Fashion Icon and Dog Influencer Tika the Iggy Dies After Surgery at Age 14

Tika the Iggy, the most fashionable dog on the internet, has sadly passed away at the age of 14. Her pet parent and social media account manager, Thomas Shapiro, announced Tika’s passing on Instagram and shared a long, heartfelt post about what Tika meant to him and his husband, Louis, who originally adopted her. 

“I really thought you were going to live forever,” he wrote. “I thought we had more time, but there are things we cannot control. Our hearts are shattered.”

Born in Montreal in 2011, Tika gained fame on TikTok and Instagram for modeling stylish and elaborate outfits curated by her dads. Her posts had sassy, first-person captions that captured her big personality and sometimes the videos were narrated in a cutesy French-accented voiceover (dubbed by Shapiro himself). Tika attended several fashion weeks in New York, Paris, and Milan, and also collaborated with a number of luxury brands like BOSS and Dolce & Gabbana. In 2021, Tika appeared in Vogue and was dubbed “a new fashion It girl” by the magazine. Fittingly, she was also called “the Anna Wintour of dogs” by the Dogist.

This past September, Tika attended her last New York fashion week, retiring from the runway world. In the Instagram announcement, Tika (or rather, Shapiro writing as Tika), said that “while I still love the glam, it’s a big commitment for a little old lady.”

According to Shapiro, Tika was recently diagnosed with two tumors in her liver. “It was hard to believe, because you were still so full of life, still jumping up, running, doing everything as usual,” he wrote. “But it was determined that those tumors would quickly grow and take a toll on your tiny body, so we followed the advice of all of your amazing vets and went ahead with surgery to remove them.”

While the surgery was initially successful, and the recovery seemed to be going smoothly at first, on the second night Tika seemed to lose her usual zest and energy. 

“You looked so tired, not quite yourself, yet peaceful,” wrote Shapiro. “At first, the vets believed it was the effect of the pain killers, but we soon found out that it was your body that was slowly giving up, and we were told that there wasn’t anything we could have done that day to prevent it from happening. It is sadly a risk that comes with surgery on senior dogs.”

Louis also posted a video where he addressed Tika directly and recounts his journey with her from the very beginning, when as a university student he adopted the little Italian greyhound puppy and took her home. 

“Fifteen years ago, I was so lost,” he recounted. “I had no idea what to do with my life. One day, I decided to take control of it. And on that same day, I decided to get a dog. I can still live the day when I met you. You had chosen me and I had chosen you.” 

He went on to detail how Tika helped him meet his husband and how she was has been with him every step of the way. Both their lives changed massively for the better after the found each other, with Shapiro graduating, finding love, and starting a family, and Tika being catapulted to internet fame as a glamorous fashion star. But in the end, even with the fame, Louis and Tika’s relationship was the most important thing. 

“In the last few years, I would often catch myself thinking that a goodbye would have to come,” Louis shared, fighting back tears. “I dreaded those thoughts, but I knew the day would come. And here we are, from a lost boy to a happily married father of two beautiful kids. And I owe it all to you.”