Tucked against the oldest wall of the property, right beside il palmento, sits a small stone structure built for one of the masseria's most loyal workers: the guard dog.

Carved from the same local stone as the farm itself, this little kennel — a cuccia in the Puglian tradition — was never a decorative touch. It was a functional part of estate life. Every autumn, when the grapes were pressed and the must stored inside the palmento, the harvest became the most valuable thing on the property, left unguarded through the night while the rest of the farm slept. A dog stationed at its threshold was the estate's simplest, most enduring form of protection.

Its pitched, gabled roof echoes the silhouette of the farm buildings around it — a small structure built with the same hands, the same stone, and the same care as everything else here. It's a quiet reminder that on a working masseria, nothing was built without purpose, not even shelter for the animals that helped keep it running.