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NIGHTINGALE
The
amazing story of a stubborn princess European Yorkie!
(All right reserved. Copyright 1997)
by
Sabrina A. Parisi & Dolce Sinfonia
Nightingale
Dolce Sinfonia lives in southern Italy in a big villa on the hill
just across the straight of Messina
with the view of the
 Mediterranean
sea. The villa is surrounded by huge Bougainvilleas and
majestic Weeping Willow’s trees. This is the Dolce Sinfonia household.
Nightingale
is a tiny 10 years old Yorky of about 3 1/2 pound. Even if she is
small, she has a very beautiful structure, lovely color and very
harmonious movement. When she is caressed her hair it feels like cool
silk. It is shimmering and smooth. In the middle of her stunning
head she has a black, sparkling streak, which should have
disappeared as she became of adult age but it did not. This particular part on her face
gives her a certain charming character! She has a very proud
face…perhaps a little spoiled like most Yorkshire terrier are, but
most of all she is a graceful and aristocratic Yorkie girl.
 Nightingale has
big, deep eyes with long, black eyelashes and when she looks at you
she knows exactly how to conquer your heart. When you talk to her,
she knows how to listen to you. She moves her head from right to the
left and you are enchanted by the exquisite, charming expression.
She is a joy!
Nightingale is also an enthusiastic
music lover and a fanatic talkative of her species. Yes, she
talks! She makes her special, unique sound so people can
understand when she is happy, concern or upset. She is a rare flower
and a joy...I used to call her “my special doll. or La mia
principessa”!She is an eccentric too!
She knows she is a princess. As a matter of fact,
Nightingale always wears a huge, red bow and she adores looking at
herself on the mirror.
 She has royal blood with a fantastic
pedigree, which includes the best European World Champions. When she
was younger, I showed her several times in dog shows, she got some points, but
“poor little one” she was too small and also thanks to her stubborn
personality, she never finished a Championship. Nevertheless, Nightingale became
the Best In Show winner of my heart!
A terrible experience...
It was winter and an annoying rain hammered the big
windows in my parent’s house in Italy.
This was a very big home of over five thousand square feet. Huge
windows wrapped by elegant flowery curtain, crystal chandeliers and
expensive Persian rugs. Nightingale was almost 2 years old and
that was the day
she would have had
a really horrifying experience. Something that would have changed her
life forever!. While
she was sleeping in her pink velvet basket situated
in the dinning room with her little friend Surprise. They both had
a pink jacket and paper wraps for the hair. A wood fire place was
reflecting red and orange shades and producing soft color all over
the room. Nightingale loved the squeak of the burning wood. She was
so cozy and so warm. She knew that her human family was away but
they would have come back in a few hours.
All of a sudden something happened. Someone
broke the big window in the kitchen and thieves erupted in to the house. They
turned on all the
lights, didn’t care about the loud alarm and started opening
drawers and shelf and removing pictures from the walls. Both Nightingale and Surprise
jumped from the basket. Surprise ran under a sofa but Nightingale
as fearless and stubborn as she was started barking.
The thieves
stole everything of value including
the most valuable of all: Nightingale.
Poor little one, I guess she was petrified…and in my dreams and in
my thought I only could imagine her feelings and her terror. My
loving family spent almost two weeks to try to find her. We placed
ads in the local newspapers, posted posters on streets, met with the
policemen (carabinieri) …but nothing! Two terrible and anguished
weeks!
For my family, and
me Nightingale was more important of all the jewelry and money
stolen in our house. We badly wanted to have her back! I convinced
my dad to publish Nightingale's disappearance in the local
newspaper. The first thing published was to notify the thieves to
give her back to us and that she was our princess. We missed
her tremendously! She was our family member. We also
stated that Nightingale had a tattoo and it would have
been enormously risky for them to keep her. News like this, with the
story of a kidnapped Yorkshire Terrier dressing a pink satin jacket
with rolls on her hair and a big red bow on her head would have
appeared ridiculous and bizarre to those people who
read the paper and never owned an animal.
 We received some
suspicious phone calls and few letters. I guess, these criminals
understood how important the girl was for us and they wanted to take
advantage of it. We informed the
policemen
(In Italian, carabinieri) of what was going on.
They were nonchalant. They must have laughed at us since the kidnap of a tiny dog was not
as important of a case to resolve. Therefore, after all we did we
did not receive any help to try to have her back.
The Ransom..
