Maybe you knew of Yogi, met Yogi, or have no who I'm talking about.. but Yogi was my dog, my best friend, and the reason I started Beast and Babe. After 11 years together (and a few more before that) he died peacefully in my arms last month on the summer solstice after an exceptionally wonderful life. 

Trying to find the words to explain how I feel about Yogi, what he means to me, feels clumsy to say the least- like marbles in my mouth. What I can say is that I loved that little dog like it was nobodies business. I loved him with every fiber of my being and while I’m not sure if I loved him more than any human has ever loved their dog, I know no one else ever loved a dog more.

Yogi wasn't a perfect dog. He was a cute-as-can-be dog, but a cat chaser, a nice- person biter, quite possibly the worst babysitting client you could ever get, a rug digger, a screen window destroyer, a monotonous alone time barker. I got him at a dog shelter when I was 18 years old.

 If I had known what I was getting into at the time I would have gone for the fat little beagle next door or better yet would have just been responsible and thought “now probably isn’t the time to get a dog” but I didn’t, so I got Yogi. When I trace back the most special things in my life, decisions I’ve made, places I’ve been, who I’ve become, many of them trace back to that one split second, heartfelt decision.

The tough thing about loving a dog is that you know what you are getting into. You know you’re forking over this most tender, pure sort of love and that it’s just going to wreck you one day… and it does. But, goodness does it make you feel alive, brave, fiercely aware of something beautiful. Yogi was my shadow, he loved chasing cats, crisp organic chicken skin, taking his sweet time to smell each and every flower (and dog pee), but most of all he loved me. He would have followed me to the end of the earth and back and around in circles and he would have been just fine with us taking our sweet time to get there.

Dogs are weird, wonderful, downright magical   creatures and the closest description to a   guardian angel I can think of. So despite the   cliche, the interspecies differences, the age   gap, the current heart break, I'd like to thank   Yogi for being the best damn friend a girl   could ask for. His constancy in my life, his   loyalty, his unequivocal devotion is one of the   very best gifts I've experienced in this strange   incarnation we exist in.

  I hope this doesn't make you too sad! No no, I hope this reminds you to laugh and play and live in the moment just like our doggos do. They are all waiting for us over some sort of rainbow bridge, that's just a fact. So thanks for being on this journey with us, for loving dogs and doing your best to be good to them as they are to us. They make us better people and that's a pretty cool thing. Yogi was the reason I started making rad dog goods, and will be one of the many happy reasons we continue. 

All my best to you and your fur family, 

Kelsie Macray

Beast + Babe 

Owner