Yap!: A Short History of Small Dogs

An entertaining history of our small canine companions, told in tender, engaging stories and featuring charming illustrations of the most famous pocket-sized pups and their owners across the centuries

“What a respite from the woes of the world, to dive into this brilliantly researched and wittily written study of the history of our love affair with small dogs. I loved it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love

“If you love little dogs, you will love this book—and if you don’t, these delightful, surprising, and informative pages will change your mind!”—Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of an Octopus

Yap! Whether that sound suggests an irritating little runt of a dog or a sweet huggable bundle of canine fluff, you need to curl up with this captivating, informative, anecdotal history of our most diminutive four-legged friends. Dogs have been valued members of our societies for tens of thousands of years. They’ve guarded our homes, herded our flocks, hunted our food, and rescued us when we’ve needed help. But since ancient times, little terriers and lapdogs have enriched human lives in a different way. For millennia we’ve bred and kept them, both because they work for us and they bring us joy.

Animal historian Dr. Stephanie Howard-Smith tells the story of our smallest working canines and our beloved companions in a series of fun, lapdog-sized chapters, each of which focuses on a famous historical pooch. From the convents of medieval Europe, where nuns hid small dogs to be their faithful friends (despite the disapproval of male church leaders) to King Charles’s Spaniels, Queen Victoria’s Pekingese, Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, and the pet influencers of twenty-first-century social media, Yap! follows the pawprints of the pups who set the mold for the dogs we share our homes with today.

Celebrating the petite companions with whom we’ve had our longest and closest relationship, from the lean mean little terriers who’ve kept our homes vermin-free, to our precious French Bulldogs and Toy Poodles, Terriers and Dachshunds, Pomeranians and Pugs, Shih Tzus and Spaniels, Howard-Smith presents a heartfelt ode to the yapping little dogs that have shaped our lives as much as we have shaped theirs: how they've evolved from working dogs to couch companions, providing the blueprint for the modern canine, and offered us companionship when we’ve most needed it.