Hello world.
Brought Zoe home on Sunday. I figured it was okay to miss church to get her home from the shelter a day early. She is a female Cane Corso rescue.
She was a stray before the shelter found her. At just under 8 months she is underweight at fewer than 70 pounds; the vet actually cancelled her first spay surgery because she was too underweight, so I had to wait an extra week for her to get her surgery and bring her home.
I didn't plan on adopting a Corso and had never heard of the breed. I initially wanted to get a Ridgeback puppy from a breeder, but then I got to thinking why am I going to go out and get a dog who is obviously going to be well-cared-for anyways, and leave some other dog in the shelter? I contacted a few local rescue orgs and was paired up with Zoe.
I'm not worried about her being underweight: with a healthy diet she'll grow as fast as is healthy for her. She certainly doesn't lack for energy and 70 pounds of puppy is...fun? That's one word to use. Eventually she'll get free access to the back yard to let off some energy; here in Arizona for most of the year we can keep the door open, except in the hot summer and nobody sane wants to go running around then anyways. Right now though we're still in the "learning the rules of the house" stage so she stays on leash most of the time. She was house trained at the shelter by default and has been super good about that except for one accident the first day that was not her fault: she had diarrhea at the shelter and on her first day home I didn't get her outside fast enough after feeding her. We are also working on learning where Zoe's bed is (crate) and where it is not (couch) and what Zoe is allowed to chew (presents she gets for chewing - not shoes!)
With enough walks and playtime throughout the day she is usually pretty good about settling down, but sometimes she needs to go in her crate for a time out. I work from home a lot and she is very affectionate and sometimes wants lots of attention. She knows "sit" - sort of - and "down" - kind of - but we are definitely working on "leave it" and especially "off". Perhaps it is just that she wants to be helpful when she sees me typing at the computer, but she likes to put her front paws up on the keyboard and while I'm sure she has a lot to say, she's not a very good speller and I don't think my colleagues would appreciate her emails the way I do. So that is something to work on. I am glad that she is still just as happy and affectionate as the first time I went into her pen at the shelter; she just needs to learn that a guy needs his space every once in a while and doesn't want a girl crowding him all the time. Also, the shelter vet thought she would probably grow to 120 pounds eventually. Now, that can look extremely good on some girls, but it's really not very ladylike to go jumping up on everybody you meet and lick their face. Fortunately we can work on her manners because Zoe loves to have the opportunity to practice responding to commands so she can get steak treats. And I like girls who like steak.
We'll see though. If she turns out to be a Ravens fan she's going back to the shelter next week.
Brought Zoe home on Sunday. I figured it was okay to miss church to get her home from the shelter a day early. She is a female Cane Corso rescue.
She was a stray before the shelter found her. At just under 8 months she is underweight at fewer than 70 pounds; the vet actually cancelled her first spay surgery because she was too underweight, so I had to wait an extra week for her to get her surgery and bring her home.
I didn't plan on adopting a Corso and had never heard of the breed. I initially wanted to get a Ridgeback puppy from a breeder, but then I got to thinking why am I going to go out and get a dog who is obviously going to be well-cared-for anyways, and leave some other dog in the shelter? I contacted a few local rescue orgs and was paired up with Zoe.
I'm not worried about her being underweight: with a healthy diet she'll grow as fast as is healthy for her. She certainly doesn't lack for energy and 70 pounds of puppy is...fun? That's one word to use. Eventually she'll get free access to the back yard to let off some energy; here in Arizona for most of the year we can keep the door open, except in the hot summer and nobody sane wants to go running around then anyways. Right now though we're still in the "learning the rules of the house" stage so she stays on leash most of the time. She was house trained at the shelter by default and has been super good about that except for one accident the first day that was not her fault: she had diarrhea at the shelter and on her first day home I didn't get her outside fast enough after feeding her. We are also working on learning where Zoe's bed is (crate) and where it is not (couch) and what Zoe is allowed to chew (presents she gets for chewing - not shoes!)
With enough walks and playtime throughout the day she is usually pretty good about settling down, but sometimes she needs to go in her crate for a time out. I work from home a lot and she is very affectionate and sometimes wants lots of attention. She knows "sit" - sort of - and "down" - kind of - but we are definitely working on "leave it" and especially "off". Perhaps it is just that she wants to be helpful when she sees me typing at the computer, but she likes to put her front paws up on the keyboard and while I'm sure she has a lot to say, she's not a very good speller and I don't think my colleagues would appreciate her emails the way I do. So that is something to work on. I am glad that she is still just as happy and affectionate as the first time I went into her pen at the shelter; she just needs to learn that a guy needs his space every once in a while and doesn't want a girl crowding him all the time. Also, the shelter vet thought she would probably grow to 120 pounds eventually. Now, that can look extremely good on some girls, but it's really not very ladylike to go jumping up on everybody you meet and lick their face. Fortunately we can work on her manners because Zoe loves to have the opportunity to practice responding to commands so she can get steak treats. And I like girls who like steak.
We'll see though. If she turns out to be a Ravens fan she's going back to the shelter next week.
My 6 month old was also quite underweight, but in the 3 weeks we've had him he's gone from 50-61 lbs, so he is well on his way to being a desirable weight!
