[Ashley V]

My husband and I married in November of 2006 and by the middle of January I found out I was pregnant, but miscarried shortly after finding out. DH was supposed to deploy for Iraq during that time frame as well, but thankfully a recent injury ended up keeping him home, but we were really unsure what was happening with his deployment at that same time. I was devastated by the miscarriage, my mom was practically on her deathbed (she recovered, thank God), and DH's birthday was coming up in February. I asked DH what he wanted for his birthday and he said he wanted a dog. We had kind of mentioned it before, but hadn't talked seriously about it. He said he felt that having a dog would be better for us than having a baby at this point in time in our lives and maybe having something to care for would help me heal from our loss, as well as help my mom recover after she returned home from being in ICU for almost 3 moths. I said okay and reminded him we couldn't have a large dog knowing his favorite breed is a German Shepard. He said he knew that and when I asked him what breed he was thinking about he said he wanted a yorkie... my exact words were "You want a WHAT?!" I had been raised around large dogs only and always thought of yorkies as little fru-fru prissy dogs. I wanted anything BUT a yorkie. I looked at everything and tried to persuade him from a yorkie, but we found little Chippy and I fell in love.

Six months later I get a phone call from a good friend of mine who told me that her mom's groomer has a yorkie that really needed a home as he's been bounced from place to place to place. She took him in only to find him an appropriate home as the original caregiver was wheelchair bound and could not care for him. I called the groomer the next day and the day after that brought Smokey home with us.

I wouldn't change or trade my boys for the world. I love them beyond words.