Dog spots...
Sad news…
Our Dear Weimaraner, Nina-beena, passed away during the night of January 12th after a short battle with a tumor. Back in June of last year, I carried Nina-beena to Our Vet, Vittorio, as she was descending into coma. He immediately set to revive and stabilize her. Then, an MRI exam proved small nodules… tiny tumors… were rife throughout her stomach cavity. This was a horrifying repeat with Our First Weimaraner, Moses. We had to put him to sleep in the Fall of 2016. Did you know dogs can suffer dementia, Alzheimer’s? Yep, they can. And the later was what was going to do a lot of harm to Our Dear Moses. His diseased brain would forget to pump the heart and lungs. Our Vet alerted me to the fact that animals… and people too… do not die directly from tumors. Death comes from other causes. For Dear, Sweet, Beautiful, Nina-beena, died of a heart-attack while sleeping.
I buried her Monday morning on the Scenic Overlook in the garden of il Poggiolo, right next to her brother, Moses. Those two canine accomplices will have an eternally fantastic view of the Commie House or, at least until the Commie place slides down the mount after a hard bout of rain or, persons who have bought il Poggiolo out from Our Old Age decide to put in a swimming pool on that very Dog Spot. There’s a surprise awaiting them. Bones and IKEA micro-fiber blankets. Nina-beena and Moses are in hallowed ground. It’s where both liked to sunbathe while I assaulted the garden. (That verb is not mine but, You’s. I prefer gardening.)
The Dogs had other special spots, inside and out. Il Poggiolo, its three residences and the terraced garden, is defined by their habits, pleasures… and disgraces. Layered on top or, neighboring to those of the Human Beings who pass through the gates of Il Poggiolo.
In my current grief, I took a short photographic tour of Dog Spots at il Poggiolo. The Two Deceased Dog’s conspicuous absence was noted…
You & I bought a Weimaraner puppy… strangely enough from a woman who lives around the corner from Codiponte in Equi Terme… at Christmas 2017 to keep Nina-beena company. Croesus…. AKA The Croesus-person (yes, a mouthful but simple Croesus is nearly impossible for folk to A) remember or B) pronounce) or, Puppy… turned out to be quite more than the elixir we had imagined for Our Little GIrl. But, he adored his older sister. The Croesus-person is now grieving too though he witnessed Nina-beena’s death & burial LIVE. Hard for him to understand why she did not growl or, nip at him as he played with Nina-beena’s paw as she laid in the cart. He keeps his lone vigil in a spot he shares with his canine brethren. Bless him.
The Croesus-person on the long black sofa in la Casetta, a dog spot enjoyed by one and all.
My Dogs...
Archive post March 21, 2019…
I would bet you a million Euros I am the only person in all of the Lunigiana, and particularly in Codiponte, who carpools his dogs to go on a walk. After the unfortunate incident of last Summer of that Killed Cat, poor thing…
and please let me say, there is new evidence which has recently come to light regarding various aspects & circumstances surrounding the crime perpetrated by My Adore Cucciolo, The Croesus-person: the true & prior conditions of the Victim Pet, starting with its confirmed feral provenance & wild habits, the neighbor’s real association with the Killed Cat, they fed it on another neighbor’s stoop below their house. What? So as not to risk disease? Soil their pristine confines?… and how these professed owners of the Killed Victim dealt in giving succour to the Poor Animal, i.e. they waited over12 hours before carrying the Poor Thing to the Vet’s. My dander is up.
…I can no longer amble about the streets of my community unless The Dogs are securely attached to leashes, a physical impossibility, thanks to a becoming-bummed left hip and an already bummed lower back. Such happy issues. So, I carpool them into the surrounding wildernesses, i.e. those many, many landscape photos posted on Instagram… forrestspears.
