Cupramontana - No Country For Dogs

Ok, so we are back in Cupramontana, waiting for the new non-Fastweb phone line to come alive in Rome (will take some time though).

Cupramontana is a quiet, ancient village on the hills of Jesi, in central Italy. It is a nice place for humans   but not so for dogs, because of the lack of any sort of dog park. It is not that dogs are unknown in the area, but most owners either have a yard and they just keep the dog there, or else at walk time they just push the dog out of the door and if it gets run over by a car well never mind, it was just a dog.

This is very sad, and - before you ask - yes, letting your dog roam unsupervised is downright illegal in Italy. However nobody here seems to worry, except possibly for a half dozen of masters that actually do care for their dogs. You would think that for a town of 3000 inhabitants with two football stadiums, one baseball stadium, a sport palace and a number of parks and unused land parcels raising a fence around a free area and call it a dog park should be a no brainer. But no, the city council of Cupramontana has "more important issues to deal with", so they can't let such a menial matter to interfere with bringing peace to the world, finding a cure for cancer, contacting aliens or whatever they think taxpayer's money is supposed to be spent on.

So I can either get walked at roadside (sidewalks being another thing the City Council would rather not be bothered with), or I can visit the two semi-abandoned public parks, both of which are unfenced and dangerous for both dogs and children - Parco Colle Elisa is so ugly and unconvenient that even junkies give it a wide berth, and Parco Grande Torino is a muddy slope that for some reason is always wet and its benches are placed at 45 degrees, like something out of a bad five-years plan in Soviet Russia. Or else Master and Dad can drive me for like 20 miles of twisting mountain road to the nice dog parks in Pianello and Jesi, where I can run around and play.

This is me in the nice dog park of Pianello Vallesina pawning ™ the fine dog Rolly at frisbee and tennis ball and most everything else :)

Next time less rants and more pics. Kissies :)

Communication breakdown

Standing by...

Is it possible that in Our Lord's Year 2014 both your telephone and data line die of a sudden death for "unknown technical reasons" and you are unable to get it fixed OR to switch to another provider ?

The answer is yes, if you make the huge mistake of using the Italian provider Fastweb. Dad's phone line died on December 20th, Fastweb did not fix it and blocked the switch process, and the bottom line is that with some luck our phone and internet will be back in service at the end of March.

Buyer beware.


In other news:

• Dad hasn't been that well, but now he's much better.
• I have been bitten a number of times by stupid sociopathic dogs, so now I am more careful in choosing playmates.
• Rome has been flooded last week and I found a nice pond for diving and splashing.
• Silvia came visiting from Edinburgh and left me a sock for a present !

Here I pretend to jump at the ball...

... but what I really wanted was to bite Silvia's forearm, haha :)

More on this in later posts including some very nice pics of me pwining other dogs (nice ones that don't bite me), but first we need to get the phone line going so don't hold your breath. Kissies :)