WWOOFing in Italy: Animals

11 April 2011

As far as the farm family goes, this is one of the best farms I’ve ever been on. We sit for hours at the table conversing—-religion, GPD, European Union agricultural policy, jazz music, fava beans, you name it—-and both Fabio spends all the time in the world making sure I learn if I seem interested.

That said, there are other problems in the farm environment: cats and dogs.

Four dogs.

How many cats? Who knows—I can’t line them up to count them, and Fabio says somewhere around five, but he cannot be sure. They sit in the house, curled up on everything, and occasionally, the little instigators that they are, jump onto my lap, knowing the allergetic damage they do me. In theory, I try not to take pharmaceuticals; medical corporations are among the last I want to support. Here, though, I have been pumping my asthma inhaler at least five times a day, sometimes twice in an hour (I think the box says 4-6 hour intervals, max four times a day. Good thing I didn't bring the box with me; I don't feel so bad about it).

Then the dogs. There is a small wooden fence surrounding the house front door where the dogs stay. My house (a 2X2m wooden box, in essence) is outside, so I always have to walk through dog territory to get into the house. These are not the typical domesticated dogs; they are Italian farm dogs, small, but a little more wild evolutionarily and at heart. When I first arrived, they growled and barked at the new intruder—even while Fabio and Margherita stood there with me—but Margherita assured that this would stop if from the beginning I do the typical hand out, let them hear my voice and pet. For someone substantially allergic to dogs, you can imagine, the last part did not sound ideal, so I put more efforts toward the first two, the hand out and talking to them bit.

For the next two days, every time I entered the fence, they barked like crazy, I would put my hand out, give a few symbolic pets and words, back to the door, and exit. Then on the second or third day, I negligently assumed that enough time had passed for them to accept into the household, understanding me as a semi-permanent fixture. After the hand out and symbolic pets, I turned around to walk, and two jumped at my legs, one biting my calf and drawing blood.

Great. Now I’ll have to carry the rabies cooler (traveling in Asia, we used to joke about carrying the rabies cooler, for should one be bitten by anything, rabies shots come in a series that come over several weeks and need to be kept cold…) Fabio said that I shouldn’t worry about rabies (well, as farmers in the country, they did not give the dogs the shots that are legally required…) because there are no wolves around here. In situations like these, sometimes I turn off my better judgment for the sake of mental serenity and simplicty. Some would say, “better safe than sorry"; I say I rather not deal with Italian hospitals and I am too proud to let myself look like a complainer. (This mentality could, of course, come back to bite me in the back, no pun intended). Fabio gave me some propoli, and after one day used the gauge that I had not woken up howling at the moon to confirm that I must be fine.
For the next four days, I had to buy my entry into the house: every time I needed to pass Margherita gave me bread or dog food to pacify them. By the end of the four days, we seem to be good friends (them wanting to be pet, me wanting to use all my strength to kick the little bastards across the yard).