I could gainfully bet you a million-trillion Euros I am the only person in Codiponte and securely within a radius of ten miles too of possessing the only stock of pure-breed dog. All others are bastards, mongrels, half-breeds. This majority are often mixes of Jack Russell Terriers… a highly randy lot… and some other runt breed rendering them short of stature and feisty in nature & character. None come up to even mid-calf on a small child. Quite aggressive too. In an occasional contest of physical wills between My Weimaraners and packs of these canine runtlings… a clear indication of how they automatically tend to form into vicious gangs of four-legged thugs… 99% of the time the folk here condemn My Noble Dogs as the perpetrators of any discord. Issues of their size meaning DANGEROUS. How so very ignorant. Whereas, in Absolute Truth, it’s the runts who 99% of the time instigate a whole bunch of growling & snarling. Nina-beena is especially seccata about these types of encounters, trotting home at il Poggiolo. The Croesus-person follows, stopping every few feet to launch a series of WARNING barks at the recalcitrants then, he too bolts for Home.
This leads me to continue with yet another wager of a million-trillion-zillion Euros MY DOGS ALWAYS KNOW THEIR WAY HOME!!! None, not one, nada of these pip-squeak-divano-dogs could Hope, Dream or, Pray their way home. And they don’t have to be small to be so clueless. The Killed Cat Neighbors have a white-haired Golden Retriever. Why call it a Golden Retriever? A stupid dog. Gets out of his confines, only to wander lost through Codiponte. We of the village are obligated to hear… MAATTTEOOO! MAATTTEOOO!! MAATTTEOOO!!! No reply. 20 minutes later I notice scuffling noises outside my windows, and there below, the neighbor masters are seen dragging the bewildered white dog home. Nina-beena has been know to scappate into the wilderness and is waiting for us at il Poggiolo before The Croesus-person and I have arrived. Ditto for The Croesus-person. I rest my case.
Leaves me only to invoke a declaration of Mary Poppin’s reading her own personal assessment:
Just as I thought. “Nina-beena and The Croesus-person, practically perfect in every way.
Kat Killer or, how do you like our leash law?...
Archive post October 2, 2018…
A brief Dog History…
You and I were spoiled by our first dog. His name was Moses, a splendid Weimaraner, and nearly perfect in every way. He could do no wrong. Well, almost no wrong. He wanted to be with us when we sat down to dinner. Automatically plopping down in the Dining Room as I would put steaming plates of pasta with sausages & broccoli on the table, You would likewise automatically command the dog to vacate the premises post haste. The strong tone & loud voice of the dog’s Supreme Commander would send Moses to the Siberia of the hallway beyond. Moses would skulk off and lay down to stare at us and our plates of pasta. Slowly, minute by minute, the dog would creep back into the Dining Room. His fatal mistake was, once inside… he thought so stealth-like… he’d dash to his preferred spot next to me, His Supreme Master, erring in thinking his re-entry was a success. The process would repeat itself to exhaustion. Might be why You and I now eat in front of the TV where no animal is ever allowed to be near. 15 and 1/2 years later, Moses passed away, God Bless, him.
And there is our adored and adopted gem of a Weimaraner, Nina-beena. Another near perfect canine except for her annoying flaw of scappating to sniff the surrounding environment of cogent country smells. Nina has her spots to inspect and then comes home to roost with our new entry, a year and a 1/2 old Weimaraner puppy. Boy, what a difference he’s been.
Croesus, a name practically no one can pronounce, much less understand, has been more than a handful. I believe we took him too early from the warm nurturing of his amazon of a mother-dog. You thinks I over-did the attempt to substitute warm nurturing, spoiling him into bad behaviors. The consequence of my actions… spoiling to be loved, I suppose… Croesus has a nearly maniacal desire to be physically attached to me at all times AND when not, does just what he pleases. Danger written all over him. He can do no right. Woo-woo and wee-wee throughout the apt. in Genoa… oh, he’d manage to hit the newspapers carefully placed in strategic spots, but then, well, he’d make another bio-donation on one of our innumerable Oriental rugs immediately afterwards. From there he branched into a paper, book, pillow, basket shredder par excellence, if we so dared to leave the house without him.
