Jimmy and Enrica Fiore, part owners of the Sunny Caribbee Hotel, moved into the property next to our house at Belmont. We socialized with the couple quite a bit, and their young children played with Vanessa and Rachel around the hotel’s swimming pool during Mac’s endless games of backgammon and tennis. We were therefore happy when they became neighbors, at least we were happy until they bought a female Doberman puppy named “Una”
The property the Fiore family rented didn’t have a back yard, just a narrow, paved area surrounded by a stone wall behind the kitchen door. They spent the majority of their time at the hotel, and instead of taking Una with them she was left in that narrow passageway. With nothing to look at and no-one to play with the puppy cried all day long, and the older she got the louder she cried. We could hear the dog howling morning, noon and night and felt sorry for the poor animal, she was obviously bored and lonely in her enclosed space.
Our Golden Lab Sophie had a kind heart, and took pity on the Doberman pup. Hearing its cries, she would scramble down the back wall of the rental property to visit, and it wasn’t long before the two dogs were fast friends. When Una grew big enough (which happened amazingly fast!), she followed Sophie up and over the wall onto our property. Our Golden Lab had a mischievous streak, and with the huge black Rottweiler in tow all hell broke loose in Belmont. Gardens were trampled and mud was tracked as the two large dogs rampaged through the house, and they terrorized any tethered animals in the vicinity. Although Una did not belong to us it was assumed she DID, any time she caused trouble in the neighborhood Sophie was usually with her, and I got tired of the endless complaints about the two dogs.
Jimmy and Enrica moved to a different, larger house and the dog situation improved. The new rental property had an enclosed yard for Una, and once she was unable to run free the canine terrorism came to a halt. She still howled a lot, but at least she wasn’t tracking mud across my floors anymore! When Jimmy asked us to look after the dog while the family went on vacation our answer was a resounding “NO!”, we didn’t want to deal with Una, but when the keys to the house and pool were dangled in front of us Mac and I crumbled. Vanessa and Rachel loved swimming pools and having access to one for a few weeks would be nice, so we agreed to take care of Una.
Having access to the pool WAS nice, dealing with Una was NOT. No effort had been put into training the dog, she was disobedient and very, very strong. She wasn’t a mean or bad dog, but she was definitely uncontrollable and craved human attention. I grew wary of Una, she jumped on me whenever I got within reach and managed to knock me over a few times, she outweighed me by quite a bit and was incredibly powerful.
One day I went to the Gingerbread Restaurant for a meeting. Vanessa and Rachel were playing tennis, and when Una made a surprise appearance they ran upstairs to tell me about it. I didn’t know how the dog had escaped or how she had tracked us down, but I knew she would interfere with the sheep tethered nearby. Not wanting to leave the meeting to drive the dog home, I told the girls to put Una in my car with the windows rolled half-way down, not an ideal solution but it was the best I could come up with at the time.
A while later Rachel approached me with big eyes. I was annoyed, she knew better than to disturb me in the middle of a meeting! I told her to go back downstairs, we would go home when the meeting ended.
“But Mommy, Una doesn’t like being in the car!”
I didn’t give two hoots whether Una was happy or not, I wanted the meeting to end and didn’t want any more interruptions. Once again I told Rachel to go back downstairs.
“But Mommy, Una is EATING the CAR!”
Eating the car? How can a dog eat a car? I found out HOW when my meeting ended and I went downstairs to collect Vanessa and Rachel from the tennis court. Una had ripped huge chunks out of the dashboard with her sharp teeth, and the passenger door had received similar treatment. My lovely Isuzu Amigo’s interior had been torn to shreds by the dog, and getting it fixed would (and DID) prove to be a costly nightmare.
Jimmy only laughed at me when I complained about the damage to the Isuzu, only a complete fool would lock a Doberman inside a car. The man had a point!