Category: Fantastic 4

So the minute Marvin was born, my husband pulled him out of the box and said we are keeping him.  Marvin stood out immediately.  When you look at the puppies you’ll notice one with reddish brown speckles at the end of his coat hairs, that’s Marvin.  Rodrigo said he will grow up to be most like Belafonte.  I wasn’t so sure I wanted to have Belo share attention with another male.  Rodrigo spent months trying to convince me to keep Marvin.  Finally we agreed we would work to find someone who would take care of him as much as we took care of Belo and be able to visit Marvin regularly.  Obviously things changed and we kept Marvin.  Also true to Rodrigo’s prophecy, Marvin does look like Belafonte.

Marvin

Belafonte

I call Marvin my little lion because he sits in front of our bedroom like a lion overseeing his kingdom.  His presence just like his dad’s is very intense.  Most people are apprehensive to come near him.  However just like his dad, Belo, he is over the top playful and happy.  He does tend to get over excited and jump on people sometimes hurting them.  I am working with him to manage his excitement.  One of the reasons I think he can’t control himself is because he still is intact.  This is a point of contention with me and my husband.  I apparently cannot win this argument.

I remember when Belo was around and Marvin just wanted to play with him.  Belo already upset that these little ones were taking attention away from him was not entertained by this mini – Belo wanting to play.  Marvin used to do the puppy bow and bark in that tiny puppy bark and then try to growl and jump on him.  Belo would just look at Marvin sometimes letting out one loud bark as to say no.  I am sure Belo and Marvin would have grown up together well.  I was already seeing Belo reprimand Marvin when he did things like try to get into our trash and such.

Flora and Marvin

Every time I look at Marvin, I see Belafonte.   When Belo’s death was recent, I couldn’t stop crying each time I looked at Marvin.  Poor little guy he probably has some sort of complex. I think Zena feels the same as I do because I do see her look at Marvin and then seem to be depressed.  But, Marvin is his own dog and not Belafonte.  He is growing up to be the protector of the girls and a great lion.

I think this song best suits him.

Elsa also has many nicknames.  She is the healer, The Dude, La La, and my little rasta.  She came close to being adopted 3x! Each time at the last minute the adoptees decided they would not have the time needed to devote to her.

Oddly, she is the most low maintenance dog ever.  She got the little rasta name because it is like she is always stoned.  I’ll call and call her but she doesn’t come because she is in a deep sleep.  When she does wake from her slumber, she’ll stop and assess the situation to see if it is really worth her moving from her comfort spot.

When she is awake, I swear you can hear her thinking La La Laaaa Laa.  Elsa is the other half of the The Dude and Walter team.  She of course is The Dude.  When Flora is tightly wound or the others are barking and freaking out, she is in the back looking around and I swear saying “Well that’s just, like, your opinion man.”

Most important name she has is the healer.  The night Belafonte died, I couldn’t stop crying.  Elsa walked up to me and started licking my tears away.  The more I cried the more she licked.  She stood by me and comforted me.

We were planning to go to an adoption fair that weekend. Naturally I couldn’t give up especially after how she comforted me.  Elsa would be the healer for everyone.  If someone was injured, Elsa was there licking and comforting.  If we see a stray dog weary and scared, Elsa will walk over and give him love.  She is the most friendly and most caring of our dogs.   She makes me laugh the way she just goes through life enjoying everything.  I believe it is why Belo took to her immediately.

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She has two strong characteristics that remind me of her dad, Belafonte.  One, she really enjoys everything the world offers.  She will stop and smell everything look at everything and everything is just amazing.  The other is her passion for playing catch.  Just like Belo, she can play catch non-stop.  Like NON stop.  Her passion almost boarders on a horror film.  She enjoys pushing the ball under stoves, couches, and beds so I must crawl to get them.  She will also kick the ball into the room I’m in to ensure I see this ominous ball rolling, warning me that it is time.  I will always stop and play with her.  It still hurts me knowing that I will never get to play ball with Belafonte ever again.  I don’t want to  ever miss out with Elsa.

