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Originally Posted by TresCutePiggies  The groomer at Rory's doggie daycare said that not all yorkies are capable of growing a full coat, and it was the first time I'd heard something like that, so I am deferring to the experts...
She eats good food, takes vitamins, is bathed weekly and brushed and combed out every night.
She is 13 months now, and it doesn't seem like her coat is very long compared to some other pictures I have seen.
I don't desire for her to have a coat down to the ground by any means - the daily combing and brushing after daycare is quite a bit at the current length, but I was curious if it could have the potential to be that long? A teapot at 9 pounds and with floppy ears, she clearly will never be a standard yorkie, but we love her just the same.
I attached a picture where you can kind of see her current fur length. I had always heard their coats were somewhat like human hair and would continue to grow unless broken off when it touches the ground or cut.
Thanks in advance for the help. |
No. they all don't have the potential to grow a long coat. What you say about human hair is partially correct, "somewhat like human hair and would continue to grow unless broken off when it touches the ground or cut." Each human hair is programmed to live so long, and at the end of a certain amount of time it will die and fall out. This varies greatly between individuals, and can be anywhere from 3-7 years, on average. So this means that a person, who has a three-year hair life, would have much more difficulty growing out waist length hair, than someone with a 7-year hair life. On average, hair grows ½ inch a mouth, so that is a potential growth of 6 inches a year. For the person with a 3-year life that is only 18 inches, before the hair falls out, the person with 7-year life would have 43 inches of length before the hair falls out. Then of course some people's hair grows faster than ½ inch a month and some people need to have the ends trimmed more often than others. So you can see there is lots of variation in the human hair length. The same is true for Yorkie hair, and some dog's hair has a longer life, and can achieve more length before it falls out and dies.
There are certain things you can do to optimize hair length, a quality food, perhaps supplements, or oil if they are lacking. Making sure you use good shampoo and conditioners, so that hair isn't breaking. Using a good pin brush is probably one of the most important factors in achieving hair length besides heredity, because brushes with ball tips break the hair. However, there is nothing you can do to increase the individual life of the hair, that's genetics. By the way, you dog is a real cutie.