News

Beloved nomad adjusting to life of luxury

Baby Girl enjoys like with Mary Cervini, her husband, Mike, and their seven other dogs.

By Bill Moss, Published: February 21, 2016

FLAT ROCK — For more than 10 years, people saw a medium-sized yellow mix wandering the streets of Hendersonville. They called her Hendo or Hendersonville or Tiger.

Dog lovers fed the canine hobo. They worried about her in the cold and snow. They tried to catch her but never could. Then Mary Cervini and her husband, Mike, pulled her out from under a vacant building where she was hiding. The founders of the spay-and-neuter organization Community Partnership for Pets, the couple took her in, paid to have a veterinarian remove a basketball sized tumor and settled her into late-life retirement in the lap of luxury.
“She’s so much more social than she used to be,” Mary Cervini said last week when a visitor called on Baby Girl. It’s not easy to get an appointment to visit Baby Girl. She’s in demand.
Cervini sends out regular updates to followers of Baby Girl who have gotten word to her that they followed, fed and cared about Baby Girl.
The most amazing connection had to do with puppies that are thought to be from the same litter as Baby Girl. A man who heard that the homeless yellow dog had been caught got in touch with Cervini. “He said, ‘I’d like to see her.’”
He came to the house. Out walked Baby Girl.
“You would have thought he had seen Jesus rise from the dead,” she said. He told Cervini, “I just cannot believe how much she looks like her brother Lobo.” Lobo belonged to the man. He had photos of a litter of puppies. They were from 2001. That would put Baby Girl’s age at 15. Hobbled from an old injury when she got hit by a car, Baby Girl is still bashful and a bit mistrusting of strangers. But at home with the Cervinis and her seven canine housemates — the Cervinis rescue a lot of dogs — she’s more comfortable all the time.
“She comes out in the morning and gets her rubbing,” she said. “We took her out the other day. She rode in the car.”
Cervini uses the email list to set dates when Friends of Baby Girl can come up to visit Baby Girl at the top of Kenmure.
“People come up in groups of six or eight,” she said. “They’re all sitting on the floor petting her. One lady suggested we have wine and cheese at Baby Girl’s parties. I’ve never seen a community so thrilled to see a dog that wandered the street for 10 years. She just comes out and looks around and lets everybody touch her.”
Thirty to 40 people have come to visit, some of them more than once.
“They’re recounting stories of where they saw her and how they used to feed her,” she said. The friends of Baby Girl have identified 10 or so feeding spots that Baby Girl visited on her regular route.
Cervini has not tried to use Baby Girl as a mascot for the Community Partnership for Pets, which helps people get discounted or free neutering for their pets.
“I wish Baby Girl were the exception but she’s not,” Cervini said. “Every day there’s animals that are born are living in terrible conditions. She’s been lucky she lasted this long. There’s just so many that need to be rescued. If they weren’t born they wouldn’t need to be rescued.”
On her own for 14 years, Baby Girl has adjusted to her new life.
“When the doorbell rings, she comes out,” she said. “She’s developed all the bad habits. She comes out and begs for snacks. I think she really likes having a family. She comes in and her tail is wagging and it’s wiggling all the way to the dog dish and it’s wiggling while she eats.”
Baby Girl has even gotten used to parts of the household routine that at first startled her.
“She doesn’t even mind her bath now,” Cervini said. “It used to be World War 6. She knows she’s gone from the pits to the Ritz.”