Then, at our home, il Poggiolo, Croesus expanded his field of operations. Deforestation of our garden, clawing the pristine finishes off all our doors… to ge to me… and a nifty predilection to cause a shoddily made old door down in the cantina open to his brand of Run Wild, Run Free. The local Codiponte populace shudder in fear when he’s in sight. I would too if a 66 lb. fritz-out Weimaraner gased from his freshly gained Freedom were to come rushing down a lane at top speed with his tongue wagging from the lust of it all. To forestall such escapes, leashing the dog has became de rigor and an unfortunate exercise in imminent back surgery. Short leads are not the trick. Croesus lunges and my back has to surrender to the force of the dog’s 66 lbs of Weimaraner take-off power. I told You that if the dog persisted to pull on his leash, I would be crippled in less than two years. I am well on my way and despite You’s admonitions to train the darn dog not to instead. Yeah, right.
Things got dramatically worse. Croesus killed a neighbor’s kat. The wrong neighbors too. Ones I had already had words with over a water infiltration issue which, in the end, was not even remotely our fault or responsibility. Turned out is was and still is the neighbor’s cousin, who lives between us.
And aside… everything which goes wrong in Codiponte is ALWAYS my fault: pooh-pooh, trash, car in a non-scantioned parking spot, fire burning off hours, more pooh-pooh, dogs off their leashes, still more pooh-pooh, etc. Never is You accused ‘cause he’s un dottore.
However, I can admit to the fault regarding the kat’s sad demise. I was irresponsible. Croesus was off his lead and I was wrong to allow it. You was furious with me about it. Did not speak to me for over a week. His silence was deadly and made my trials all the more burdensome.
The tragic story…
In the selfish interest to preserve some semblance of vertebral structure to my 220 lb. demeanor, I accompanied dinner guests to their car parked at the village’s Medieval bridge with both dogs senza guinzagli. A catastrophic tactical error.
An aside, Nina-beena does try to lend a bark or two pointed at and in the hope of corralling said the recalcitrant Croesus to follow her example by trotting happily next to me… leash-less…but, alas, not on this particular evening.
Kiss-kiss, Buona Notte to the guests and us… two dogs and a 220 lb. guy… headed for home. Well, two of us did. The thug dog had dashed off before us. I mused that he probably scappated to enjoy the night’s fresh air and its breeze rushing past his flapping Weimaraner ears. Or was drawn to the irresistible scent of food perhaps left on some door-step for the village’s array of felines to feast upon. Suddenly disappeared, suddenly re-appeared… with a bloody scratch across his muzzle. Ah, I said to myself, an unexpected kat encounter. Little did I know.
24 hours later, gory photos of a kat with horrifying wounds were sent to me through Whatsapp. What made the consignments worse was the cryptic and, I would also like to say, nastily sarcastic messages, such as… Have you not even remotely thought to keep your dog on a leash? The double disaster quickly tripled when the neighbors chose not to answer their door chime or responded to my Whatsapp message of concern. I sought consolation with a tranquilizer. I wanted to sleep. I would need re-vitalization to resume attempts to mediate the situation as much a possible in the coming days.
The neighbors were devastated. Their poor kitty-kat dead. I was devastated. A Kat Killer sleeps under my covers at night. Yet, Peace was re-installed and financial restitution made, our previous controversies put behind us too.
Word got around the community. Branded as the owner of a Kat Killer, I had to have the dogs under konstant kontrol, ie. leashes throttling our dogs necks with every exit from the konfines of il Poggiolo. So long to my back. The community would be safe. No Comment.
Croesus was impervious to the political klimate. And not enjoying the konfinement, he took to occasionally prying open the shoddy cantina door to scappate once-in-a-while. The vigili… guys in uniform but carrying NO GUNS promptly came a-knocking on my gate. The towns-people had alerted them to the marauding Kat Killer. The vigile I know said… Konfine your dog or else. Leashes attached without variation. Your dog is a Killer. Yes, sir.
This coming Saturday, two men will come and begin the construction of a concrete re-enforced post and wire fencing around the entire perimeter of il Poggiolo’s garden. Croesus will have to konfine his Run Wild, Run Free within its 25,000 square feet of grassy terraces. I hope he doesn’t develop an inclination to dig.