[Nancy1999]

Originally Posted by Pinehaven

Unlike a bad bite, which can have negative health consequences, off colors like Parti, golden, chocolate and black coats, doesn't cause any harm to the dog, except in the show ring. All off colors, including black coated adults, are disqualified in the ring (as are blues that are too dark or too light).

Many of the different parti lines are tracing back to CH Wildweir Pomp N Circumstance who was born 50 years ago. I think most would be surprised, that these off colors are not new to our breed - they've been showing up in different lines since the beginning of the breed, including the Wildweir line (according to the information discovered in the late 1990's when AKC had their investigation over the Nikkos parti dogs). Prior to AKC's investigation which ended in allowing parti coloring to be registered, off colors were culled, given away or destroyed. At the time, recessive genes were not understood and it was thought that the wrong stud bred the bitch or that the off colored pup was genetically defective, we now know that's not the case.

Parti standards are the same as Yorkshire terrier standards with the exception of their coloring. Unlike the Biewer who have color "placement"
standards, AKC parti's cannot control the amount of spotting or it's placement due to the genes responsible for their tri coloring being a different
spotting gene than what the biewer's have. Biewers appear to carry the Irish spotting gene while most the AKC partis carry the pie bald and extreme white spotting genes.

There are good breeders and bad breeders in every breed not just the yorkshire terriers. And yes, some breed indiscriminately but others will look beyond the color to breed the best dog they can breed; to improve the type and quality of their colorful yorkshire terrier; to try to educate people about recessive genes and to promote these colors that have been in our breed for years.

Just as a YTCA member who breeds and shows Yorkies, breed for that desired steel blue coloring that is necessary in the show ring, parti breeders are also breeding to perfect the tri coloring in our AKC registered yorkies.

But the YTCA member will not breed just any Yorkie because he has the desired steel blue coloring; they are looking at the whole package. However, due to its popularity, many Parti breeders will do this. Popularity and rareness are never a good mix for the future health of any breed. Like relatives, when you win the lottery, bad breeders come out of the woodwork when there is money to be made.