husband adopted Lady last year.

Above and Beyond put Hannah on medication for the arthritis and gave her a holistic diet. Cattabriga took Hannah to Vermont for a three-hour evaluation by a veterinary behaviorist, and she and her husband have worked with Hannah on her behavior for the past three months.

It’s the kind of treatment the rescue provides to all its dogs. Some, like Lady, also need surgery, acupuncture, chiropractic care and various therapies to overcome physical problems. The rescue pays for that, too, until the dog is adopted. Above and Beyond spends an average $1,000 per dog for medical care alone, all from donations.

For the dogs such attention pays off. Recently Hannah allowed her nails to be clipped, something she used to fight so vehemently that her former owners took her to the vet for the procedure, muzzled. And she spent an hour around a small group of strangers and another Great Dane without barking or trying to hide. It’s improving behavior that will help her land an adoptive home at some point, though she’ll still need to go to a family with no children and no other dogs.

“It’ll be a difficult home to find,” Cattabriga said. “She’ll be in rescue a long time.”

Unlike an animal shelter, Above and Beyond has no building of its own and no kennels. The rescue cares for five or six Great Danes at a time in foster homes. It looks for the same thing in potential adoptive homes that it does in its foster homes: experience, kindness and the ability to take on a very large but very sensitive and loyal animal.

Above and Beyond volunteers say Great Danes are unusual for more than just their size.

“There’s just a different bond,” said Grover as Lady leaned into her. “It’s special.”

Have an idea for a pet feature? Contact Lindsay Tice at 689-2854 or email her at [email protected]