Eleonara di Capena or Nora for her friends.

We had a few days ago our little story about our Nicky and now it is Nora's turn, our eternal little hunter. She cannot help it her mother was a National Hunting Champion in Italy and she has all those instincts. The lady in Capena who owned the kennel had a room full of trophies and ribbons to her champion dogs and she did offer to train Nora for hunting but we declined given that we lived in the Città and move to another City. Though in the city there are cats, squirrels and wild rabbits, badgers too. We live by the Rideau Canal and there is a lot of wildlife despite being in the centre of the city.

Nora is also an excellent guard dog, she has a very keen sense of hearing and smell, nothing escapes her. We are constantly surprised by the fact that she can hear the elevator door open some 20 meters from our front door or knows when someone who is downstairs, that is 4 floors down is coming up, she is able to differentiate the phone ring tones, though we cannot perceive with our human ear the subtle differences.

She is also very talkative and modulates her voice to attract our attention, every sound means something different and we have become accustomed to it all, though we are not always sure what she means. Her hunting howl makes her sound like the Hounds of the Baskerville and can wake up the whole neighbourhood, it is a booming howl for such a little dog it is surprising.
Dachshunds have that capacity which make them sound ferocious.

And like all Dachshunds she likes to hide and burrow, we often loose her in the apartment, though she always knows where we are at all times. Unlike Nicky she does not like to lie in the sunshine as much as he does, she gets too hot and moves off to a shady corner. She is also not shy about putting him in his place if he annoys her. He is often scared of her because she bosses him without mercy.
She is a week older than him maybe that is why.

Her favourite sofa in the house, she is in this picture but you cannot see her though she is looking at the camera, hiding behind the small cushion. The sofa is growling you say, look closer and you will see her. 

There she is wedging herself between cushions and falling asleep, she loves doing that, especially at night. If we let her she would probably sleep there all night.

the one nice thing about Nora is that she loves everybody and is quite affectionate unless you are a squirrel then you are dead meat.

  

A dog's life

Well for Nicky and Nora it's a tough life I am sure Nicky has plenty to complain about.
Here is his story:

Me and Nora at birth we are about one week old here in this photo.

Here I am in Canada of all places, I was born in Capena, Lazio just outside of la Città Aeterna, my parents where Italian-Hungarian and my dad a National Champion Show dog. So I thought my life would be spent in shows around Italy with lots of Paparazzi. One day out of the blue, when I was 6 weeks old, I was kidnapped and left my relatives and the farm. We, Nora and I, she is not my sister by the way. Her story is a little different, I knew her relatives but they are hunters, her mom was a Champion Wild Boar Hunting dog.

La famiglia mia a Capena 

Anyway I digress, so we arrived in Rome, did I tell you I cried and cried in the car all the way to Rome.  The one with the beard sat with me in the back and cuddled me, so I would not be so scared.  He understood my sensitive little puppy nature.
We had this rather nice place to live on Via Dei Villini, a large place with a very nice garden, the food was good and we had nothing to complain about. It was not the farm with all our families but hey we were getting lots of attention and cuddles and toys and blankets we would chew, we also chewed on furniture and concrete. We have good teeth.

Via Dei Villini 26, Rome

Our new home in Rome, come in kids.

We were well looked after and our Vet understood dachshunds since he had 8 of them at his home.
Then one day, we are taken to the airport, I was very upset and made a point of letting everyone know, I barked as loud as I could, people were afraid but alas to no avail, we left our beloved Italy for Ottawa. It is not Rome I can tell you that much. I was only 2 years old when this happened but I still remember it. The new place in Ottawa was also nice and very green by a lovely canal, that does not matter much to me because I am not much of a walker unless it is a dog walk with lots of paparazzi and people giving me biscuit. Nora on the other hand loves it, so much to hunt she says and to sniff out. She goes for long walks along the Rideau Canal and comes back exhausted but happy. Oh well if she likes it who am I to comment.

