7 is just too early to be burying a Yorkie. Please be careful when you take your Yorkies outside.
---
You have your working dogs: Hounds that track down lost children. Sled dogs that haul diphtheria vaccine across the frozen tundra to Nome. Big, muscular search and rescue dogs that drag people out of rivers and wrecked cars and burning buildings.
Then you have your toys, primarily providing companionship.
Despite his name, Spike was one of the latter. He was a tiny, silky-haired ball of fluff who couldn't have pulled a kitten out of a creek. But he was all hero to the people who loved him.
His admirers buried the 7-year-old Yorkshire terrier on Sunday. He had been attacked by a pit bull Thursday morning in downtown McMinnville and was injured so badly he had to be put down.
Both dogs were on leashes. But the attack was so sudden and ferocious, and the attacking dog so powerful, that efforts to separate them went to no avail.
Because its owner lacked proof of vaccination, the pit bull is being held for rabies observation. Afterward, it probably will be destroyed, according to county Dog Control officers.
On Monday, Yorkie owner Steve Thompson and "Uncle" James Wilson took a few moments to remember their little buddy.
Spike entered Thompson's life at 6 months of age, bringing with him the nickname "Bad" for all the mischief he got into.
At the time, Thompson and his wife were living in Southern California. Thompson got the dog for his wife three days after her mother died of cancer.
She saw the puppy at a family-owned pet shop, Thompson said, and "like most women, fell in love." She told him she had to have the puppy.
"What was I going to say?" he asked.
The price tag was $1,100, and it took him some time to pay that off. But what price could he put on comfort for his wife's grief?
He didn't pay that much attention to the little dog at first. Spike was his wife's pet, and the two were content to lavish attention on each other.
Then, when Spike was 5, Thompson's wife died of breast cancer.
The couple had planned to retire and move to McMinnville, to be closer to Thompson's Canadian parents, but fate intervened.
She extracted two promises from him before she died: that he would make the move anyway and that he would look after Spike. He kept both, but fell into depression.
Spike may have missed his mistress, but he retained his joyous spirit.
The apartment Thompson rented didn't have a back yard, and Spike had things that needed attending to. So three times a day, he sat up alertly in front of Thompson and barked his demand to be taken out.
"All right, all right," Thompson would tell him, and reluctantly drag himself out of the morass of his grief and apathy to walk the dog.
Walking Spike forced him out among people, and Spike was a natural conversation starter. Gradually, he started making friends.
"He saved my life," Thompson said.
"My wife and I were married for 25 years," he said. "When something like that happens, it's like getting half your heart ripped out. You don't want to go on. But he made me, the little turd."
At first, it was a duty. He had promised to take care of the dog.
He hadn't promised to learn to love it. But somehow, that happened, too.
They would come home from a walk, and Spike would tear up the stairs for a gleeful game of tug-of-war or race around Thompson begging to be chased.
Thompson and Spike would drop by to visit Wilson, Spike's dog-sitter during Thompson's visits to his parents. The two would wind up walking the dog or playing with him.
Spike would pretend to bury Wilson's cat's food bowl in invisible dirt, then sneak a mouthful whenever he thought no one was looking.
He was fascinated by Wilson's hamsters. When Wilson held them down at his level to let him have a look, he'd lick their faces.
"If you were in a bad mood, he'd find a way to put you in a good mood," Thompson said.
Spike's death left an aching emptiness in both homes.
But Thompson and Wilson said they hope some good will come of it. They hope it will help bring awareness of the importance of controlling dogs in public.
"That could have been a child," Wilson said.
Veterinarian Jennifer Matthiesen, of the McMinnville Veterinary Clinic, said training is paramount for all dogs, but especially those that are taken out in public.
Despite the poor reputations of some breeds, Matthiesen said appropriate and safe behavior is more an issue of proper training and knowledge on the part of the handler than it is of breed.
Dogs have to be taught social skills, she said, and the best place to accomplish that is in a class with an experienced trainer. But she also advocated simple observation.
"Before you take your dog out in social situations, watch him. Watch how he plays and how he acts when he's really in the throes of excitement.
"If he's not listening to you when he's really excited about his ball or a squirrel, he won't listen in public."
http://www.newsregister.com/news/sto...tory_no=185894