Miss Fifi offers a bittersweet look at last week’s Pet photo winner, Yogi Cox. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with his human, Jimmy, to learn a bit more about the Golden Retriever named after the beloved NY Yankees coach, Yogi Berra.

“Yogi was a great dog,” Jimmy said, “and we were lucky to have him for 8 years.”

Three Golden retrievers lived with Jimmy Cox in Raleigh: Yogi, Berra and Maris. “You should be able to tell by the names that I am a big Yankees fan.” Yet as we forge our way into Spring, when baseball fans the world over will be celebrating the start of their season, the Cox family will be less one fan on the sofa.

“We had a tough time this fall as Maris was diagnosed with a rare form of mouth tumor and had surgery to remove the front inch of her lower jaw on November 1. When tests came back on November 19 that they had got all of the cancer, we were thrilled.” (Maris is the baby of the bunch.) “She’s a small Golden who is now six. We rescued her at age two after she spent three weeks in an Asheville kennel, abandoned without food or water. She weighed 14 pounds when she was rescued, and she is an angel.

“But our celebration was curtailed a day later when Yogi started limping and we took him to the vet. His X-Rays the day before Thanksgiving showed bone cancer, and chemo and amputation would have only bought him six months. So we did the right thing and kept him happy until it was obvious that he was in pain.

“He was such a happy dog. If you would have told me the day that I got him that I would have had him for only eight years, I would have still taken you up on that offer. We had a stone made that says Yogi, 1999-2008, Good as Gold. Berra, his littermate, misses his brother tremendously and now sleeps in Yogi's crate (his choice, not ours).”

Miss Fifi is so thankful to know the story of the wonderful, loving life of Yogi the dog, and the loving family he left behind. Woof.