As I am uploading all her photos and videos to this post, she came over to snuggle with me. 

I can’t say enough about Elsa, she is loving, caring, fun, laid back and a great friend.   She doesn’t need much training.  Elsa tends to follow her mom which is usually good except Zena has a very high prey drive which now Elsa is following.  Each morning Elsa runs the same spot where she once found a cat in a tree.  She will bark at that tree all morning if I let her.

Of course Elsa’s song would be Bob Marley …

Ah Flora, put a camera in front of her and she’ll strike a pose.   She could easily teach Tyra the right way to smize.   We were not planning on keeping her.  Actually we were not planning to keep any of the puppies.  I was actually looking forward to growing old with my husband, Zena and Belafonte.  But, we know how that ended.

She got the ladrona name (the Thief) because she learned how to open doors and jump through windows to get to where she wanted to be.  Belafonte used to open doors and jump through windows and I believe that is how Flora learned.  I often see her watching us and I truly believe someday she will learn how to use a key to open the doors.  Flora is also known to be the number one suspect in the disappearance of very expensive cheese, pate, and a 1/2 a kilo of prosciutto.  Yes my babies are gourmandes, would you expect anything else.

She is really good at mimicking others.  When people enter our home she tries to give everyone a kiss on the cheek just like we do.  Unfortunately she is really strong and a bit of a brute and our guest think she is attacking them.

As you can see she is totally visually different than her brothers and sisters.  She has short hair.  All other factors her eyes, ears, body type and tail are all the same as the others.  She trots just like her dad, Belafonte. She even poops like her dad.  Sometimes I think she knows she is different in many ways and that is why she desperately needs to be a part of the group or she will have a meltdown.

Flora came to us in a very stressful way.  One day all the pups were out and playing.  Zena and Belafonte started to play too.  They were a bit away from the pups.  Suddenly Flora starts prancing towards her parents play area and tried to play with them. Flora fell as puppies sometimes do.  However, this time she fell in such a way that she had a concussion.  My heart sank when she cried and freaked out.  The worst is when dogs get a concussion it is common that they have a seizure and that’s what Flora did in my hands.  (she was that small, she fit into my hands)  Rodrigo came home just as I sat there not knowing what to do as she went into seizure.  He immediately grabbed her and ran to our vet a half a block from our home.

So our plan was to tend to her and ensure she didn’t have any major damage before we adopted her.  We gave her vitamin B and some anti seizure medicine.  And because I am hyper sensitive about my babies, I worried that the other puppies would knock her down or she do something to injure herself again.  So I kept her with me at all times. She slept on my desk when I worked, she slept with me well actually she snuggled into Rodrigo’s neck. Suddenly she developed a very big personality.  When I let her back with the rest of the group, she acted like she was the queen of the puppies.  She would take toys and be sure she sat in the highest perch.  Flora would also get very cranky if I didn’t let her in a room.  She would throw a fit.  That is when we started to call her Paris and then my mom called her Channel.

After Belo died, she did NOT want to go out of the house.  When we took her for walks with the group, she would cry really loud like she was dying or something.  Eventually she got over that.  However out on the street, she is in fear mode and is nearly impossible to walk.  I’ve been working with her and she is almost calm.  Flora still can’t go out alone.  I have to take another one of the crew to accompany her and me on the walk.

When we are in the country she is magnificent.  She is right near me and will always listen not like the others.

My training challenge with her is her fear.  She fears everything and reacts to it in a fright flight way.   I hope to be able to document my successful account with changing her fear reactions.  She is really responsive to praise and totally needs to be a part of the pack so I think there is potential.

As she develops her personality, Flora gains many nicknames her most recent is Walter as in the Dude and Walter.  Flora is the Walter to Elsa’s Dude.  But more on their relationship later.

If I had a go cam on Flora, this would be the soundtrack.