Now my days are simple, I usually wake up around 06:30 in the morning, if there is sunlight well then maybe earlier.  I love sunlight, I give one sharp and loud bark to wake up the servants, they are very lazy and I often have to give one to two more loud barks to wake them up, Canadians are so lazy its terrible. You would never see that in Italy I assure you. So one of them will prepare my breakfast and Nora's breakfast too. She is very quiet in the morning so I do all the barking.

Sun is so nice in the morning after breakfast.

After our breakfast we go out for a short walk, just so I can see what is going on out there and what kind of weather we are having. The winters in Ottawa are terrible and I hate them, we have to put coats on and boots otherwise we freeze our paws. I have pleaded time and again to return to Italy for the Winter months, to no avail, they don't listen these people.

Then I come back in and will go and sit in the sunshine for a morning snooze, love the sunshine and could spend my whole day just lying there. We have many more walks in the day time and each time I make a point of having a little snooze.

Yes my days are quiet unless the cleaning lady comes in and I make a point of letting her know I am here and to leave me alone, not to make noise and not interfere with my routine but they do, it is so unfair.

Now I know that Nora has gone to the Vet lately for her annual physical and teeth cleaning.
I also went to the Vet and declared to be in perfect health. I am only 5 years old now. But now I hear that next week I am going back to the dentist for my teeth cleaning. What a strange idea they have here. Do I really have to go? No one asked me what I thought about it.
So you can imagine how stressful all this is going to be. Why do they always have to disturb my routine.

You can see and appreciate that I have a difficult life in exile here in Canada, thank God for the biscuits and the celery, carrots, the nice cheese and other goodies I get from time to time.

Can Spring be far away on St-Bridget's Day?

Well if you live in Ottawa on the snowbank Spring is never that close. We just had a further snow fall.  Though we could be living in Rome and experience the floods which plague the City every winter now. This is due in part to the two rivers the Aniene and the Tiber who connect and become torrents has they cross the City. The water is already some 16 meters above its normal level. All neighbourhoods below the famous hills of the City are experiencing some flooding. The sewers of the ancient city have also not been cleaned for decades and many are blocked. Little if nothing has been done to resolve this problem, the government seems to think, it will pass, yes but what a mess.

Yesterday I got news from the farm in Capena just outside the City where Dr. B lives with his wife and where our Nicky and Nora were born. The farm is flooded but not the house and all the dogs are safe.

Our friends L and N live near by but high up on a hill so they are not affected, however entering Rome from their area is complicated as the Via Tiberina which connects with the highway into the city is flooded.

31 January 2014 flooding in Venice 

Pisa, Florence, Turin and many other major cities have experienced flooding, the Alpine Brenner pass which connects Italy to Austria has been closed, a very rare occurrence due to heavy snow fall and now the risk of avalanche.

The Island on the Tiber in the centre of Rome the water of the river is about 16 meters high.

Floods in the Roman Forum area 

Rome Electric Tram 

Here well it's Winterlude, the so called Winter Carnival in Ottawa, lots of skaters on the Canal. Trudging through the snow is not my idea of fun but apparently to some bureaucrat it is.
We also have a few ice sculpture focusing on the First World War, this is part of the Official message to the masses from our dear Prime Minister S. Harper, gee how to depress everyone during a Carnival, I am starting to believe the Tar Sand fumes have affected his brain.

At the same time it was confirmed today that we will have 6 more weeks of winter, of course we will, it would be strange if we did not. This means that warmer weather will come around the last week of March, Oh Joy!  The Candlemas rhyme says: If Candlemas day be dry and fair, the half of winter to come and more. 

Well let's look forward to Spring and more pleasant weather.

Puppies by Rodin

The French Sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) never used Dashchunds in his work and that is a shame. Here are our two old puppies now 4 years old in poses for the morning, called Reflections on an Italian Winter or if you prefer Were is my Biscotti. They being both from Capena in the Lazio Province near Rome is a fitting title.

