So how in the heck did we decide to add to our menagerie with a Cane Corso (pronounced Kah-naye). And how did we even find this breed of dog. I keep getting asked this question, so I'm going to answer it.
Easy answer, slightly long story - so bear with me.
Shortly after Christmas in 2006, we were driving home late one night after visiting family for the holidays. We were about 10 minutes from home on a winding county road when I saw something off to the side of the road. I told my husband to stop. He said it was a deer and it was late. Well he stopped anyway, since I've never seen a large black deer with floppy ears before. We turned around and went back. There on the side of the road was a large, gorgeous black brindle dog (of some breed we had never seen before). And he had just been hit. He had blood all over his front and both front legs were split open. As we approached him, it was obvious that he couldn't walk. He was very gentle and somehow knew we were there to help, even though he had to be in tremendous pain. We touched him quite a bit, carefully, and were able to assess how much damage there was all the while petting his giant head.
It took us a while to decide what to do. It was very late, and very dark. A man who lived on the road stopped to help. He had a car full of teenagers who were great kids and really helpful. In the end we decided to waive off animal care and control and took the dog to the emergency vet. At the time, the other man thought the dog belonged to another neighbor (which didn't turn out to be the case) and we just couldn't leave the dog out there. At the hospital, we asked the overnight vet to stabilize the dog and get x-rays. Handed over the credit card (splitting the cost with the other Samaritan) and went home to bed and to our four dogs.
It was a day or two later that we went back to the vet. I remember that it seemed to take a couple of days before all the test were done - so I think it was two days later. The damage to his front legs wasn't as bad as expected - his bones weren't broken. However. . . The big However. His spinal cord was damaged, likely severed. His back legs didn't work and didn't respond to any tests on his nervous system. The selfish sorry excuse for a human hit this dog, broke its spine, left it to die, and kept on driving.
We were there with both of our kids and realized there was nothing that could be done. He was a big sweet gentle dog and no one could save him. We went out into a hallway to talk to the staff about euthenizing him while the kids stayed in the room with the dog. He was on a big blanket on the floor. My daughter (who was all of 4 at the time) was sitting on the floor against the opposite wall crying. She knew what was coming. As we looked through the window into the room, looking at our daughter, this big beast of a dog started to crawl across the floor on his bandaged front legs dragging the rest of him behind. He got over to her, made a huge sigh and put his giant head in her lap.
Everyone started crying after that.
We left heartbroken but knowing that in this dog's final hours someone loved him. And he loved us back, unconditionally.
We started searching the internet afterward, trying to determine what kind of dog he was. We could tell he was a mastiff, but that was all we knew. We landed on the Cane Corso after finding a few others mastiff types that were similar, but not quite him. He was clearly a Corso.
After that we knew when the time was right that this was the next dog we wanted to add to our family.
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