I call her the Queen “La Reina” because with everything she has gone through she still carries herself with grace and style much like a Queen.  In less than an year with us, Zena traveled from Cyprus to Argentina, fell in love with her soulmate Belafonte, then moved from Buenos Aires to Cordoba, had 11 puppies and lost Belafonte. We also traveled across the Andes to Chile.  It has been 2 years since she moved in with us and I couldn’t imagine being without her.

What more can I say about Zena?  She is my best friend. She is a 5 time Gold Medalist in the Nap-Olympics.  She does have some heavy competition with her daughter Elsa but I’m sure she can keep her title this year. Seriously, there is no living creature on this earth that is a better napping partner than Zena, trust me.  The worst is she will suck you into taking a nap with her. Each morning she wakes me by sitting on my chest sticking her unusually sharp elbows into my ribs and licks my face until I can’t breathe. Then she just sits there staring at me.  We snuggle for a while and start our day.

Being with her is relaxing, I actually hear the British Airways Boarding song, Flower Duet from Lakme in my head when we are out for a walk.  She is the essence of chill.  Nothing phases her.  As a mother to 11 puppies, she was a bit overwhelmed and sometimes ran away from them.  Yet, was always the protector and tried her best to manage them.  She is the best all time dog ever.

Her only issue, she is a very driven hunter.  I’m working with her to manage her hunter instincts.  Right now, if there is a cat or a cow or a horse or goat or jack rabbit that is in a 1/2 a mile or less radius, Zena will lock onto it and chase it down until it is cornered or runs up a tree/hides.  The goal is for her to hear my commands even when she has tunnel vision for the prey.  More on my training experiences in later blogs.

To sum it up, do you remember when you were young and you had a tough day you go home and your mom gives you a big hug and suddenly the bad day is gone?  That’s Zena. She is like a mom’s hug on a bad day.

How we found each other –

The way Zena and I got together is rather unique.  I was always intrigued to know what breed was Belafonte. I knew his mother was a Giant Schnauzer but no one knew his father.  So what I used to do to get an idea of the other half of Belo was Google Giant Schnauzer and X breed then look at the photos to see if they matched the appearance of Belo.  One night I Googled Giant Schnauzer and Pointer which is what I believe are both Belo and Zena heritage.  The top Google response was this photo.

Suddenly I had the same feeling I had when I found Belafonte, instant attraction.  I clicked on the link which sent me to an ad asking for someone to adopt her! The only issue was Zena’s location, Cyprus.  Just for the hell of it, I emailed Eleni, the poster of the advertisement.  We started writing back and forth and the more I knew about Zena, the more I fell in love. Rodrigo and I often talked about getting Belo a playmate since he seemed to strike out with the female dogs often.

When I approached Rodrigo about getting another dog, he said sure sounds great.  Then I mentioned that the dog was in Cyprus and well he had an issue.  I had to cancel the shared birthday trip to Spain during the month of Nov/Dec I was planning which, by the way cost way more than the cost of shipping Zena but that was my deal in order to get Zena.  Through IPATA, I found a wonderful organization based in Cyprus that would help us with Zena’s travel.  If you ever need to travel to another country with your dog(s) go to IPATA first the organization provides great information and has references to reputable animal transportation companies.  Working closely with Eleni, it took me a solid month to find and arrange the service.  It was strange, even Rodrigo was on board with adopting Zena and had no concerns.  My mother and sister felt good about Zena too.  The only person who had doubt was my dad.  I started to listen to dad and thought about backing out.  When I wrote to Eleni, she didn’t pressure me but I felt guilty backing out as well as  I kept hearing my sister say “F*%K what dad says, why would you ever listen to him?”

I never gave it a thought that maybe Zena and Belo would not get along.  I never thought about the possibility she would be a terror of a dog or have major issues.  The whole time I wrote back and forth to Eleni about transporting Zena I just knew it was right.

The coolest part is I’ve made a few friends I’ve never formally met because of Zena, the parents of Zena’s brothers.  Maybe someday Zena and I will travel to see her brothers and parents or maybe they will come visit us.

https://youtu.be/nDc5-x4Hvd4