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Originally Posted by wnalegria There are breeders who have taken the time to breed small stock. They have bred into their dogs the gene that they will have small puppies. You have more a positive experience of that animal being small beacuse that is his genetics.
I have fallen into that area with some of my dogs- beautiful but are small 4 1/2 pounds as adults or smaller and have been bred that way for 4/5 generations. I do not breed a gal under 4 1/2 pounds. That is one of the reasons I was looking for a male stud to bring my size up.
There is a difference in my mind as to a runt and a unhealthy small puppy. The runt can be small at birth beacause it was not conceived the same time as the other puppies-given time and the propper care once here it can end up being the largest puppy as an adult. The same thing can happen that you have a large puppy that will hit a certain period and stop growing and be the little one out of a litter as an adult. You should keep record of all these things .
I have priced a tiny baby higher then other pupppies to weed out potential buyers at times. Got to know the client and then placed the puppy with them at a reduced price. I try and price the babies by the qaulity that I grade them.
Unhealthy babies come in all shapes and sizes. |
This is what I was trying to say. Runts in a litter which are not "bred on purpose to be tiny" are usually
like premature babies and the potential for health problems due to the prematurity is what I was referring to.
Whereas,
if a breeder has bred the small size into their line genetically and purposefully, those babies are not preeemies. They are just
naturally smaller.
I think this may be where the misconception has occurred that tinies have more health problems than average size yorkies. I have purchased 4 yorkies recently and, with the exception of one hypoglycemia attack and an inquinal herneia in one which corrected itself without surgery, my dogs are all very healthy and not "brittle" at all. They are not "extreme tinies" but rather will all be between 3 and 4 lbs as adults.
Also there was only
one person who talked of breeding "smaller females" on this thread and she know longer does it, ( I didn't feel it was my place to jump all over her for her post) so I don't think anyone condones that. When most of us discuss breeding "for" a smaller puppy we are talking about
regular size females bred with
tiny males who have the small gene bred into them for several generations.
And yes, as Villette likes to point out quite often,
I have only owned yorkies for a short time, but I have been a dog lover all my life as well as a yorkie fancier (had to wait til the kids were older to get one but encouraged severa friends to get one before that) and I have obedience trained since I was a child, I volunteer at the local Humane Society and I have educated myself. I do my research and in my search for my dogs I have spoken to many many breeders as well as read everything on here, and on several other forums for the last 6 months. My dogs are also service dogs and I have read almost every book that has been written on the yorkshire terrier. When I become obsessed with something I soak up the information and become as knowledgeable as I can about it as quickly as I can. I think most of the members on here recognize this about me. I back up my information with reliable sources.
I did not pay $5000 for any of my dogs, but I would have gladly paid that for Ava or Princess Chai had that been what the breeder was asking, but I did pay what most here would consider a lot, and I was not "taken advantage of" or "gouged" in the process. Each of my dogs was priced fairly, and in fact, I feel they are worth more. I have been offered more for both Ava and Chai, but, or course, they are my babies and are not for sale. I looked at many lesser priced dogs and very quickly figured out what I wanted which is hard to come by so I had to pay a little bove average to get what I wnated but I am offended that someone would think just because I paid a lot that I was "being stupid".I did it with my eyes wide open and with full knowledge of what the average yorkie costs in this country.