This blog is dedicated to chronicling the life and times of Dizzy and Miles, our two irascible Yorkshire Terriers.
My son Kyle and I had talked for years about getting a dog. We fell in love with Yorkies when my ex-girlfriend (She who shall not be named or simply SWSNBN) bought a Yorkie that I named Mister. We loved Mister so much so that when I broke up with SWSNBN, we missed the dog much more than we missed her. Though conventional wisdom has Yorkies being fru-fru girlie dogs that you might see the likes of Paris Hilton carrying in a purse, we found that that was far from the truth. Though toy yorkies are small, less than 10 lbs, a stature that lends itself to the girlie dog misconception, they are tough little buggers, fiercely loyal, inquisitive, very smart and can be very independent. Their personalities are unique, and feisty...they are simply fun to have around.
Kyle and I kept talking about getting dogs but never acted on it. When I started seeing my girlfriend Kerri, she agreed with the idea of getting a dog. Only problem at first: she said she doesn't like little dogs and especially felt funny about getting a dog associated with my ex. We finally convinced her that a Yorkie would be a great dog, she went on a search. She found a breeder about 100 miles from us who was trying to sell two 6 month old Yorkie boys who had a previous owner that had to return them. She was asking $1400 for both; they were sired from AKC registered champions and had papers. Dogs like these often go for $1400 a piece or more. The dogs were brothers from the same litter and had been sold together previously. Instantly we knew we would get both of them, not wanting to split them up. Excited, we piled into the car on a Sunday afternoon and drove almost 2 hours out into the High Desert of Southern California, almost halfway to Las Vegas. Where Los Angeles is decidedly urban, cosmopolitan and modern, this place was very rural, absolutely none of the trappings of Hollywood or the beach. The breeder lived on a lot on small dirt road which we drove past at first because it was camouflaged by dust and joshua trees. The breeder was a Yorkie breeder; she had many pups running around gleefully outside of her trailer home, sharing their digs with a few cats and a rescued mare. Dizzy and Miles stood out from all the other pups and were running together. We immediately loved them and they seemed to like us. And so our adventure began.
The boys were originally named Collin and Spanky...Collin was the lighter colored, more sedate and calculating of the two..Spanky was darker, spunkier and more athletic. They were both impossibly adorable and lovable. We wanted to select our own names for them. They were 6 months old and had lived with another couple for a while, but they returned them because they couldn't care for them. The breeder had them running free range in her yard and didn't do much training of them. We felt they would quickly take to their new names when we changed them and we wanted names that we all selected. We batted many names around, including Martin and Malcom, and finally settled on Miles (as in Miles Davis)for Spanky and Dizzy (as in Gillespie) for Collin.
Since Miles and Dizzy were used to living outside and doing their business whenever they felt like it, we were in for a challenge. Ideally, to house train a puppy, you start after they are weaned from the mother when they are young and you should be able to spend hours and hours with the dog. Reality: the dogs were already 6 months old and Kerri, Kyle and I are gone all day. Initially, they were peeing and pooping every few minutes somewhere in the house. We had to resort to crating them at night to teach them that they could control their sphincters for hours. Soon we got them to the point where they would pee on pads but they still would leave us little presents all over the house.
After many weeks, the dogs are starting to get the whole it's not a good thing to pee or poop in the house concept. They both go the night sleeping with either Kerri and me or Kyle and don't leave any presents. They will go outside and dutifully lift their legs and pee. They still will go off in corners and drop a deuce if we aren't watching them; we are scratching our heads trying to figure out how to get them to alert us to when they have to go so we can let them out.
Overall, the dogs are great fun. They are very affectionate and playful with us and they are inseparable...they run almost everywhere together, they love wrestling and play fighting. When stress in our ordinary lives gets a little intense, playing with the dogs provides a much needed escape.
