The puppy mentioned in yesterday’s blog post!
This sweet little nugget was brought into one of our city shelters as a “stray” at 4 weeks old. In LA, 4 week old puppies don’t walk (or in her case at the time) stumble down the street. Our shelter was notified as the city shelter is no place for an unvaccinated underaged animal because they are so susceptible to illness and disease.
We took her to work and did a full vet check, fecal sample and observation before I took her home to foster. At 4 weeks old, she is not available for me to adopt, even through work. She is currently 6 weeks old so in two weeks I get to make it official. The first week she was home I was sleeping in 3 hour increments. She was still looking for mom and wanted to suckle. That lasted about a week before she started to adjust and was no longer whining and crying when left alone.
When it comes to sicknesses like parvo, it usually takes up to two weeks to show symptoms. She’s been a bright and alert, happy, playful porky puppy so she has started to socialize with other dogs in the home and received her second round of vaccines earlier this week. 2 more weeks before she gets to go out into the big world and start attending puppy socialization classes!
Working in a shelter for the last 8 and a half years, I have always had a soft spot for the old, adult or special needs dogs. You may have read a blog from last year about a white shepherd/husky mix I adopted to be a companion for my deaf Dalmatian, Piper. I was heartbroken when he would not stop attempting to find ways to access my pigs in a not so friendly manner. I had to re-home him and quickly realized I had too many factors and not enough time to bring home an adult dog that is not socialized with livestock. So as much as I didn’t want a puppy at the time, I figured that was going to the the only way to bring home another large breed dog. I just had to wait for the right puppy. One thing I forgot to mention yesterday that was time consuming over the last couple weeks was my old man bulldog mix had a mast cell tumor removed and wasn’t handling the cone of shame very well. I was spending a lot of time supervising him as he would go into full blown anxiety when left alone because he could not navigate well with the cone.
Back to Daphne. She’s such a good puppy. Knows her routine, knows her name, comes when called, sits patiently while I prep her meals, does not crap in her crate even though there is a potty pad, follows me everywhere, loves the kids and rarely whines when left alone anymore. We have already started basic training and she’s already doing really well. I am so excited to see the dog she turns out to be. We sent a DNA test out. She looks to be a Mastiff or Mastiff mix so we’ll see!
The hubby wanted a Great Dane and I wanted a pittie so we compromised and got a Mastiff 😂
So you guys can look forward to watching this girl grow into the perfect family pooch and filling the role of Piper’s companion. ❤️
