We are not in Croatia anymore, we left our house, put it on sale and packed the minimum of our belongings in the car and hit the road last thursday with Kali, Kymia and Anubis.
Sekhmet had disappeared since November, because of Kambo's arrival, so she decided to live the feral feline life and we are 5 left now. Kambo is a full story for himself, and we might tell it in another post, but for now let's skip fast forward to today;
The puppy siblings - one of our last walks before leaving Croatia
We had grown so tired of Croatia, especially the mentality and the way people engaged with dogs. After seeing how the puppies behaved and how even Kali freaked out at things that she usually did never react to, we realized this was not a place for them to continue living, especially not a place where they could bloom into their full potential; in the contrary, it felt the more we are staying here the more they are doomed to dysfunctionalities and a life of stress.
Our neighbourhood grew into the most hostile environment I had ever witnessed, Kambo was a big factor in the complaints, yet before we realized the puppies had gotten a fair amount of irrational behaviors and habits that they got from him and from the rural life sourrounded by unhappy and disrespected working dogs.
Kymia in our former Sun Room
Frankly it got so bad that we realized that, although they have no social skills and have rarely walked on a leash and that it might be super difficult to be traveling with them and be in public places, that we absolutely have to get them out of there, and we have no reason to postpone any of it, because they are in full growth modus, otherwise the situation will just worsen and become hell for everyone involved.
They needed to be exposed to decent people, to a lifestyle where dogs are part of the culture and where they could learn in a healthy way to live a life amongst human settings.
We looked up the most dog-friendly countries in Europe and found Italy to be Number One. The choice was not hard, since it was one of the countries we felt attracted to travel to even before this situation, so we decided we should go there and expose them to a people that has not all these judgements about dogs, and does not care that they are black, and most importantly are not so easily afraid of dogs and don't project their prejudices onto them.
Anubis, Kali (tigerstripes) and Kymia (pointy ears) on a splendid beach in Calabria two days ago
Our puppies had never had the opportunity to be properly socialized; nobody in our region would take their own dogs for a walk, all the dogs were just fenced in gardens and properties and were so neglected that they were barking incessantly for anything. Plus many of them were kept on chains outdoors all day, never entering a house. Sometimes when we would occasionally walk our dogs, the prisoner dogs would be hysterical and it did not feel good towards the puppies, most of the times they were terrified and it made them very apprehensive about other dogs in general, so much so that this is one of our biggest challenges right now; Kali has never had any issue with dogs, she would even most of the time walk towards stranger dogs to meet them, fearlessly and never destabilized by any stranger dog. She has exceptional social skills with dogs. However, whenever we are out and about with the puppies and one of them starts barking, she joins in, which creates a chain reaction that has been highly annoying for all of us. I feel she is more reacting out of her protective instinct and jumping in defense mode when one of the puppies (especially Anubis) feels threatened and barks at people and dogs. I was so puzzled in the beginning as I had never seen her be so defensive, she was always so chilled out, so much so that often in public I could let her off leash and she would be totally calm unless she sees a cat of course, or a running child in the rarest instances. But she was used since very young to be outside with me, in cafes and bars and being surrounded by many people without feeling threatened, so this behavior was very new. But I realized it was always only in the presence of the puppies, when I took her out sometimes on her own, she was back her usual self, always just minding her business and ignoring everyone, or completely open to greet other dogs without drama.
So this was the core reason why we decided to leave everything behind and just hit the road into the Unknown.
With all that's had happened in the past months, there was a big overall feeling as if there is nothing much left to 'lose' or leave behind anyway, and that we should just really size down and have the chance to choose what we want to drag along with us on this new 'minimalist' chapter.
Kali and Anubis in the back during our first rally, Anubis looks like he trained for a Terminator movie role
We have stayed at 3 different places so far and we are officially nomads, especially the puppies are learning nomadhood for real real.
On one side, they are faring exceptionally well for all the odds that stood before the trip and this ultra new stimuli.
And yet, the first Airbnb we stayed in accepted the dogs running freely, but he probably never had guests with such feral dogs as ours, as on the second day he texted us about their mishaps;
So after a little confrontation with myself and our pack dynamics, I realized we had to change up the criteria of our relationship around what freedom really means for all of us, individually and as a group...
Anubis in the first AirBnb Chalet we stayed at soaking in the mischief rays of the sun
Check back in soon for the rest of the adventure,
Nomad Pack on the road through Italy