I adopted Yoko from my sister, who died two years ago, & who asked me - when I didn't think she was very sick & when she knew no one else would - to take her if anything bad happened. I discussed that here, but that wasn't much about Yoko.
Yoko's a chihuahua mainly - some think she may have a little hound in her, maybe dachshund - but she's scrappy & yappy & definitely wishes she could be one person's dog - it used to be my sister, now it's me, although she does fine with the other dogs & with the cats & with the wife.
Yoko & I travelled from Texas to Kentucky over two day in the summer of 2015. She was very needy when the car wasn't moving, & so I took her with me wherever I went. If I left her in the hotel room, she'd claw at the door & bark. So when I went for food, I took her. I went to a pet store to buy her food, since my sister had told me she was finicky. & I put her dog bed - taken from my sister's house - on the hotel room bed with me, so she could sleep there.
It might be that she bonded with me then.
My wife Magda was in Spain doing research at the time & she later told me she had intended to adopt Yoko out, but Yoko stole her heart within days. Magda gave Yoko her name, too - she said the little dog "broke up the beagles." She also advised me that Yoko wasn't finicky, just spoiled - she would eat, Magda said, when she was hungry. She was right - & Yoko also took to walks right away, if only to bark at everything that passed. She especially hates bicycles & mail carriers.
She weighed over twelve pounds when I brought her home. She now weighs between seven & eight. She's healthy, she's happy, & she has, as I've said, fit it well with the other dogs. But she does follow me around. If I have time to nap, she will come very happily into bed with me during the day & burrow under the covers.
& she's mellowed out. When we have guests over, she gets used to them quickly, & remembers neighbors whom she's already met.
Magda often says that she'd rather have Pat, my sister, back, but she wishes she could tell her what a gift Yoko was to us.
Maybe I should've talked about the night I met Yoko - when Pat was in the hospital, & she asked us, who were visiting, to let her out. Yoko hated us. She growled & cowered in a corner. I tried & tried to befriend her. It wasn't until we were there for a while, when the other dogs needed to go out in the middle of the night, that she just came along with us.
Well, that's the story. There's more to it, I guess. Just like there's a lot more to Yoko. The youngest, newest member of our pack.
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