It's my opinion that tri-colored yorkies are REAL yorkies, that have possibly popped up since...well, since the 1880's. For one thing, the population boom of yorkies spread the LATENT gene around, then they started coming together and ...bam. That's just my opinion, It's not right or wrong...I'd like to stress that.
One thing that I'm vehemently against is...what some people think was introducing another breed into our own to get another color. I'll use poodles as an example...(again.) Now, aside from the solid/parti poodle debate, I'm going to use ''merle'' poodles as an example. There has ALWAYS been phantom/parti color poodles since the breed's inception. This is well documented. Because the family lines of the poodle include the Barbet, Maltese, Bichon Frise, Bichon Tenerife, Bolonka, Bolognese, Portugese/Spanish/Italian Water Dogs, Irish Water Spaniel, etc etc etc...it's understandable that there would be variation in color. But there has NEVER been a dog in the ancestry of the poodle that carries the merle gene!
SOME highly questionable breeders obviously introduced a dog into the poodle breed (with a less than savory registry, mind you...sigh...) with a merle gene. Then the ''mutt'' was bred to another poodle and so on and so forth and BOOM, we have purebred merle poodles. What I'm afraid of is this creeping into the AKC stock with some lying on puppy applications and an explosion happening in the poodle world with people saying that there has always been merle poodles...because there hasn't.
It'd be different if the poodle wasn't a Pan-European ancient dog breed that's pretty much been in existence for hundreds of years in some manner or form, unlike the Yorkshire Terrier which is a (relatively speaking) newer breed of dog combined from several different ancient breeds of dogs. (Maybe the Maltese?...I wonder what the Maltese would look like today if the standard wasn't changed to be all white.) But I digress, the merle gene is a DOMINANT gene. Meaning if I bred a dapple dachshund to a non-dapple dachshund the chances are that one of the puppies will be dapple. If I breed a silver and gold Yorkie with a silver and gold Yorkie carrying the parti gene, I'm going to get more silver and gold Yorkies...it won't be until possibly many generations later that the parti genes will meet up and! Tricolors!...
Fashions and breed standards change. Particolor poodles are now allowed in the UKC show ring while still being vehemently denied into the AKC show ring. Maybe that will change. Maybe (hopefully) the standard for the Yorkshire Terrier can one day change. Biewer notwithstanding, is there any information on chocolate, golden, solid black/blue, or tricolor Yorkshire Terriers in other countries? I'd really like to read more about how this is being handled in other countries' kennel clubs. Just imagine...watching a dog show (in person or on animal planet
) and seeing a seperate color class for each Yorkie, like the toy, miniature, and standard poodle...and the wirehaired, longhaired, and smoothhaired dachshund...the manchester terriers, the spaniels, and then! the traditional yorkie, the chocolate yorkie, the solid yorkie, and the tricolor yorkie! ...
....Even if we don't agree with each other (which is fine! I just think we could do it more respectfully) there are much worse things to worry about in our breed than colors. We have the problem of puppy mills, primarily I think to contend with. As heartbreaking as it is, the more popular our Yorkshire Terriers become, the more popular they become in puppy mills. I've saw eight Yorkshire Terriers in a rabbit hut before. Seven females and one male. Their...''owner'' proudly proclaimed that they netted her about 5,000 bucks every six months. And three of them were the stud's daughter...AND they were triple-registered! CKC/NKC/UKCI!