INTRODUCING TIANA GINGER CHARNEY: And baby makes three!

 

Hey, wait a minute! Hadn’t we already heard that back in 1979, given that our son celebrated his 46th birthday yesterday? 

 

Well, during the course of our nearly 55 years of marriage we have had occasion to say “and baby makes three” during the three times we adopted rescue dogs Bandit, Murray, and Tiana. I’m not counting our first dog, Bip(squeak) Snowflake Charney who was languishing yet hopeful in a Durham, North Carolina pet shop and given to me by Jim as a wedding present. That smart little runt-of-the-litter 4-pound teacup toy poodle shaped like a frankfurter with an oversized head was our baby for over 16 years. Jim had told me that I could have any dog who wasn’t white, poodle, or female. But once little Bip jumped all over him with the most joyous of greetings, all of those rules went out the window. 

 

                                                    

                                                        

                                                    

And now here we are having adopted Tiana, a 3-year-old Italian rescue hound from our local Castel Giorgio state-of-the-art shelter run by the most dedicated volunteers who 5 months ago chose and rescued us. Lucky dogs get to stay there for as long as it takes to find a great forever home. And if they need medical care, that is also covered by these most generous souls. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that unlike in the USA, it is against Italian law to kill a dog who doesn’t win a beauty contest and get adopted in a timely way. Even older handicapped dogs are so lovingly trained here that they usually manage to find caring new families. 

 

                                                    

                                                           

Each of our rescue dogs had a long happy life with us, and we were so bereft after losing our Murray to a bad cancer that it took us four years to consider having another dog, especially one that would not fit in my purse or shirt which would facilitate plane travel between two continents. However, the day we visited the shelter, there were 90 gorgeous dogs, all with a name and a personality known to the staff. But Tiana 🐕, initially named Tiziana, kept coming back to us. It seemed like destiny that she had the same name as my beloved viola teacher. We decided to shorten it a bit and she did not mind. Because she is a segugia hound— the most popular dog in Italy, but unknown to us—we had a lot to learn about the breed. These dogs are favorites with hunters, but ours was clearly more of a lover than a hunter, which is perhaps why she ended up at the shelter. We understand that she also had an eye problem that perhaps even a loving family could not afford to fix, so maybe they let her go hoping she would find her way to the great place that she did. From her loving, trusting nature, it’s clear that she was never abused. 

                                                    

 

It’s probably time for what we call in Italy “una pausa.”I see that this blog post has already gotten long and although Tiana has only been with us for a little more than a year, there are plenty more Tiana stories to tell—some more cholesterol-raising than others. I will save them for a future post, but right now I’m thanking her for getting me over the hump and encouraging me to go forward with my lapsed blog. GRAZIE to Tiana, our new baby who makes three!