May 18, 2008 – August 7, 2023

More commonly known as “Monte,” the Capulet (Cappy) to his Montague is now without her counterpart.

Born in Friant, California (near Fresno), I had this amazingly athletic dog pretty much his entire life, which was more than 15 years, except for the first few weeks. He was extraordinary in many ways.

He went on countless vacations and beaches with me from Seattle to San Diego. He also traveled to Phoenix and many other places inland over the years. For the first three years of his life, he was the only dog I had, and he loved it that way.

I have footage of him pulling blackberries into his mouth with his paw.

He would dive into any body of water to chase a tennis ball, a feat he learned watching my friends’ big dogs in Oakland. Many people asked me what kind of dog he was emerging with a ball in his mouth he had retrieved from the bay, the pool, the lake, the river, etc.

Upon returning from vacation yesterday, Monte did not respond to our entering the home as he normally would have, with elation and energy. Upon re-investigating his difficulty eating and inviting our mobile veterinarian over, we found a huge splenic tumor in our 15-year-old Yorkie.  An emergency 24-hour trip later resulted in a confirmation that there was nothing operable and even if it was benign, it was pressing on his major organs. He had lost 50% of his body mass in just the last few months, despite medications to stimulate his appetite and quite a variety of changes in the food we prepared to appeal to him.

In 2008 I implored my daughter to go to a shelter to find a dog, not even knowing what I now know about the transactional problems with going to a breeder. She was hellbent that she wanted a male Yorkshire Terrier. I was basically bribing her with the dog of her choice to move to California where I’m from after raising her in New York, where she was born. I desperately missed her the year she went to high school in New Jersey near her mom. Before that, I had always had primary custody of my daughter, so I was willing to bend my principles to get her back. She did a lot of research and seemed very sure of what she wanted, probably because she saw some celebrity with a Yorkie.

So Monte started out technically as her dog.  I wasn’t naive, so I knew it was quite likely I’d be taking more responsibility, and that was fine, as she bounced around the country after getting out of high school. I joked all this time that she just wanted him for a Myspace photo op.  A week after she got him, I took over the potty training and everything else, and my daughter assisted for a while.

He was probably in a lot of pain these past few weeks, although he hid it. We’re so glad he survived our being gone that week. One of our amazing dog-sitters said he waited for us.  The tumor could have burst at any point with a blunt hit or fall in hindsight, and that would be disastrously painful.  Ironically, I was invited to my first online pet loss support group today, but I decided it would not be healthy for me to join minutes after he was put to rest, which turned out to be the timing that was convenient for the mobile veterinarian.

Ironically our 18-year-old Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix has really bounced back and we were worried about leaving for vacation with her being ill about a month ago.  Her fur is now once again lustrous, and she’s gained some weight, eating heartily daily and still quite ambulatory.  One never knows with these things.  She herself survived cancer at least six years ago when a huge tumor was removed from her leg. 

Below are the last video and pictures I took of this tough little guy. You cannot tell how skeletal he is because he has fur, but he was indeed emaciated and his eyes were glossed over. He moves slowly and it was hard to keep him hydrated and fed. He could not even go up a single step and mostly had to lay around in his last days. I’m sure it was uncomfortable for such a normally frenetic animal. He had hardly ever even been ill in all of his days. In these he is on my desk while I work so I could be as close to him as possible and keep an eye on him.