[magicgenie]

I just read the article about about 17 Yorkshire Terriers rescued from the basement of a serious house fire in Colorado recently. The reader comments are so cruel, bashing the homeowners for being breeders, for keeping dogs in the basement, all the dog problems of the world heaped onto these people who have just lost everything they own except the dogs. I don't know anything about the owners, they may be good breeders or may be terrible, but as a home based breeder I have to speak up about a couple of things here. First, no dogs died in the fire BECAUSE THEY WERE IN THE BASEMENT, the safest part of the house during a fire. This is the very reason my "kennel" is in the basement. In a fire that is the easiest and safest part of my house to evacuate. The puppies in the 2nd floor bedrooms will likely perish. As living space, the basement is not the prettiest part of the house, but easiest to clean and a direct walk out to a lovely garden where they love to play. As usual, a lot of the bashing was about the overabundance of dogs in shelters and how breeders are perpetuating the problem. Yes, there are a lot of big dogs in shelters, but rarely a Yorkie, at least where I live.