Blog Dia 50: We won an Oscar!
- Sylvie & jc
- Jun 14
- 9 min read
Saturday Night Live (SNL) is celebrating its 50th season, and this is Blog Dia number 50. What a coincidence.
We have our very own version of Saturday Night Live (SNL) here at Monte-Bougainvillea, it's called ENL, as in Every Night Live.
And we have won an Oscar!
Here is the story.
For us, every night is Friday, and most mornings are Monday. You might expect this is just normal for a tourist accommodation business such as ours. But this would be missing the point of view of the guests, for whom every night is Friday and every morning is Sunday.
Holidays are about twisting time indeed. Our clocks' hands give big thumbs up to the sun that governs us, but ultimately points the finger to our furry friends: The daily Woodstock of our livestock, when the animals wake, us, up.
Like SNL, our ENL has evolved over the seasons. Cast members have come and gone, though each remains a shining star in our hearts.
What started as Dixie and the Cats is still Dixie and the Cats, but our beloved Tom, Dixie, then Winnie all passed away last year. Not easy for the team, I still hurt from the loss of Dixie, as I write this a year later, but the show must go on. Who would head the reception and security? How would Patch react to losing her two best friends leaving only Cayenne in the Race, and how would Cayenne get along without Dixie.
At this point we need to interrupt for a short commercially friendly break, please stay tuned.
Dixie was a star from a special talent agency called De Dobie Hope; it's a great association focused on assisting Dobermanns in need. It's a rescue operation, but I say great not because of what they do, that is great enough already, but beyond that is HOW they do it. They know what dobies need and they know some people, like me, need a dobie really badly and sadly, others may not be the right people (In fact everybody needs a dobie, but most people just don't realise it). The trick is getting the dobie right for the right people.
So of course, after Dixie had passed away, De Dobie Hope reached out to us, asking if we we're looking for a new cast member to assist the cats. We were not ready, we wanted to sell the house first, so we said not now. And so, season 7's last episodes operated on a light crew with heavy hearts. We would stay in touch, and see all the deserving candidates looking for full time roles through their social media postings (link down below) At the opening of season 8, out of the blue they reached out directly to us. They knew we still had not sold the house, but they had a sudden new batch of dobies from scattered sources yet probably the same litter and a story, and there was a particular one, maybe we would like to see a picture? Sylvie saw it first, and showed it to me. No words were needed. We knew we were in trouble. Immediately.
The story made it necessary. This dobie had the same background of needing a re-home, nothing about abuse, mostly about the challenges that come from owning an energetic dog that grows 20fold over a few months, or just the challenges of life that we can all go through. Not that this was in any way a criterion for us, only that this appeared to us as very similar to our Dixie's original story. And she remains the Best Dog Ever, so that is a good reference for us.
This was happening exactly 7 years almost to the day after we were presented our first Dixie. Yet this dobie whose picture we could not stop looking at is black, very thin, has her tail unclipped. Our Dixie was brown, a bit round, and had her tail removed on medical prescription. This dog is quite different, but I see a Dixie.
I'd already convinced Sylvie, unknowingly, that Dixie was not just a name. She knew I named Dixie in honor of a previous Dixie from decades earlier in my life and that I had longed for a Dobermann all those years, waiting for the day. Dixie is a song from a 70's French Canadian group called Harmonium. It's music. It's a spirit. It's a way of being. It's a way of dancing with life. All the complexity of the composition tuned to the simplicity of its intentions: protection, loyalty and affection at the family scale. Dixie is not a name; it's a summary of benevolent soul.
Well for me anyway. I only learned I was convincing enough the day I asked what we would call this dobie in the picture, while we gave ourselves a couple days to think over a million reasons to discard all rational reasoning. The answer was "Dixie, what else?". I said, whatever you want, and she said Dixie. So, we settled for the full name of Dixie II de Dobie Hope.
Her arrival was agreed for 10 days later; she was delivered from the Lisbon area to us in the Algarve by the owner. De Dobie Hope had independently taken care of the ownership transfer on the chip. Very helpful process.
Now a few short months with us, Dixie II, that we just call Dixie, is integrating well and is already becoming a star with our guests. This Dixie is different, but just as Dixie as we expect from a Dixie. She is only 11 months old, but she has taken on a role the first Dixie only occasionally dabbled in: Animation! Dixie II is all about playtime. Fun and games all day. Not really driven by food, just fun. A plain old stick will do but toys and balls make her light up the show. This sometimes hinders on her 'security role' as she still gets a bit too excited around small children and can be scared of the wind. We take extra care to manage encounters, giving her time to grow up. She is a 30+kg puppy.
Impressive size, but just a puppy. She will learn. It's in the breeds' genes, she will soon instinctively learn to be protective of anyone around us. In the meantime, Cayenne is teaching her the ropes. This cat immediately took to Dixie II like she did Dixie I. And she plays with her just the same. Unfortunately Patch also sees this Dixie the same way as the prior Dixie, with a certain arrogance and distain for even the odor. But she will share the sofa if the dog is showered once in a while. And she is warming to Cayenne, which is new, and cool too.
