Hello, a few weeks ago we agreed to foster and possibly adopt a Mastiff that had been rescued from a Los Angeles shelter back in May of 2009. The family that had adopted her from the pound couldn't control or properly care for her.
She is a Female apricot mastiff named Daisy with a black mask and she could pass for full english mastiff or possibly american mastiff. She is probably about 18 months old.
When she came into the pound she was missing a toe and the family that adopted her let her wear a cone for 5 months and kept giving her constant antibiotics since the wound would not close. The first thing we did upon taking her was to have her looked at by a vet and specialist. There is a piece of bone still present which has constantly reopened the wound. In order to fix this correctly she'll need surgery which we were quoted could be about $3000. If not fixed it will continue to remain an open wound vulnerable to infection.
She behaves wonderfully letting you bandage the foot and apply medication to the wound.
Daisy has shown to be a great dog and will improve if someone can further devote some time to this gentle giant.
She is great with kids, We have a 6 month old and she has shown no agression.
She does well with our 3 year old mastiff grace.
We haven't seen any food agression toward people, I can remove food from her bowl while eating, but she did growl at grace once(we believe that was due to the fact that she was only getting about 1/2 the food needed for a 18 month old mastiff).
We have been working on training her and she is catching on to commands quickly. She is spayed and housebroken. She is also crate trained, although she will bark if left alone in the crate (we found that usually leaving a the radio or tv on helps with this).
I plan to continue to work with this giant and foster her, but we cannot afford the vet care she will need in order to give her a full and wonderful life.
If you are considering adding a mastiff to your family or have the resources to help this gentle giant it would be greatly appreciated.
Jen