by Jennie Lloyd | Photo by Cindy Alvarez
“We do whatever Queenie wants to do,” says Sonny Dalesandro, owner of the popular Italian restaurant Dalesandro’s at 1742 South Boston Avenue. Queenie is a slender white Chihuahua who came into Dalesandro’s life after her dramatic rescue from an abusive situation in 2017.
“She doesn’t have the most exciting life,” he says, “but she came from a situation where she had been someplace gnarly. They didn’t care for her properly and didn’t want her — then used her and threw her away. So it’s like, ‘Hey, what do you want to do?’” Dalesandro looks down at Queenie and asks, “This?” Her eyes are peacefully half closed as she dozes on his lap under the table. “You can do this every day forever.”
Queenie is a very cordial, polite older lady. She is prim and proper, delicate. Her rabbitlike, sensitive white ears are radiotuned into everything going on around her. She is never aggressive, but she won’t engage with other dogs, thank you very much. Queenie prefers a quiet, introverted life.
One of Queenie’s favorite activities is napping in Dalesandro’s lap while he commentates during Tulsa Athletics soccer games. Dalesandro, a former professional soccer player, is part owner of the Athletics, a National Premier Soccer League team based in Tulsa.
Before Queenie came into Dalesandro’s life, he was more of a big-dog kind of guy. He had a Cane Corso — sleek and gargantuan, 180 pounds of pure Italian mastiff. But when that gorgeous canine passed away years ago, Dalesandro’s girlfriend’s tiny Chihuahua licked his tears for weeks. “And like that,” Dalesandro says, a switch flipped in his heart. “I just love all dogs now.”
Enter Queenie
Not long after the loss of Dalesandro’s dog, his girlfriend saw a gripping story on a Chihuahua rescue site about a little dog who was recovering after having been abandoned. Someone “threw her out of a moving
car,” Dalesanro explains, “and all of her fur on her sides came off.”
He pulls up a photo of forlorn Queenie when she was found by the rescue; she was skinny, in pain, her eyes dark and sad. The rescue was worried that she might not survive the surgeries to address her injuries.
Dalesandro kept following up, asking, “Hey, is that little dog doing OK?”
He checked back for three months. After that, the rescue called him to say Queenie was recovering well and was ready for adoption. And he thought, “A Chihuahua?!”
And like that, a big-dog man became a rescue-dog guy.
Yes, a Chihuahua.
Queenie fits in well with the rest of the dogs in Dalesandro’s family. When not sitting on laps, she is spoiled by Dalesandro’s home cooking. As the owner of Dalesandro’s Italian Cuisine, he uses his chef skills to serve Queenie healthy, fresh meals every day.
“She gets rice, pasta, oats, chicken, hardboiled eggs, pumpkin, carrots,” he says. “I spoil her. A little chicken broth and fish oil” gets added in to fix her right up.
There is one spot on Queenie’s haunch where her fur never grew back, “a little reminder” of what happened to her, Dalesandro says. Her coat was a little bit thin for a while after the accident, but over time, her white fur grew back and was thicker.
A Family Focus
Dalesandro’s interests have revolved around soccer and Italian cooking for most of his life. His father, Vincent “Buzz” Dalesandro III, founded the family’s award-winning restaurant in 1990. The eatery thrived until the building was purchased by Bank of America in 2002. The corporate giant turned the site of the beloved restaurant into a parking lot.
In 2004, Dalesandro and his father reopened Dalesandro’s at 18th Street and Boston Avenue, where it remains today. In 2010, Dalesandro became the bustling bistro’s sole owner and purveyor. Dalesandro’s specializes in sharing the family’s rich, rustic Italian recipes with loyal diners.
When Dalesandro isn’t working at the restaurant, playing soccer, or supporting the Tulsa Athletics, he is hanging out with
Queenie. “We’ll do some walks at night, but mostly she crawls up into bed under the covers right by my head,” he says. Queenie is a devoted pup; Dalesandro’s lap is her world.
“There’s a definite sense of gratitude and a deep connection” that develops when you rescue a dog, Dalesandro says. “Just having been where she’s been and her being in a place that is now safe — that is a journey unto itself,” says Dalesandro, “and I’m blessed to be a part of it.”
Now Queenie gets to do whatever she wants to do. She might wear a funny bandanna. She might sunbathe in a big backyard. She might play dead or roll over for a treat. And as the sun sets this evening, she might ride along with Dalesandro as he stops over at Dalesandro’s to check in before dinner service.
Queenie is the boss, and she has chosen a pretty lovely life for herself — with a little help from Dalesandro.
