I was normal three Yorkies ago
Content note: This essay discusses pet death and veterinary euthanasia.
My family’s first Yorkshire Terrier, Frank, joined our household in 1998 after my dad went away for a weekend to build sets for his theater club, and my mom thought that this would be THE PERFECT TIME to get a dog. We spent about twenty minutes meeting puppies at the local pet store before we made our decision. Frank, the smallest and quietest dog in the puppy area, crept over and sat in my mom’s lap. His appearance immediately reminded me of one of the goblins from the 1986 film Labyrinth; all three pounds of him screamed—well, whispered—I AM VULNERABLE, BUT ALSO VERY CUTE. His body was covered in short, shiny black hair, accented by light brown hair on his legs, head and face. Two tortilla chip-esque ears stood at permanent attention on his head, which was slightly smaller than a tennis ball and almost as round, had his tiny snout and even tinier overbite not been jutting out (giving him the appearance of being constantly perturbed). A pair of shiny eyes--occasionally darting here and there to watch the other puppies run into walls, yip, and pee on themselves and each other--completed the goblin/Ewok look.
“This one is sweet,” my mom said, after Frank licked her hand a few times.
“Yeah, that little guy is the runt of the litter,” a pet store employee told us as Frank gingerly stepped into my mom’s lap while shaking. Frank refused to leave her alone after that point, and that technique did not just work, it worked for the next decade.
When my dad returned from his trip, he was not happy that we had a new member of the household—-until, that is, Frank crept over, started staring at him, and performed the I’m-so-small-and-helpless-PLEASE-LOVE-ME trick (which worked again) until my dad could not help but scratch him on the head.
That was the start of my suspicion that Frank was too smart for his own good, a hunch that would eventually turn out to be correct.
If you’re not familiar with Yorkshire Terriers as a breed, allow me to introduce them; along with Chihuahuas, a lot of them are small enough to count as “purse dogs,” and Yorkies also have a reputation of being yappy as hell for a reason. They usually weigh anywhere from three to twelve pounds, with those at the lower end of the scale being designated the creepy name of “Teacup Yorkies.” No matter their weight, Yorkies also tend to have what my partner Liam calls the “buh” (or buuuuuuh) face, which features a triangular muzzle, nose, and shiny eyes topped off by a lower lip that sticks out most of the time—for some Yorkies, the lower lip stretches across the bottom of their mouth when they get excited, giving them a smiley or extremely goofy appearance.
After a year, it was decided that Frank needed a friend, in part because watching him excitedly jump up and down at the end of the day when we came home was sad, but also kind of adorable.
Frank’s new friend—acquired from the same pet store, during another weekend when my dad was out of town--was Winston, a blond and silver, happy-go-lucky Yorkie puppy with a huge belly who was everything that Frank was not: loudly enthusiastic, goofy, overeager, and not smart at all. Trying to train Winston to do anything—such as going to the bathroom outside, eating only the contents of his own bowl of food and not Frank’s, or sitting for longer than two seconds--took months. Winston’s lack of a brain, like Frank’s intelligence, was something of a superpower in that it was impervious to logic, reason, or food-based motivation in the form of dog treats. Frank would figure out how to jump onto the couch or bed in one leap, and Winston would come scrambling up after trying two or three times, and then sit atop Frank as a reward for all of that hard work. Frank would play hide-and-go-seek with our cat, Chewy, and Winston would want to play along--only to end up getting a cat paw to the body.
Frank also had a daredevil streak, which he fulfilled by doing things that would make most non-canine animals shit themselves in fear. This included going after the deer who made regular appearances at our house to eat plants that grew on the property’s hillside. Once he was kicked three feet into the air by a male deer with huge antlers, who fled after trying to dispatch Winston in a similar manner. Winston hopped away just in time.
After Frank landed on his side, he was completely still for about 15 seconds—my brother and I, fearing the worst, moved carefully down the ivy-covered hillside to retrieve both dogs from further injury after the group of deer had run away. Winston hopped next to us, barking wildly, as Frank took a large breath in, got up, and resumed barking at the danger that had now been dispatched by his three pounds of power.
Chasing after deer ten times his size wasn’t Frank’s only trick, of course—this was confirmed when my parents decided to sell our house, and we had to put both dogs in a backyard enclosure on days that the realtor had prospective buyers over to tour the property. The enclosure—a bunch of dirt, dust, and dead leaves surrounded by a six-foot high wood fence that was reinforced by a layer of chicken wire--was supposed to be utilized as a garden, but the dirt and dust in that area made it impossible to grow anything. Within a few hours of the dogs’ first day in this enclosure, Frank had figured out how to scale the wood fence using his teeth and paws to climb up the chicken wire to the very top of the fence. Then he would fling all three pounds of himself down onto a pile of dead leaves opposite the fence and make his escape. Poor Winston was left to run in circles and bark forlornly as he wondered where Frank had gone.
This happened multiple times; we couldn’t figure out how Frank was managing to escape, until my dad and I hid by the back door one afternoon and watched Frank go through the entire routine, trying to (unsuccessfully) stifle our laughter as the world’s smallest acrobat performed his newest feat.