Pensiero del giorno

dove gli biscotti

Ciao bello

Cosa c'e di piu bello di me? 

Birthdays

Our little puppies, well not anymore, will turn 4 years old this coming week.

Imagine four years ago, we went shortly after their birth to Capena a small town just a few kilometers outside of Rome, a suburb by today's standard. Capena is famous for being in antiquity a town for wealthy Romans who had villas. Marcus Tulius Cicero (the father of lawyers) was one, Livia, Empress of Rome, mother of Tiberius and wife of Augustus, also had her famous summer villa at Prima Porta.

We had heard, I do not remember how, of the Casa degli Orsi, (the house of the bears) which is a breeding kennel for Wire hair Dachshunds and for Saint Bernard's, two very different breeds of dogs.
The kennel is owned by a well known Veterinarian Dr. Massimo B. and his wife Tiziana who have won many trophies and awards.

We loved the farm or kennel, lots of big trees and meadows and old stone farm house, there was also a big pool full of Koi fish. The two bitches who were with their litters were inside the house. The puppies being new born still had their eyes close and were very small, smaller than my hand. Tiziana picked up one little female puppy and then went over to the other box and picked up a little male. The two mothers looked alarmed and kept an eye out so that their puppies would not be harmed. When she returned them to their respective boxes the mothers licked them, checking that nothing had happened to them.

The male dogs who fathered the litter were kept outside in a pen with the other wire hair dachshunds.

With Will at the farm in Capena, left Nora and right Nicky at 6 weeks.

We decided then to adopt the two puppies and left them at the farm to return 6 weeks later to pick them up. We also had to think of a name for them, in Italy you cannot give just any name to your dog, there is a complex registration process and papers have to be filled out, it is as we say ''la bella face''. We had a contest on the internet and a friend came up with Nicky and Nora as in the 1940 movies about Nick and Nora Charles. It was explained to us that both dogs could not have names starting with the letter N, so a device was invented to go around this rule.

Our Nora before her grooming session at the Salon.

Nora close up in 2010, Rome

So our female dog was named Eleonora della Casa degli Orsi, we call her Nora for short. Her father was Hungarian, Erik Ligetfalvi, her mother was Italian and named Lucy.

Nora was born on 19 February 2009, feisty even has a new born with a hunting dog mentality, very independent.

Our Nicky, we named Fantastico Nicky, born 23 February 2009. Both parents are Hungarian, the father was Indian Catullus and his mother Filomena Catullus. Nicky is not a hunter more of a show dog  like his father, life is a catwalk, very vain, he knows he is beautiful, how can dogs know this, he knows, its his Italian side, all style.

Fantastico Nicky groomed for his birthday on Saturday 23 February.

We got proof of origin for pure bred dogs (Hungary) and registration of birth in Italy and then permits were issued by the province of Lazio (Rome) with their Health Certificates. We being the owners had to provide proof of identity and our Codice Fiscale or tax number. They also got their European Union international chip inserted when we went to bring them back to Rome.

This is by far my favourite photo of Nicky in our den at home in Rome on Via dei Villini.

The trip back to the City down Via Tiberina and then Via Salaria in our car was comical, Nora was happy to go and settled quickly, while Nicky whined all the way for 25 minutes, very unhappy to leave his family and the farm. It turns out that Nora has a large vocabulary of sounds to tell you things and will bark at you to indicate different things that she wants. While Nicky whines, he does not bark unless he is upset about something and it is usually one sharp bark. He may give a low ominous growl as a warning but that is all. He can also tell time, per example 7am is breakfast time, 17:35 is dinner time and 22:00 is bedtime, if you forget not to worry he will remind you. He is very precise about such things, we just find it strange. I suspect he as a little watch like a Piaget hidden in his kennel.

Nora and Nicky on the ancient Via Appia, posing by a funeral monument in the Spring time, Rome.

Happy Birthday to our little Dachshunds who bring so much joy to our life.