Buddhist Dog Names

This Chinese Crested Chihuahua got her name from the famous Jedi Master on Star Wars before she won the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest in 2011. The 14-year-old pupster beat 50 other dogs to win the title at a contest at the Sonoma Marin Fair. Yoda’s owner, Terry Schumacher from Hanford, California said that she found the tiny pooch behind her apartment building and thought she was a rat at first. She soon realized it was an abandoned dog that was starving and cold, so she took her home, and she has had her ever since. 

Although she knows that Yoda would probably never win a beauty contest, Schumacher did not actually see Yoda as ugly, so she was a bit shocked that she won the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. She beat out the old winner, a Chihuahua with one eye named Princess Abby and a blind Pug named Hercules. When she entered the contest, she did it as a joke, but it was no joke when she got the $1,000 check for having her dog voted the ugliest dog in the world in 2011. 

With spotty tufts of hair sticking out everywhere, a crooked nose, long legs with no hair, and a tongue that she cannot keep in her mouth, Yoda wowed the judges with her personality and looks. The designer dog is a mix of a Chinese Crested Dog and a Chihuahua, weighed less than two pounds and was about 10 inches tall. Schumacher said that Yoda was a funny and friendly little pooch with a big personality and loved to sit in her lap. 

Unfortunately, Yoda passed away in her sleep in 2012 at the ripe old age of 15. She lived a long life and at least the last couple of years of it were great since being found and rescued in 2010 by Schumacher. In her last year, she was busy being famous, and she even visited the Today Show with Matt Lauer, winning over the hearts of people all over the world. Honestly, those who knew Yoda did not think of her as ugly, and she was so comfortable in her own skin that her owner believed that Yoda didn’t consider herself as ugly either.

Schumacher named her little cutie Yoda because she resembled the character on Star Wars, but she also realized how perfect the name was after she realized that Yoda was a Zen master and was a natural at meditation and yoga. In fact, every time you looked at her, she looked like she was meditating. So, even if she did look a bit ruff, Yoda was a beautiful sentient being on the inside.