As if flinging himself off of a six-foot-tall fence without injury wasn’t enough, Frank’s antics continued once we moved to the new house, which had a nice brick patio with a small metal gate in front of a very tall set of brick stairs; the stairs led down into the car park and garage area, as well as the brick walkway that led into the house. We thought that the patio would make a great area for the dogs—and, just as crucially, that the metal gate’s thin bars meant that it was Frank-proof.
Wrong again.
Some rodents are able to get into and out of tiny spaces—most commonly spaces where you would not think to even look for small rodents—because they have the ability to squeeze their cylindrical bodies in ways that most other animals cannot. Frank could do something similar: he would squeeze under that metal gate until he was at the top of the steps, shake himself off, and then run down those fucking stairs with utter glee. He could not wait to sit on the brick walkway in the sun.
When my brother or I would come home from school in the afternoon, or one of our parents would come home from work, Frank would immediately start wagging his tail, and the corners of his tiny bottom lip would turn up, making it appear that he was smiling—-as if to say, Hi, humans! I escaped again. Also, you might want to check on Winston because he is very upset that I left him on the patio.
It took not one, but two layers of reinforced chicken wire zip-tied to the bottom and side-gaps of the gate to finally stop Frank from squeezing out and escaping. My dad was extremely proud of that DIY project, and rightly so.
My attachment to the dogs was so strong that when my allergist recommended that I stop having them sleep in my room, in order to prevent their dander from aggravating my allergies and asthma, I instantly became upset. When my mom pointed out that having the dogs sleep in another room was not the same thing as re-homing them, my response was a choked up “But they sleep with me!” They slept in the laundry room for a few months and did fine; I took them back upstairs when my brother began to complain that their accidents downstairs—-near his room-—were making the entire downstairs area smell like dog crap. I should have fired back some retort about his room’s consistent lacrosse-player funk of unwashed sporting gear, forgotten snack foods in various states of decomposition, and old socks. In truth, however, I was extremely happy to have an excuse—-any excuse-—to have Frank and Winston in their rightful place, both curled up next to me on my bed in a furry clump.
When I left for college in 2004, my mom made me promise that I would take the dogs as soon as I moved into my own place, probably because “the boys” (as we called them) were as co-dependently attached to me as I was to them.
I didn’t have the dogs move in with me until 2007; the prior few years, my parents had looked after them, and Frank and Winston’s adventures continued. In 2005, my parents moved to the West Marin enclave of Bolinas. This was a former hippie town so dedicated to its semi-rural roots and 1960s-era ethos of Leave Us Alone, Normies that the state transit authority had long ago stopped trying to place road signs directing motorists to the town, because the residents would then take it upon themselves to remove the signs. In Bolinas, Frank and Winston got back to their terrier roots; while deer were a little scarce, the numerous gopher holes and their residents in my parents’ backyard provided plenty of fun.
Besides the general classic Yorkie behavior of chasing anything that moved, snacking on fresh deer poop, and generally going where they were not supposed to, there was at least one incident where Winston, at Frank’s barky insistence, zoomed down a gopher hole in order to catch a wayward rodent. My mom only found him because Frank started running around in circles, barking, after Winston shoved himself headfirst into said hole. Winston’s enthusiasm and lack of foresight got him stuck in the hole, and his butt and two back legs flailed wildly in the air. When my mom pulled Winston out of the hole--by his tail, of course--he was completely covered in dirt, panting happily.
My partner, Liam, and I met in the spring of 2007; when he first heard that I had grown up with dogs, he was less than enthusiastic. Until, that is, he came to visit me in Los Angeles over the summer—while I was staying with my mom and working at an overpriced candle store during the week, and would come home after my shifts smelling like a fancy milkshake, usually to the delight of both dogs.
Liam was won over by the dogs soon enough; as he recalls, “You opened the door [to the house] and I saw these two little barking balls of joy run down the hall at me.” Later, as Liam and I settled in on the couch to watch some Don Hertzfeldt cartoons that he had on his laptop, Frank squeezed in between us and put his tiny head on one of Liam’s knees.
Frank died suddenly in 2007, less than a month after both dogs moved in with me. He wasn’t feeling well one day; he seemed generally lethargic and slept a lot, which was unusual for a dog who was up in everyone’s business most of the time. When 6 PM rolled around, I’d resolved to take him to the vet’s office in the morning. When we went to bed, I put Frank in his dog bed next to my bed—only to hear a tiny whine of protest as I got into bed with Winston. I looked down, only to see Frank scratching the side of the bed with his front paws and staring at me, as if to say, Pick me UP, human. You think I’m gonna stay in my dog bed when you’ve let me sleep in your bed for the last nine years? COME THE FUCK ON. I picked him up, and he nestled next to Winston.
When I woke up around 3 AM, Frank didn’t move. He had died in his sleep; his tiny body was still warm next to me and Winston. As I sobbed, I wrapped his body in a towel and called Liam, who was at that time living with roommates a few blocks away. Liam stayed with me for a couple of days while I flipped out due to grief. After my dad came over to pick up Frank’s body, my parents buried him in their backyard in Bolinas—-appropriately, since Frank loved wandering around their property and causing trouble.
