I am looking for a young male Yorky that I can show. I'm not looking for a world champion, but a dog that I can be reasonably be assured that he could stand up to some competition and be able to finish in some color of ribbon.
I have been emailing people who's dogs I admire and respect their eithics and hoping they might have a good show quality prospect that they would not mind selling to a novice. Today I went to the AKC site and emailed breeders who had lots of years of showing behind them and also made sure their breeding animals had the proper medical tests before breeding.
One of them wrote back to say they had puppies that were a month old. One was going to be kept by the breeder for themselves, the other to another breeder and the 3rd I could come take a look at to see if I was interested. The breeder said that this was a repeat breeding with other puppies in the previous litter by the same two dogs being in the ring now.
I thought that dogs had to be at least 6 months old before one knows whether they are show prospects or not? Can a person with many years of showing and breeding practice know whether they have a show prospective animal at that early age? I currently would be afraid to take a chance. Yet I am very tempted. The picture of the dad that they sent was gorgeous. I have noticed that many breeders rarely send pics of the dams ! Why is that? They contribute 50 percent of the DNA !
I am really flattered that they even bothered to email me back, but then after reading my books and other comments by other professional folks in here, I now have doubts. Can I trust to take an over 4 hour trip to go look at a puppy that is barely a month old yet?
And expect to eventually take it to the conformation show ring and finish him as a champion?