Green Daisy's wild and happy menagerie

Daisy Langenegger has an organic farm, and on that farm she has a lot of animals. But first let’s meet her urban pets.

There’s Lucio, a second-generation Neapolitan Mastiff who should find a suitable mate soon. Lucio has sired some big babies — Bull Mastiffs mostly — but not one of his own breed because all the mastiffs he’s met are his sisters. “We’re kind of sad that he could be the last of his line,” Daisy says. “His late father Spike had trained us to care for mastiffs — a daunting task because they are the gentlest, most intelligent, possessive, and willful of giant dogs. No matter what you do, you end up being mastered. However, the Neapolitan Mastiff is so intelligent, he allows you to take the lead as long as it suits his temperament. Remember, he owns you.”

Then there are the Lhasa Apsos, beginning with the male Lhasa, Schizo. “I had the crazy notion of getting him a girlfriend, so I reserved a female Lhasa with a breeder,” Daisy recalls. “It took them so long, we got a female Lhasa from another breeder. We called her Sheba.”

A few months later, the female puppy they’d reserved arrived. “She was a princess Lhasa, so cute and spunky she muddled our collective logic. We got her as Schizo’s second girlfriend and called her George Eliot.” To fast-forward the tale, the Llasa harem produced a surplus of puppies. Sheba and George produced over a dozen puppies twice a year, and Daisy had to find adoptive families for all of them. 

Lhasa Apso baby of Sheba and Schizo

How did Daisy deal with the Lhasa population explosion? Same way she deals with the struggling artists and musicians who find a very comfortable refuge (and excellent catering) in her house: she adopted another one. 

“For three Sundays I’d observed a young girl in the market with a basket full of Lhasa puppies,” Daisy says. “On the fourth Sunday there was a tiny female Lhasa left in the basket and it was so stressed in the noonday heat, I told the girl to just take it home with her. The girl told me she had been saving for her tuition fee, and with the sale of that last puppy she would have the full amount.”

Daisy ended up buying the female puppy. “Nowadays you can bet I avoid young girls with baskets,” Daisy laughs. Samantha became Schizo’s third girlfriend. She died three days after giving birth to a male puppy, Sam.

“I wasn’t going to keep Sam,” Daisy recalls, “but when he was fetched by his adoptive parent he rubbed his cheek against mine, pleading not to be given away. I gave him to his new parent anyway. I busied myself in my restaurant’s kitchen but after the last guest left I went up to my bedroom because my heart ached for Sam and I was crying. I called my friend and asked her to return Sam. My friend was so relieved because Sam wouldn’t touch any food or water she offered him.”

Sam was back in Daisy’s house after midnight. “He must have forgiven me, but until today he doesn’t like getting in cars.” Daisy likes taking the Lhasas for morning walks on the UP campus. Sam was neutered before he could contribute to the overpopulation. This also averted territorial disputes with his father, Schizo.

A bad hair day

The Lhasas share Daisy’s bedroom, taking the place of her late cat Cotton. Sheba and Sam sleep in the Soumak Kenzo stripes and velvet lounging sofa, Schizo sleeps under the bed, while George nestles on Daisy’s husband’s antique jade green plate. They come into the room at bedtime only. Lucio the Mastiff isn’t allowed inside so he stretches out sorrowfully on the stair landing. “I say, ‘Good night, Lucio, be our guard tonight.’ To remind everyone he’s boss, he tries to stretch out and block the Lhasas as they follow me to the room. He requires a reprimand from me before he allows them to pass. That’s our nightly ritual.”

But the giant Mastiff isn’t the only boss in Daisy’s house. “One evening we were celebrating my husband’s birthday. On arriving, my son Robert (the artist) took a platter of baked fish from the table. Then I saw a cat feasting on it. Before I could say a word Robert announced, ‘He followed me home — he’s my guest.’”

The guest took up permanent residence on the roof — “gamboling past midnight and decency with all the cats in our neighborhood and oblivious of the territorial dogs below,” Daisy reports. “He is spoiled by the girls in the kitchen who serve him food in his rooftop garden territory, and in the daytime the garden on my bedroom porch is all his. Woe to any unsuspecting bird there with slower reflexes.”

The cat who came to stay is called Tiger Kitty, and every day he gets a cheek rub and a treat. “Robert observes that all the pets have trained me to spoil them,” says Daisy. “The Lhasas and Lucio are the rotten lot — I can’t keep myself from giving them almost everything I have on my dinner plate and I feel no guilt at depriving my family of that piece of steak or chicken. At times Robert has to say “I’d like to eat that” to snap me out of my trance.”

Schizo the polygamist

The animals in Green Daisy’s menagerie get along very well. “Only my son doesn’t get his fair share of attention,” Daisy notes. 

Wait, we haven’t mentioned Hannibal Lecter the crocodile. Yes, a crocodile. “When he came to us he was the size of a house lizard from Indonesia. He had his own pond by our dining room window so we watched him grow — a foot, then two, then three ... at which point he could jump out of his open pond and roam the gardens. Our dogs kept a respectful distance since he gave our old mastiff a warning nip on the nose.”

At which point Daisy saw the potential problems of keeping a croc in the house. “We’re a houseful of artistic types with our eyes not exactly focused on our immediate surroundings,” Daisy explains. “One day I told Robert, ‘You might notice your mother is missing and think about checking if I haven’t taken up residence in Hannibal’s stomach.’”

Thus began a relocation project for Hannibal Lecter. A pond fortress was built on Daisy’s organic farm in Isabela, and a carpenter made a giant crate for the crocodile’s comfortable night transport to the province. Hannibal traveled 10 hours to his new luxury lodgings on the organic farm where Daisy grows rice and vegetables. “He’s now a good eight feet and looking very handsome for all the farm goodies he feasts on.” Lucky Hannibal — I’m a carnivore, and I love Green Daisy’s salads.

“Hannibal will still be around long after I have left the earth, judging from his species’ longevity,” Daisy notes. No, she does not pet the crocodile. “I’m quite certain it’s good judgment,” she laughs. “He leads the solitary life of a philosopher. Given our family history, he might get a mate one day. He much prefers chickens and rodents to human visitors. Hannibal doesn’t know it, but he’s our most good-looking family member.”