10/06/2025
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On April 15, we said goodbye to our dog, Yogurt. He was blind and had diabetes, his organs were failing, his intestines were blocked, and he was in pain. My wife, Jenny, and I lay on a blanket with Yogurt between us; we held him and petted him, as the vet administered the lethal injection. He floated away in seconds. It broke our hearts.
Five years ago, we adopted this adorable, fuzzy little guy whose name then was Yogi. We changed it to Yogurt because Yogi made me think of the cartoon bear and the old Yankees catcher. We got him from a dog groomer in Mitchell where he had been abandoned.
I have had several wonderful dogs over the years. Yogurt wasn’t one of them.
“He only has one interest in life,” the groomer told us. “Eating.”
Yogurt ate everything—paper, tissues, socks, blouses, cat p**p. Everything within reach was fair game. At home and at the Bloom office, where Yogurt came with me nearly every day, barely tolerated by my colleagues, all the garbage cans had to be raised so he couldn’t
get in them.
When garbage wasn’t an option, Yogurt became a kidnapper and a pickpocket. He would get a magazine or a sock or something valuable and take it under a table then growl and chew on it until we brought him a treat as ransom. If I was napping, he would wiggle his snout into a pocket and steal a tissue to shred and ingest.
Once when we were on vacation, the sitter called in a panic. Yogurt had eaten a pair of panty hose. We took a wait-and-see attitude, and two days later the sitter noticed a wisp of hose hanging
out his behind. She pulled and the panty hose came out—intact. Like a magic trick.
But he did have another interest. He also liked hu***ng. He hu**ed anything—alive, dead, inanimate.
Eating and hu***ng! Hu***ng and eating! He was the Henry VIII of little dogs.
As his health deteriorated and he lost his vision, we gave Yogurt insulin injections twice a day, as well as eye drops and other pills.
He was at the vet two or three times a month. On weekends, no matter what we were up to, we
had to come home every couple of hours to let him out. And sometimes, he did his business on the living room rug.
Worst of all, at night—every night—he would wake us two or three times by drubbing us with his paws to take him out. We never got a full night’s sleep.
But Yogurt loved us and that made up for a lot. On Sunday afternoons he and I would nap on the living room couch, his soft little body resting on my chest. He loved to give us doggie handshakes, and if we were away even for a day, he would jump for joy when we returned and slather us with doggie kisses. Jenny loved to watch him run—his hind legs moving in unison like a wind-up toy.
Although he was blind, he knew his way around the house, the office, and my mother-in-law’s house. “Granny” lived a 15-minute walk away. Yogurt knew the way and he loved to go there because he loved Granny—and she gave him treats.
When our cats, Mr. Handsome and Marigold, squabbled, Yogurt would bark and chase them apart to make peace. At the vet and groomer, he would cling to my leg like a small child. And on our walks, Yogurt made a friend of every stranger we met. Our home is way too quiet without our little buddy. Even Mr. Handsome and Marigold miss their old nemesis. Secretly, I think, they loved him too.
He was a bad boy. But he was our bad boy. And we loved him madly.
Malcolm Abrams
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