So, long infomercial, but De Dobie Hope did a Great job matching this dog to the perfect home, ours. Because she is the perfect dog for us. This is not an obvious job they do. A lot of hard work, love and dedication, day in and day out. Our hats off to De Dobie Hope.
Dixie arrived after sun down. The owner, after greeting us, opened the car door to let her out, into our driveway. As she cheerfully jumped out, I noticed the orange cat only a couple meters away on the driveway, out in the open, meowling quite insistently, as if protesting the arrival of this new dog.
After a coffee break and the exchange of basic information, the man left and Dixie was ours. Although we were in the very first hours with our new Dixie, the orange cats' protest was stuck in the back of my mind. Even stranger, he showed up for the next 2 or 3 days right at our terrasse doors, calling out. To me he seemed to be upset and I could imagine him saying “I've been here queuing this spot for over 2 years and you get another animal? A dog !?”.
Now I have to break an exclusivity here. So far, only people who come to Monte-Bougainvillea and see the show 'live' know there are other characters in our zoo that only get rare mentions in the Blog Dia. Most notably the occasional wild pig, a bird pecking at our window for 2 weeks straight and a couple very stubborn stray cats that come at all hours of the night looking for a fight...or more if affinity. Part of Dixie's job is to protect our/ her cats while keeping the strays at bay. There is an orange cat and a white & grey one. Both males. Our staff is all female. And we don't get any sleep as the song goes on.
The orange cat had left his home when they adopted dogs and he started showing up at our place every day. Dixie I once chased him up a tree and barked at the tree for over 3 hours. When I got fed up and went to the tree, I saw the cat and threw a stone at him. He jumped off the tree from more than 3 meters high, landed in a dense thorny bush and ran off like a rocket. Dixie did not see this happen, so she just kept barking at the empty tree for another hour. I thought that would be the end, but no. One day he was on our roof and Patch was growling, so I shot a BB gun in his direction. He jumped off the roof and ran away, I thought that would be the end, but no. After months of not a single full night's sleep and chasing cats in the dark, Sylvie arranged to have a cage to catch the cat and a vet to castrate him, surely that would calm him down, but no. From the vet, back to his original home to our house took less than an hour, he was baaaack. No hard feelings at all. He still preferred our place to his original home?!
We figured the only way was to feed him outside near the cottage house in a makeshift shelter, away from the villa, give him food and water and hope he just stays around there. And he did, most days. The slightest delay in food delivery got him back at the villa, but he would not stick around much. And when food was delivered, he really only cared to be caressed. Meanwhile we tried to find him a family and we kept chasing the white& gray cat away at each opportunity. We made no progress and the cat started coming closer and closer and just hanging out around us...at an ever-closer distance. Instead of protesting, he started talking. A meow here and there to remind us of his presence. By now even Dixie II treats the orange cat like one of the family, or let’s say no better no worse than our cats as opposed to the white and gray that she chases away in less playful terms.
We have seen the white & grey lately, maybe 2-3 times in the past few weeks. But the orange cat is messed up. He seems to have lost more than one fight. Open wounds on cheeks and nose. Some spots healed surprisingly fast, but then one day to the next he seems to have a broken leg. We decided he needed better shelter from the other cat(s). Our cats sleep inside, they cannot be the culprits. So, we brought him to the kitchen for the night and closed the door behind him to keep him separate from ours. In the morning, he is rested and fed, happy to go outside and satisfied at being tolerated by the other cats. He doesn't look for trouble, He is very affectionate in fact. After a short week of this process, we find it works, but we also suspect this orange cat is in fact not getting into fights, most likely he is ill.
We've decided we would stop looking for a family for this cat who was very aptly named in his prior home.
His name is Oscar, and the twist in our plot is that HE won.
Oscar is family now and part of the team. He is already keeping guests company squatting chairs and getting petted. That's his job. We will be getting him to be checked by a vet soon to get his work permit up to date.
And this, my friends, is how we won an Oscar for best self-deception in a long running series, playing a role so well we almost fooled ourselves into thinking we would never take this cat into our home.
So, the story continues, we have a full cast, and a full sofa. Dixie and the cats: Patch, Cayenne and Oscar. I'm JC and I live and work here with my wife Sylvie. The payroll is croquet heavy.
ENL season 8, no subscription required. For this exclusive live show, only one place to go, but you need to book early because availability is limited.
Monte-Bougainvillea
This peaceful place is 20 minutes from the airport and to some of the Algarve's best beaches and ideally located to visit the entire Algarve. An idyllic setting where even the cats and dogs get along.
Who else has such a sales pitch?
Check it out and book your check in here: www.monte-bougainvillea.com
(NB: if you've read all the way here and find this makes no sense, that's normal because it doesn't, on its own. This is number 50 of an ongoing series going back 8 years. If you go back and read all 49 prior postings then you would understand that actually none of it makes sense (trust me, I know, no need to go read it all), but there is a clear thread, it's the story of our daily adventure called life. And we all know how often life makes sense, so there you go.)
Hope to see you soon,
S&jc
Associação Dobermanns em Risco - Dobie Hope
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