The Dogs of “Tre Cancelle”
When we moved to Italy from the UK we brought our two dogs, Barney and Louby with us, having invested the time and money to ensure that they had all the correct injections, chips, documentation and Pet Passports.
Barney had been a “rescue dog”, an black Labrador / Border Collie cross, who had
been ill treated and underfed by an uncaring farmer. When we first got him home
he was really wild and nervous, especially of men, large boots, thunderstorms and
gunshots. After getting him de-
Later we decided to get Barney a sister, Louby, a tricolour Welsh Border Collie who also came from a farm. She was very bright and agile and has taught Barney a thing or two.
Here in Italy Barney and Louby immediately adapted to their new lifestyle and loved their new surroundings at “Tre Cancelle”, finding that they now had so much freedom to run around.
However we soon found that some Italians do not share our sentimentality towards animals, particularly Dogs. In the countryside everyone with a plot of land seems to have a couple of large, vociferous dogs, solely for guarding purposes or sometimes for hunting. These animals are generally chained up, neglected, and shown little or no affection. In the evening, after dusk, they all begin communicating with each other, as a chorus of barking, howling and wailing echoes around the valleys. Over the months we were periodically visited by various strays that generally hung around for a day or so, before drifting off. These had either been abandoned by uncaring owners, had managed to slip their chains or were hunting dogs that had gone AWOL.
However one hound was rather more persistent than the others, a large, rusty brown male, who was showing considerable interest in Louby, who it seemed was coming into season. Indeed Louby liked the attention of this canine “Casanova” and actively flirted with him.
Despite Paul's regular best efforts to drive him off the premises by yelling and screaming like a mad man at him, dousing him in cold water, it was to no avail as the stubborn pooch would return again and again. Eventually Paul gave up and thus the dog became a permanent fixture at “Tre Cancelle”.
Deefer