Noodle the pug, who went viral on social media for predicting “bones” and “no-bones” days, has died at age 14
Forget horoscopes and fortune cookies. During the pandemic, we had a better way to tell our fortunes: A sweet, elderly, New York City pug named Noodle who went massively viral for his “readings” that predicted whether we would have “bones” or “no-bones” days. But over the weekend, Noodle’s owner took to social media to share some devastating news: The beloved pet died. He was 14 years old.
“I’m so sorry to have to share this, but Noodle passed yesterday,” said Jonathan Graziano, who adopted Noodle seven years ago. “He was at home, he was in my arms. This is incredibly sad. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s a day that I always knew was coming but never thought would arrive.”
Graziano continued, “Although this is very sad, I wanted to let you know, and I wanted to encourage you to celebrate him while we’re navigating this sadness. He lived 14 and a half years which is about as long as you can hope a dog can. And he made millions of people happy. What a run.”
In his video, Graziano thanked Noodle’s fans for “embracing” him and his geriatric pug, as if we had any other choice. Noodle became a phenomenon during a time that we needed some joy to rally around, when many of us were still trapped at home during the height of the pandemic. Each day, Graziano would wake up and go to Noodle’s bed to pick him up. If Noodle remained standing, it was a “bones day.” If the sweet little pug flopped back into his bed, it was a “no-bones day.”
As Graziano put it when he and Noodle visited the Today show in 2021, “A bones day is a day where you just have to go after your ambition or a task you were outing off. A no bones day is a day when you just permission to wear soft clothes, self-care, take a bath.”
Noodle and his readings inspired song parodies, Halloween costumes, and a merch line. But more than than, this little pug was a source of steady comfort during a time when so many people needed it.
“Noodle has brought joy to so many people online. I can’t believe it,” Graziano said during their Today show appearance. “This ‘no bones’ video is something that I would just do as a silly little ritual for us in the morning to check in and see how he was doing. And then it took off. People starting using it as a forecast for how their day was going to go and I leaned into it. We all need a little positivity right now.”
