[Lady of Yorkies]

My "mentor" isn't much of a mentor. She used to breed and show dogs and apparently somewhere in that time she learned to jealously guard her knowledge and only drops a pearl of wisdom about once every 6 months. I am very frustrated with her and I have met a new couple who have bred Yorkies for 20 years. They have been out of breeding, I don't know how long yet, but are wanting to get back into it in a small way. They have one female and are buying one of my males.

My wonderful new vet gave me a tip, I think as much as I like my old vet I will be staying with this new guy. He said not only should dogs be given a yearly booster injection for the puppy shots, but that one would should be given at least 3 weeks before breeding. He said that it would help when the mother passes on immunities and also with milk production and colostrum.

I have only had Yorkies 3 years and been breeding a year and a half. I have bred Poodles and Cockers in the past but Yorkies are VERY different. Poodles and Cockers seem to be much sturdier breeds. Or possibly it has to do partially that we lived in the desert and there weren't as many parasites there. All I know is I was not prepared for what has been happening out here.

In a year and a half of breeding I have lost more babies than I ever did with combining the Poodles and Cockers. I could count on one hand the number of Poodle and Cocker babies I lost and still have at least 4 fingers left. It seems like I lose at least 2 babies out of every 3 litters of Yorkies. Now with this information from my vet and a couple of other things I've learned over the last 3 years, maybe things will start to settle down.

I just thot that it might be nice if everyone could pass along one word of wisdom they have learned. LOL Mine is above.LOL

Sylvia