This post is dedicated to all my blog friends in the faraway place called Italy, such as Homer and Paco, Milo & Maya the Golden Retrievers.
And I would also like to introduce a new doggie to everybody: the beautiful Lucille!
Lucille is a 2 & half yr old mantle Great Dane who lives in Verona, Italy.
She has been reading my blog for a while now and we have been woofing by email – but I have finally convinced her to start her own blog so you can all share her wonderful adventures in her beautiful country! 
http://lucillemia.wordpress.com/
Please do visit her and say hello! (or Ciao! 
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Look - one of Lucille’s favourite walks is around Lake Garda – isn’t it gorgeous?
Lucille & her human, Nicoletta by Lake Garda
Lucille’s humans, Mario & Nicoletta, like to take her out with them to lots of different places and do lots of different things with her. Nicoletta also does lots of fun trainings with her, like Hsin-Yi does with me - I wish we lived closer ‘coz I’m sure we would be great real-life friends! 
Lucille as a puppy - already a typically chic and stylish Italian girl!
When Lucille was born, she was even in the newspapers because her mummy had such a big litter of puppies! Lucille says this may be why her mummy “spared the effort for me” – and so she has grown up to be a very dainty Dane who only weighs 46kg. But size doesn’t matter! Hsin-Yi thinks lots of Dane owners (usually male humans! 
) spend too much time worrying about how big their Danes are going to grow and always measuring and weighing and comparing…when it’s really quality that matters not quantity! And Lucille shows just how beautiful a Dane you can be, never mind what size you are! 
Anyway, I remember when I first started blogging, I didn’t know any doggies at all and it was a bit lonely until I made some friends – so I hope you will pop over to welcome Lucille to the blog world!
Well, since this post is about all things Italian, I thought I would show you some photos from my humans’ visit to Italy. This was a long time ago – when they were still living in the faraway place called England and of course, they didn’t have me yet (Hsin-Yi says this was when she could still wear nice clothes and didn’t spend her life swimming in a sea of slobber! )
Hsin-Yi’s younger sisters were visiting my humans in England for their school summer holidays so they decided to all go together for a trip around Italy. It was also the summer just after Paul finished his Human Vet School and before he started doing the Work Thing in hospital (and his life ended – ha! ha! 
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So they started in Rome…
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…where they began their training for Tourist Champion CTX and earned the first leg towards their title by visiting all the famous things, like the Spanish Steps and Piazza Navona…
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..they ate lots of yummy pizza…
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…saw every breed of pasta…
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… tried gelato of every flavour…
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…said ‘Ciao’ to some Roman doggies…
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…and of course, visisted the famous Colosseum…
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…where Hsin-Yi even had a fight with a handsome gladiator!
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They also visited the famous Trevi Fountain…
…there is a story which says that if you throw a coin money into the Trevi Fountain, there will be magic to help you come back to Italy again. There were lots and lots of coin moneys in the water! But Hsin-Yi says it is nice sometimes to believe in silly stories…
…Hsin-Yi likes silly stories so they went to see another famous place with a silly story. It is a big stone face called La Bocca della Verita (The Mouth of Truth) and the story says that if you don’t tell the truth when you put your hand inside its mouth, it will bite your hand off! 
My humans also went to a special place called Vatican City which is a mini-country inside Rome, where a special human called the Pope lives. The Vatican has its own police called the Swiss Guards (who I think protect the Pope by scaring people off with the bright colours of their coats) and even gives out its own passports. All well-trained tourists send a postcard home to themselves from the Vatican post-office…
Inside Vatican City are some very famous buildings called the Vatican Museums which have rooms like the Sistine Chapel with beautiful pictures painted on the ceiling and other rooms with lots and lots of statues from the old stories Hsin-Yi likes to read called “Greek myths”…
Vatican City also has a famous big church called St Peter’s Basilica which is where the Pope stands and waves to people. It is very big inside and has lots of pretty windows made up of different colours.
Outside, there is a big white stone fence around St Peter’s Basilica with lots of big white statues on top – Hsin-Yi says if any of your humans saw the movie “Angels & Demons” – these are the same scary statues in the movie!
