Meet Rascal, The Yorkshire Terrier....

Rascal, pregnant at almost four years old

Meet Rascal, the now pregnant Yorkie belonging to our daughter, Catherine. She was nine weeks old when we collected her and she was a happy and confident puppy right from the start. She was also a naughty and mischievous puppy, which is where she got her name from.

As a puppy she loved nothing better than  running off with things that she shouldn't have had, that included the dirty habit of snatching dirty laundry as I was sorting it. That was a habit that she thankfully grew out of and now sticks to playing with her toys.
 Rascal is naturally wary of strangers, which is typical trait of adult Yorkies, but as with most women she can be won over with a few of her favourite soft treats and once she decides that she likes you, she will greet you like a long lost friend every time she sees you.

She is also a very vocal little dog, who lets us and the whole street know when she isn't happy by throwing very vocal hissy fits, which is a series of high pitched whiny yaps. This happens when she wants to go in the car, but has been left behind, if she is outside and wants to come into the house right now! If its feeding time and her food is not ready or if one of her toys is stuck under the sofa and she can't reach it. Anyone would think that we were torturing her the noise she makes - which I can assure you we do not!

Rascal was a cutie at nine weeks old

Rascal has never been a mellow dog, but luckily for her our other dogs are laid back and take her bossiness in their stride and now at the grand age of almost four years old, she thinks she is top dog to Alphie our male Yorkie, our pavement special called Beanie and our German Shepherd called Roxy - who was her close friend and playmate until Alphie came along. It was probably for the best as even at ten years old, Roxy still gets a little boisterous when playing and could accidentally inflict serious damage on a small Yorkshire Terrier.

Surprisingly to us Rascal is and has always been very tolerant of Alphies playfulness, which doesn't seem to have lessened as he has aged. He is fifteen months old now and she still lets him chew her back legs whilst playing, although she does get the better of him in a tug of war game and as her pregnancy progresses I am sure she will be playing a lot less.

Rascal had two heats before Alphie was old enough to know what he was doing, but that did not stop her from mercilessly pursuing him. Last Christmas she kept desperately backing into him, which he thought was great fun, but he was clueless as to what to do, which left her feeling rejected or that is the impression we got.

This time when she came into heat, he was there, ready and raring to go, which seemed to make her a very happy and ultimately pregnant little dog.

Where the story starts....
Meet Alphie....