Welcome...Benvenuto...Bienvenue...Aloha!

We have originally created this website to share photos of our first Cane Corso pair, Romeo and Giulietta. Now, two years later, it has evolved into the site it is today, loaded with photos and info!

We had a great time at the IABCA Show in Newport Beach, CA on April 17-18. Cyrano won Best In Show Puppy at a tender age of 3 months and Romeo took a Reserve Best In Show Gold Cup Series!

ABOUT US - BOB & LEILANI SOUZA

In 2001, we discovered the Cane Corso after our Boxer passed away. During our extensive research, we found what we were looking for at Morgan Cane Corso in Genoa, Italy. After our Romeo was born, Morgan helped us find a suitable female, one that would complement his bloodline in case we decided to start our own breeding program here in California.

Beginning in 2002, we started to become involved in obedience training, conformation showing and temperament testing. Our love for the breed prompted us to join the ICCF (the largest American breed club), as well as founding CaneCorsoRescue.org, a referral network to help match Cane Corso rescues to forever homes.

In August 2003, we have added another Cane Corso to our family, Nicoletta. All of our dogs live indoors with us and even co-exist peacefully with our Persian cat, Chanel (who was Leilani's only pet since 1993). When we leave the house, Romeo and Giulietta have full house privileges and Nicoletta is crated, but when it's bedtime, all three dogs sleep on their beds in our bedroom. We do not believe in "kennel dogs" as the lack of human interaction can result in poor temperament and can pass on to future generations.

We have simple-but-strict standards for breeding: temperament, health and type. All dogs that will be a part of our breeding program must have stable temperaments, a clean health history with passing hip scores and possess good overall type. We feel quite lucky that Romeo and Giulietta both turned out to have such outstanding temperaments, excellent health and wonderful type. They each have their own faults, but are different among the two, so we hope that one's strengths will overcome the other's weakness in their offspring. For instance, Romeo has the better head type, stronger pigment and a magnetic personality. Since he possesses dominant genes (his parents have similar bloodlines), we hope to see those traits passed on. Giulietta's drive, obedience and physical abilities are something we hope her puppies inherit - she performed so well at her first temperament test (administered by the Fila Brasileiro Club of America) that she "wowed" the crowd and was even awarded prizes intended for a Fila! :)

Breeding is a hobby for us, not something that we rely on as a source of income (we own our own real estate and property management company and are real estate investors ourselves) so we plan to breed only on occasion. Giulietta will probably take a 1-2 year break after her first litter and we also will be watching all of the puppies from Litter A to see how they develop. We screen all potential puppy buyers to ensure that there is a good three-way match, as we intend to remain in close contact with our selected "extended family" throughout the lifetime of our puppies. If you are interested, please visit our Puppies page for more info. We value our relationships with puppy buyers and their involvement in the puppy's life from day one, so we are the first Cane Corso breeder to have a webcam installed in our home's puppy nursery. It's been quite a big hit so far and we've received a lot of positive feedback about it!

What's next for us, now that Romeo and Giulietta have completed obedience training, passed (Rarities-sponsored) temperament tests, earned their CGC (Canine Good Citizen) certifications (and Romeo also passed the TDI/Therapy Dogs International)? Well, finding a suitable working sport to pursue with our dogs is on our agenda! Of course, in the near future, our time will be dedicated to raising our firstborn puppy pair, Cyrano and Cypress!