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Then my humans went out of Rome on a very famous, very old, very straight road called the ‘Appian Way’…
….and drove their car machine into Tuscany, where they were staying at a lovely B&B high up in the mountains, with beautiful old rooms and amazing views across the valley. But the best thing about the B&B for Hsin-Yi was the resident doggie!
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…and there was a kitty too who kept her company every morning at breakfast…
The B&B was near an old empty monastery which the silly stories said was full of ghosts…so of course, Hsin-Yi wanted to go there to see! It was very empty and creepy there – and my humans had to climb in the windows…then they heard a funny noise and all ran out screaming!
Tuscany is Paul’s favourite part of Italy – all parts of Italy are beautiful but Paul thinks Tuscany is the most beautiful of all!
Look at what was just growing by the side of the road as my humans drove past in their car machine!
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Tuscany is famous for many “walled cities” – these are old cities that have a big wall all around them. My humans went to visit two: Monteriggioni and Siena…
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…sometimes the walls are big enough that you can even walk around on them, like a road!
...on the wall around Siena
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…and inside the walls is a whole city, with homes and shops and towers and churches and big open squares…
…and restaurants with lots of yummy food (my humans say food is extra yummy in Italy – even just bread and olive oil tastes super yummy! )
By now my humans had almost earned their Intermediate Tourist title – they just had a few more things to do for the final leg. One of the things all well-trained tourists do is go to a place called Pisa and look at a big tower that is leaning on its side like it is going to fall over….
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…and when they’ve done that, they must also visit a city called Florence, where there are lots of famous things to see, like the Duomo…
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Look, there was even a mini-Lorenza visiting the Duomo!
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…the Uffizi Gallery (where my humans queued for 4 hours to get in!!)
…and the Accademia Gallery, where of course, the most famous thing to look at is a big statue of a young man called David, which was made by a famous Artist Human called Michaelangelo who lived long ago.
David is famous because he is supposed to be the most beautiful human – but Hsin-Yi didn’t think he was very beautiful at all. She thinks they should have had a statue of Hugh Jackman (preferably as Wolverine) or Colin Firth (preferably as Mark Darcy) instead.
The other thing that Florence is very famous for is a big bridge called the Ponte Vecchio, which is not like a normal bridge at all because it has many shops on it.
A long time ago, these shops used to sell yummies like meat and fish and vegetables but it was very stinky so they changed them to shops that sell pretty things made from a shiny yellow metal called ‘gold’ – especially a kind called “filigree jewellery”.
…and just before they left Florence, they stopped to see the famous Fontana del Porcellino (Fountain of the Piglet) where another silly story said that if you rub the piggie’s nose, your wish well come true. I think a lot of people believed that silly story because the tip of his nose was very smooth and shiny!
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Well, by now my humans were ready for the Advanced Tourist title as they left Tuscany and went on to the last leg of their journey – to an amazing city sitting on the water – the city of Venice…
This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty-this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.
~ Thomas Mann
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Venice was Hsin-Yi’s favourite place in Italy - she thinks it is the most beautiful, romantic city…everything is romantic, even the toilets! For example, my humans were just staying in a small, cheap B&B called a pensione but look how pretty it was!
Hsin-Yi & the famous 'Winged Lion of Venice'
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Paul didn’t like Venice so much. He thought it was very dirty with lots of people pushing everywhere and everything looked very old and broken, like an old lady but Hsin-Yi said that was because he was not romantic enough. Who cares about rubbish in the streets when there is a magic feeling in the air? Yes, Venice is like an old lady but if you look hard enough past her wrinkles, you will see how beautiful she still is.
The one thing my humans agreed on was that it is really difficult to find your way around in Venice! Even with a map, they kept getting lost all the time because all the streets looked the same and were mixed up together, like spaghetti. This made Paul very grumpy but Hsin-Yi said that was because he was not romantic enough – it is wonderful just to get lost in Venice!
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The humans in Venice make a special kind of fake face to put over your real face, called a mask – and they make them in all sorts of beautiful shapes and colours! Hsin-Yi’s dream is to go back to Venice one day during the Venice Carnival when everybody walks around wearing masks and it feels like you are in a fairytale.
One the most famous places in Venice is a big church called St Mark’s Basilica but my humans had seen so many churches by then that they were “churched out” and so they didn’t go in – they just looked at the beautiful outsides.
