Cocoa 14

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Updated 12/6/06: More good news for Cocoa: she has completed her heartworm treatment and tested negative at her last vet check. Yeah!! She will need one more recheck to be sure she is clear of hookworms. Cocoa has adapted to the love and care in her foster home so well and is quite ready to begin her new year with a family who will love cuddling with her as much as she will love being close to them.

Updated 11/19/06: For many dogs, heartworm treatment is a safe and relatively uncomplicated process. It is not without risks, however, so sharing that Cocoa is doing well with most of her treatment behind her is very good news indeed.

She is also warming up to her foster family and has become quite a cuddle bug. It is absolutely adorable to see how she leans into people and groans for their attention. She’s very entertaining and is coming into her own with more time to settle in. With regular meals and better nutrition, her fur is so soft it now feels like silk………and there is a lot of it! She will always look her best when she gets lots of brushing and will always feel her best too.

More on Cocoa as she enters the home stretch to her new beginning.

Updated 11/6/06: So far, so good with Cocoa’s heartworm treatment. The only possible side effect is that she still has an accident in the house every couple of days. She does fine in the daytime and roams the house freely then. She is not crate trained at this time, so to keep her as stress-free as possible, her foster parents limit her to the kitchen at night.

She has been out and about and met older kids and was comfortable with their attention and petting. She has yet to meet smaller children. Cocoa does get excited at times and will pick up a shoe if one is handy. She will also drop it right away when corrected. Another behavior her foster parents have noticed is that she likes to nibble when she is being groomed. This may be “nuisance” nibbling or a bit of “nervous” nibbling, but they have chosen to muzzle her to be on the safe side and find she accepts that very well.

It will be several more weeks before Cocoa’s heartworm treatment is complete. Keep fingers crossed for her to finish out with ease.

Original: Cocoa was found as a stray in the District of Columbia and spent about a month in a shelter there. The shelter staff discovered by tracking her microchip number that she had been adopted from a rescue group several states away in January. A search was done to locate the adopting family but to no avail. When someone went to their address, an vacant house was found. How Cocoa ended up in DC is unknown but rather than trying to move her back to her original rescue group, MAESSR was contacted and offered to help. She is in good overall health and is currently undergoing treatment for heartworms. When that is complete, the remainder of her basic vetting will be finished.

For one so young, Cocoa is a very calm springer. She doesn’t get on furniture, counter-surf or jump on people. She lives in a home with adults and lavishes her good temperament on all. She got along great with everyone she met at the shelter too. She is very cuddly and will moan and groan when she gets petted, simply out of sheer joy.

Though she would like to be in charge of the pack, Cocoa gets along with the other dogs in her foster home. She is not picking fights but will stand her ground if she is challenged by one of them.

When someone can be out with her, Cocoa loves walks and outdoor activities. She does OK on a leash but is curious about many things she finds along the way. If there’s something that catches her interest, she will pull a little but only to get a better sniff. When off leash, chasing squirrels in the yard is a favorite pastime. At day’s end, she will settle into sleep so contentedly that soft snoring is often heard by her family.

Since heartworm treatment takes many weeks to complete, Cocoa will be with her foster family for a while. More on her as they all become better acquainted.