Move over, Cairn Terrier and Dachshund owners. At the risk of starting a brawl, there’s another “player” in the debate over the breed that Toto (of Wizard of Oz fame) really was. In the first edition of L. Frank Baum’s classic story, original illustrations strongly hint that Toto may have been a Yorkshire Terrier. The illustrator, W.W. Denslow, had a Yorkie, and the breed was quite popular at the time, so it’s plausible. The Oz books never mentioned Toto’s breed, and that opened the door for all manner of conjecture.

Several Dachshund sites maintain that Toto was originally scripted for a miniature Dachshund named “Otto” owned by actress, Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West.  Only because of lingering post-war hostility toward Germans, they say, did the studio to insist on casting a Norwich Terrier as Toto.

Others who regard themselves as “scholars” of the Wizard of Oz books believe that L. Frank Baum intended Toto to be a mutt. Hmmmm, not so sure.  Baum described Toto as “a little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose.” That makes it problematic for those who say that in Frank Baum’s later Oz books, Toto became a Boston Terrier for reasons never explained, then changed back to a terrier in the last books of the series.

After looking at this illustration, however, we think the Yorkie people might just be able to make their case. What say you?