[SoCalyorkiLvr]

Originally Posted by YorkieRose

We have many new members posting lately. A number are breeding for the first time and asking excellent questions.
For anyone interested in avoiding set backs and total screw-ups I would like to relay a foundation truth.
YOU CAN NOT SEPARATE CONFORMATION AND TEMPERMENT. Any breeder who has breed for any length of time knows you can not neglect either aspect. If I had to pick between the two in order to continue to breed, I would pack it in and never breed again.
I have no desire to produce a gorgeous champion potential with miserable personality, shy, backward, agressive, snappish, mean, scared hyper or any other trait that makes it impossible to live with a dog. On the other hand I have no desire to produce an outgoing, friendly pet with a roach back, bad bite, bad ears, wooly coat, bad stifles, and a buyer asking me if it is really a purebred Yorkie they have purchased?

Conformation is not just a pretty Yorkie. It is vital for good health and temperment. Some people are not able to see the connection. The two are interwoven like a braid...to concentrate on one or the other is to do a huge disservice to the breed. It is the breeders responsibility to concenrate on conformation and temeperment as one. It is a total cop-out to say.."I breed for temperment"..what the breeder is actually saying is "I am too lazy and unmotivated to learn how to do it right"..

I agree as well and would appreciate your opinion as to why this is not made clear in the written "breed standard" that most "show" breeders go by as espoused by the YTCA and the AKC?