On a Monday
morning, exactly two weeks from the
disappearance, we received a
nasty letter: "You want to have your useless dog back you give us
money...lots of money!" Completely and absolutely against my dad's
principle and integrity, against all his beliefs and ideals, his
morality, against his opinion... My dad would never, never accept to
pay any ransom!! But I finally convinced him. Yes, this was
outrageous but we did not have any other choice and any real
assistance from anyone. In the end we got the poor girl back. When
these thieves stole Nightingale, her long coat was wrapped in the
curlers (like all show dogs), she also had a pink satin jacket which
was to protect her hair. But when she came back home she looked
pathetic and miserable. When she was returned to us, for a long,
long moment I almost did not recognize her. She was completely nude.
Her marvelous coat was shaved off, just a few hairs on top of her
spine and on her heartbreaking face. I could see she was abused. She
was in shock, she missed two teeth, she refused to eat, and she was
terrorized.
For several weeks
poor Nightingale hid under the sofa or under the bed and it seemed
she refused to live. We almost lost her. Her personality was
irrefutably changed and her trust for human beings completely
destroyed. We really never knew what terrible thinks happened to
her! Or what cruel people may have
been perpetrated to such a small, cute Yorky.
After that horrible experience Nightingale became very possessive
with all my family, and very timid with our guest.
Eventually
Nightingale's hair grew back, she got a little more confident with
strangers but she never participated to a Dog Show anymore. She just
decided to become my mom’s pet! Nightingale needed lots of love.
After her terrible
experience, Nightingale started to have epileptic crisis every time
we left her alone or when it rained. This horrible experience
changed her life forever!
Nightingale was
scared and sad to see.
The nurse...
Most of all I was afraid to breed her, because of her
small size and her precarious condition. And most of all I was
afraid to have her spayed since my vet stated that would have been
very risky to give her any form of anesthesia. But a particular aspect of
her new personality was her feeling for the other puppies.
Nightingale wanted
to be a mom! Several times she tried to steal puppies from the other
mothers. She loved to raise those puppies. She was very warm and
overprotective. Every time there was a girl
delivered puppies, she
was in the center, encouraging the mother and helped the mom clean
the newborn puppies. She was there, producing this strange
encouraging sound, like she was talking with the mom and kissing and
licking the new puppy. So attentive and excited with a very happy
and satisfied expression. For a strange and unusual reason all my
female Yorkies trusted Nightingale and like to have her with them when
they are about to deliver! So it is not surprising if we began to
call her, our nurse.
When Nightingale
was three years old, she had a false pregnancy, and the day she was
to give birth, she disappeared for almost 24 hours... My parents
have this big house with a very large property. We tried to find
her, went all over, and called her... Nothing! We were very worried
and afraid... but that night, very late she came back. She was all
dirty, full of scratches but with something very special. Her eyes
were full of life and joy like a heroine who just won her big
battle. She had a scary kitten of about two weeks in her mouth. This
small kitten was so heavy for her small mouth but she was very happy
and proud, finally she had her own baby. She
placed the kitten in her
basket and
began to clean him and kiss him. We never knew where
she found that small kitten. We
imagined there was a litter some
place in our garden and she stole a kitten from there.
Nightingale raised
this kitten, as he was a Yorky! We named him Sirius. She was very
jealous and possessive of him. Very protective and attentive! She
gave him milk and she stopped having epileptic seizures and no
longer afraid to stay alone.
A lunatic cat...
This kitten became
an 8-pound, virile cat. A very strong, healthy, muscular cat that
never thought to be something different than a Yorky! He grew up
with all these little Yorkies, with litters, bitches, studs, show
dogs, and never realized his real feline nature. Big Sirius really
thought to be a Yorky. When Sirius became adult, he also started to
have some unnatural feeling with the bitches in heat.
Many times he
was in the center where there was a fight (that I stopped fast!)
between the studs! As I said, he thought to be a dog! Catching mice
was part to being a terrier, after all not only the trait of a cat.
Sirius was really good… great at catching the mice... I would say,
the best!
 One day my aunt
Francesca came to my house with her new cat. A cute and soft 2
months old tri-color Tabby kitten. When Sirius saw this kitten he
was terrorized and surprised at the same time, what strange animal
was that one??? Was that animal something dogs are born for,
something to catch? So he went wild. He figured out his own
misconception conclusion and realized that there was a difference
between him, being a Yorky and the cat being the enemy. Big Sirius
decided to surprise everybody. He tried and tried to comunicate and after
a while a
strange mixed deep sound, that came out from his mouth a bark like a
dog. We where astonished! Big Sirius definitely was barking!
Every time big
Sirius was in trouble he barked to call the other Yorkies which
together went to
 rescue him. One time I saw him raise the leg to do pipi like the other dogs. He marked the territory liker the other
studs. He was a trouble-maker, he was such a pest but for his mom
Nightingale, he was just a lovely cherub. She could forgive anything
he did. At the age of 3 years, steady and obstinate big Sirius was
still looking to nurse under his mom and Nightingale never pushed
him away. As the Walt Disney movie where there was the Great Dane
thinking to be a small dog, Sirius was really
thought to be a
dog... and a Yorky to be completely exact! Nightingale raised this
handsome cat all his life (for about four years!) She loved him very
much. He was her own baby. Her joy, her life, the star of her eyes.