Up until he kicked off at the freakishly old age of 17 and a half, Winston was happy to be the sole pooch who got all of my and Liam’s attention and affection, but there were a lot of things about Frank that I still missed. Frank was the first critter who made me fall in love with Yorkies—-and small dogs.
Winston was used to being second-in-command, but after Frank passed away, his personality started to shine through. Between happy and dissatisfied grumbling at various things, not having to get professionally groomed (he would barely let Liam or me snip his coat when it got too matted), and getting all of the snacks and attention he could possibly want, Winston knew that his cuteness was powerful. He used it to his maximum benefit, even as he aged.
Winston died three weeks before Christmas in 2016, of kidney failure that came on so suddenly that our vet told us that if we did not make the choice to have him put to sleep, his lack of energy and sudden weight loss (he’d lost a quarter of his body weight within 24 hours) was going to get worse. Winston was dehydrated and exhausted, but still found the energy to lick the tears from my and Liam’s faces as we cried. Feeling the life leave his tiny body as the vet injected the euthanasia medication into him was one of the worst things I have ever experienced, but I was glad that we could be with Winston to comfort him during his last moments. He was a ridiculous dog, and we loved him for that.
The Yorkie cycle continued for Liam and me—-in 2017, we decided to foster a dog through Muttville, an organization that rescues and places senior dogs who are at risk to be euthanized because of their age.
We decided to foster Sherbert, a 14 year-old blind and nearly deaf Yorkie who needed some care after he was found as a stray in San Jose. On our first visit to Muttville, Liam and I spotted Sherbert sleeping on a hand towel—-oblivious to all of the excitement, peeing, and barking going on around him—-and I knew that he was the right foster dog for us. Sherb was in Muttville’s hospice program due to ongoing kidney issues, and although he was a spirited and personable little guy despite his impairments, I was not ready to adopt him since we had just lost Winston because of kidney problems. He was later placed with someone who was up to the task of caring for a hospice dog, but Liam and I enjoyed our time with him, especially when he would do extremely weird things like jump into a bag of clean laundry and sleep there, or try to knock over the kitchen trash can to eat scraps (we moved the trash can to the bathroom and closed the door).
A few weeks after Sherb was placed in his new foster-hospice home, one of the volunteer coordinators for Muttville contacted us, asking if we could take another Yorkie, Noodle, on as a foster. “Noodle needs you!” she said in an email. Noodle was in isolation with kennel cough and needed to go to a foster home to make a full recovery. When I looked at her photos on the Muttville website, I was immediately charmed by her frowny facial expression and disgustingly hairless ears; when we went to pick her up at Muttville, she immediately ran up to Liam after being let out of the isolation room, and stretched her tiny paws up to his knee.
After we fostered her for ten weeks, I realized that I didn’t want to part with her. I came into the living room one morning to find her snoring away on Winston’s old bed, snuggled up with one of his stuffed animals that we had kept. My brain went OH MY GOD, WE HAVE TO KEEP HER when I noticed that her lower lip was stretched into a ridiculous little smile.
After we adopted her, the normally polite and personable Noodle started doing ridiculous things—including begging for human food, silently, at every single meal, having barking fits at 4:30 PM nearly every day (which, thankfully, she stopped doing after a few months), and scream-barking in excitement when we got takeout delivered. All of these things would be annoying if someone else’s dog were to do them, but Noodle’s weird behavioral tics somehow endeared her to me more. I came up with a variety of rude nicknames for her, among them “Jim Henson Creature Shop Reject,” “dingus,” “asshat,” “ramen princess,” “Cranky Doodle Dandy,” and “The Stupidest Princess” (her pre-rescue name was Princess, but the Muttville staff renamed her Noodle).
Noodle passed away in April of 2021, after some of her existing medical problems combined with new ones (kidney issues, luxating patella, and finally a seizure) and snowballed into a huge ball of dung, rolled downhill, and hit me, Liam, and poor Noodle square in our faces. She was not with us for a lengthy amount of time--almost four years—but she was a loving goofball to me and Liam. I hope she knew that we loved her back.
Our current dog is Sushi, an exceptionally effervescent Pomeranian/Yorkie mix who has the world’s greatest underbite and a tail shaped like a question mark turned on its side. He’s not food-motivated, but he loves squeaky toys and will squeak them for hours at a time—usually when we are trying to watch something on TV that requires us to pay attention. He is the most enthusiastic dog I have ever met. Liam and I get stopped regularly on our walks by folks who want to tell us how cute Sushi is; we know it, and he certainly does.
To me, small dogs, no matter the breed, are all adorable and special in their own ways. However, to my surprise, I have become one of those dog people—-the ones who have a definite favorite breed, and will only consider that breed when it comes to actually having a dog.
Liam found a t-shirt online somewhere that featured the slogan “I Was Normal Three Yorkies Ago,” and I seriously considered buying one. Without meaning to do so, I have become an Annoying Dog Person.