Even better than St Mark’s Basilica is the big space next to it called St Mark’s Square - it is huge and there are cafes and restaurants all around and humans making music… Hsin-Yi thought it was a wonderful, magic feeling especially when the pigeons flew up around the square. Paul doesn’t like pigeons because he grew up in London – he said they were like dirty “flying rats”…
By now, Hsin-Yi was getting very grumpy with Paul’s un-romantic-ness. So Paul quickly decided he was romantic enough to sit with Hsin-Yi at one of the cafes and listen to the music and watch the sun go down over the water…!
Of course, the most famous romantic thing to do in Venice is to sit in a very long, narrow, black boat called a gondola and have an Italian man wearing a funny hat push you around using a long stick and singing an Italian song while he was doing that.
But this time, Hsin-Yi decided she didn’t want to be romantic because you had to pay a LOT of money paper to do something very silly: US$90 for 20 minutes! (Cost of gondola in Venice) and which everybody else was doing so it was not really special.
But then Paul told her that it was a special thing you could only do in Venice and if they didn’t do it, they would be disqualified from the Tourist Championship CTX…
…so in the end, she agreed although she told the Italian man not to sing because that would have cost even more money paper!
And she sat feeling sickie about all the money paper they were spending for such a short time!
It was nice, though, to see the city from the water.
The most interesting part of the journey was when they passed under the Bridge of Sighs.
This is a bridge which is between the Old Prison and the New Prison – and it is called that because another silly story says that you can hear the sighs of all the prisoners as they are led across the bridge.
Well, by now it was nearly time for my humans to go home. Before they left, they went to some islands near Venice called Murano where many Artist Humans make beautiful glass things by blowing in a giant straw…it was amazing to watch!
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And here is a last picture of my humans on the famous Rialto Bridge, saying goodbye to Venice!
I think my humans definitely gained their Grand Tourist Champion title! Look how many rolls of film my humans took on their trip – thank goodness for digital camera machines now!
They were very tired when they got home (and didn’t want to see another church again for a very long time!) but very sad that they had finished their amazing adventures in Italy.
Hsin-Yi says that very often, places are not as beautiful or special in real life as they are in books and movies – but Italy is one place that is just as wonderful in real life!
I hope you have enjoyed sharing my humans’ visit to Italy and I’m sorry there were no photos of me but I was only a bubble in my mummy’s slobber at the time!
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) – and especially to my blog friends in Belgium - El’bow & Hauwii - who sent me the most gorgeous “get well” cards! *Giggle!* 
That’s how I met my good friend, Lupe the blue Dane…and the other day, I got a message from another blue Dane living in Brisbane.
Look at me!! I’m Drake and I finally did it. Although, I was a bit scared coming down the first time and still a bit tentative. But look at me!! My human drove the truck half way down the drive so the angle was almost the same as for getting in the back seat! Now we just need to put my crate into the back and on a coolish day, we can all go walking on the trails near Lake Hefner. Anyway, thanks again for all your help with my human!! We are both so incredibly thankful… now I won’t always get left at home when the whole family goes on an outing!! I really don’t like that at all!!
Lots of slobbers and thanks,Drake.Hi Hsin-Yi,I am pretty proud of him! It feels more rewarding because he’s not a “super smart breed”. And next year, I hope to be able to take the dogs with us on vacation and trips instead of boarding. You and Honey have helped us so much! Not just with the emailed advice, it really is nice to talk with someone who has trained a Dane before!! I watch the training videos (just yesterday I was watching the taking a bow training), the dancing videos (you are very brave), and (when I need a good laugh) the first agility and swimming videos. Not to mention getting to see some great pictures of New Zealand and Australia. So thank you very much, and please don’t let those rude people bother you. For everyone of them, there are 10 of the people like me.So thank you very much!!Best Wishes,Nicki
Sometimes being a “good” doggie is so hard!
Some of you may remember that last year back in Auckland, I was very excited to be asked by Rachael Hale to model for her latest book, Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats. Rachael is a Camera Human who is famous all over the world for her beautiful portraits of animals so it was a big honour to model for her! 
I also helped tell Rachael about some of my other doggie friends who were perfect for some of the other pictures she needed in the book. I think half the doggies in the book are my friends! Hee! Hee! 
