Staff Writer

More than 25 families gathered in Holly Gilbert-Cleary’s backyard on Saturday for an annual family reunion – but it’s not the people who are related here, it’s the dogs.

Gilbert-Cleary is the breeder behind Taylor Made Yorkies, and for the fourth year in a row, she invited all the puppies born in her Arundel home back for a visit.

“When we decided to stat a breeding program, we decided to do things differently,” Gilbert-Cleary said. “We always stay in touch with families, we consider them extended family.”

Some new faces come every year to adopt their Yorkies, but the majority of party-goers come back year after year to visit with those they now call “close friends.”

 Cars lined up the street with license plates from as far away as Connecticut.  There is also one dog in New Jersey, but the family could not make this year’s reunion.

“It’s so much fun, seeing our relatives,” said Joan Ireland who came from New Hampshire with her dog Rosie. “When we drove up we couldn’t hold her, we had to put her on a leash, she knew where she was.”

Ireland said the first thing her dog did when she was off the leash was to go visit Gilbert-Cleary.

Gilbert-Cleary said she came up with the idea of the family reunion because she wanted to keep a close eye on her puppies.

“I really want to work on producing good puppies so we want to know their personalities as they grow up,” she said.

But it’s not just research about the dogs she breeds - every year Gilbert-Cleary is excited to see her dogs come home.

“You get to see all their babies. It’s so great to continue to come every year and be with our friends and our babies. It’s a phenomenal time. We all look forward to it,” said Chris O’Connor, who owns Cesar.

O’Connor, from New Hampshire, said she would never go anywhere else to buy a Yorkie because of Taylor Made’s exceptional breeding.

“He’s the best Yorkie I’ve ever owned, he has a personality unlike any dog. I feel very blessed,” O’Connor said.

This year it was not all happy news. Norma Brettell, who lives in Massachusetts, offered to be the guest speaker at the reunion to talk about the best ways to prepare for a lost dog. Her 2-year-old Yorkie, Lulu, has been missing for nearly two months in the Bangor area.

Brettell has been driving to the area the dog was last seen almost every weekend since Mother’s Day. Wally Brettell, Norma’s husband, has tried playing his banjo to call the dog home and the family has placed ads in newspapers across the state asking the community if they find their black and brown Yorkie to call their home.

“People don’t always differentiate between dog breeds,” Norma Brettell said of the many calls she’s received on sightings for Lulu. “Their heart is in the right place. There are people who I know are looking so for us it makes it easier to sleep.”

Norma Brettell said her other dog, Binky, a 10-year-old Yorkie, has been losing weight and not eating well. She said her husband is devastated over the lost dog.

The Brettells have set up a Facebook page, Finding Lulu, to elicit help finding their pet.

Norma Brettell told the other families to keep their dogs on leashes when away from home and in the event the dog does get away, make sure the dog is spayed or neutered, have a  microchip implanted in the dog, keep an up to date photograph and tell everyone you meet your dog is lost.

At the end of the reunion, Gilbert-Cleary handed everyone a calendar with pictures of some of the dogs.

Many of the calendar dogs were in the crowd and some were no longer alive, but most of the audience knew who the dogs were just by the photograph.

For the month of December, Gilbert-Cleary used a montage of pictures from past family reunions.

“If you look very closely I’m sure you can all find yourselves,” she told the crowd.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.