yuri the dog, 2003-2007

our dog yuri died last feb. 2. my sister dianne posted this in her blog as a eulogy to the last dog we are going to take care of in this house.

He was given to us by an ex-boyfriend of one of my cousins. A mix between a mongrel and a Japanese spitz, he was a cute puppy with an attitude (he was quite moody). Once his past "amo" left, he refused to go with anyone but me. So he slept outside my bedroom door on his first night at our house. The next day he spent the rest of the day going after me and biting my fingers. I also cleaned up his doggie-do for the first time when he made a mess near the living room. I remember we named him after one of the main characters in one of the telenovelas in ABS-CBN. I wouldn't say that he responded quickly to the name Yuri, but he definitely refused to be called Dimitri, since he always angrily barked at our household help when she jokingly hollered "Dimitri!" to get his attention. Since it wasn't an easy task to potty-train him, he was destined to be an outside-of-the house dog just like his friends, our other dogs, Tita and Doggie. He was taken for a walk daily (mostly by my dad as a form of exercise especially in the mornings to avoid having to clean up doggie-poop) with his doggie-friends until they died one by one because of old age; and then he was the only one left.

He always barked incessantly when there were visitors in the house and when he sensed that there were "other" people in the house. He was almost always friends with females, as it was not very hard for our laundrywoman & house helpers to become friends with him. He barked at the guys, especially my boyfriend and all other guys who came to the house. (John would always say, "Galit na galit nanaman sakin si Yuri!") Yuri always recognized me by wagging his tail and jumping all about, especially if he senses that I will either feed him or let him out for his doggie-do walk. I cannot believe the strength of that dog whenever he yanked his chain; he can REALLY, i mean REALLY yank his leash (and probably pull me to wherever if I was wearing rollerblades or if I were riding a little wagon, hehe), because I guess he needs to pee/go poo-poo really bad. He ate everything that we fed hm, though he has ownership issues, he used to growl (which really scared me) if we got too close to him when he was having his meal. Well, pets are animals, of course. Sometimes I get scared when I have to approach him because I felt that he was going to jump at me or bite me. He was nice most of the time, though.

I think that he has served his purpose, he has guarded our house from would-be thieves by barking incessantly. He was sometimes a nuisance if we're sleeping because he would bark with the dogs outside the house if he heard them. That high-pitched annoying bark, and his presence near our laundy area will be missed. Hey you, you dog you, Yuri, You will be missed.