Quote:
Originally Posted by manolos mom  How Long have Parti Yorkies been around. Do we have members who own an Older Parti. Just Curious about health. AKC have accepted many new breeds wonder if one day they will accept Parti's. Is'nt Chinese Crested now considered a BREED. |
The parti's have been around since the beginning of the breed. Ernest Hemmingway's grandfather owned a white yorkshire terrier named Tassel back in the early 1900's (around the time of 1900-1915).
Since AKC did now allow any color to be registered other than the standard prior to the year 2000, parti and other off colored pups were given away, and some were destroyed when they appeared in litters. It was thought that these off colors were a genetic freak of nature, unhealthy or weak. Some people thought that maybe the wrong stud bred their girl (maybe the maltese or some other spotted stud). They didn't realize that it was recessive genes at work and that both sire and dam needed to be carrying the recessive genes for those off colors.
During the late 1990's when AKC did an investigation on the parti color showing up consistently in one line of yorkies, AKC extensively DNA'd the pups and as many living relatives as possible, they interviewed some very well known and highly regarded old time breeders who were breeding in the 1920's - 1980's and these breeders told AKC that they had parti appear in their own litters. One breeder in particular has written books on the Yorkshire terrier breed and many if not all of the parti's we see today are tracing back to her champion dogs. Some surprise litters of partis that are being produced today from two traditional colored yorkies, are a tracing back to these champion dogs 50 years later.