She was healthy for him! And he loved her too, exchanging kisses
with his mom.
Good-bye Big-Sirius...
When Nightingale
was 6 years old, a terrible tragedy happened, big Sirius was run
over by a car. He died instantly. For the first time in his life
big, curios Sirius went outside our yard and a car killed him. Don Ciccio, our old gardener, found him.
He silently dug a grave for him under a
gorgeous pink Peach tree full of flowers.
Nightingale waited all day for her son but
big Sirius never came back. The worried over-protective mom
Nightingale, tried for days to find him. But nothing! She cried like
she was a human. She followed me, my mother, my father...
everybody in the family to try to find her loving son. Looking if we
were carrying something in our hands. Trying to have some answer.
Any answer... But no one in my family had the strength to look at
her on her worried eyes. She was so extremely anguishing to see.
So pitiable! Somehow she went to the second floor of my house to try
to find him and she dropped from the landing. It was a miracle she
did not die, though she damaged her spine and one of her legs and
she became lame. Nightingale never forgot her son!
Nightingale
continued to be the nurse of the Yorkies and over protective with
the new born puppies but she never adopted a cat again and never
stopped to look for her big baby's return.
The same day
Nightingale turned 7 years old, the commandant of the policemen
called my family. Apparently they found
the thieves who many years before stole things in my house and put
them in jail. We could not recognize them, we never saw
their face but Nightingale did. Oh, yes! And I will never forget her
aggressive, violent bark when she saw them on the other side of the
glass. She really had a strong memory, Yorkshire Terriers are known
for that! Nightingale wanted everybody to listen at her. The old
Lady had her revenge!
The old lady...
Seven years old and
still the most pretty, the most appealing Yorky! At the age of 7
years, Nightingale still looked like my princess and
was just gorgeous
in my eyes. Her hair may have turned lighter and her hearing not
that alert or acute as it used to be, her top line not that straight
anymore but…but she was still my stubborn puppy, my little
 heroine,
my other half. We spent so many years together, grew up together but
I was not a teenager anymore and so I had to leave home to finish
my education. It was sad but I had to live her with my mom and with
the other Yorkies for about one year, because
of my school in Pisa.
Nightingale still slept
in her basket in my room with one
of my t-shirt to warm her and a stuffy old teddy bear to keep her
safe. Every morning she looked for me, but she always found my bed
empty. Slowly she went downstairs, had her breakfast with the other Yorky family, looked outside the window to see for the return of her
Sirius, and then quietly slept on her other basket in my mom's
kitchen. . Every morning the little rascal Symbol Change, a
sparkling, little puppy liked to play with her. He used to bite her
legs and her tail and pull her hair from her mustaches. Change, as
we all call him is our orphan baby, his mom died suddenly. Of course
Nightingale adopted him too. She adored him. A dog puppy after all!
My mom did not
notice or did not recognize a silent heat and Nightingale decided to
get married in her older age. Already in love, she decided to
seriously engage to the young boy, Symbol Change, the shy but
gorgeous 12 months old orphan. Unbelievable, Nightingale
remained pregnant at the age of 7 years old. It was our time to be
in shock and petrified!! But we hoped and prayed for the best!
The two months of
her pregnancy were two of the most tormenting of my life in Yorky
Breeding. I was terrorized to loose her... she was so tiny... so
old... lame... but strangely, not tired, not sick or pathetic! Those
two months she came back to life. She knew she was waiting her
puppies, her own puppies finally and I could see it looking her
black and sweet eyes. Her coat was so shiny and her
expression, her
body was so healthy! I guess her immune system was changing and got
stronger. Nightingale looked younger. She looked happy. She...the
most loving mom!
 Nightingale free
whelped two beautiful and healthy boys. She was an impeccable mother
and Symbol Change an astonished husband! After this birth she
definitely started to live and she became strong and never had any other
kind of problems. I called these two boys: Squirrel (a very small
one that I never sold cause his size and his attachment with his
mom!) and Love-Knot (a magnificent boy that went to live with a dear
friend in Europe!). Love
-Knot is one of the Stars by FCI. He is now a two years old boy and
he weights almost 4 pounds. He is fantastic and gorgeous male.
Nightingale lives
now in Italy with her small toy...or small boy Squirrel. She is an
old, lame and strong lady who spent all her life in a great adventure like
Indiana Jones. She is happy and she lives with my mom in a Paradise
setting.
Nightingale is still the
eccentric nurse of “Dolce Sinfonia’s girls.
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