[Woogie Man]

Below is a list, taken from Ann Seranne's The Joy of Breeding Your Own Show Dog. It is a list of traits generally agreed to be either dominate or recessive. With the Yorkshire Terrier having a high percentage of desirable traits being recessive, it's no wonder that this is an incredibly difficult breed to breed correct and pure.

Dominant .... Recessive
Long Head .... Short Head
Large or Long Ears .... Small or Short Ears
Low-set Ears .... High-set Ears
Wide Ear Leather .... Narrow Ear Leather
Coarse Skull .... Fine Skull
Short Foreface .... Long Foreface
Erect Ears .... Drop or Tipped ears
Dark Eyes .... Light Eyes
Normal Eyes .... Large Bulging Eyes in Some Breeds
Brown Eyes .... Blue Eyes
Wire Coat .... Smooth Coat
Short Coat .... Long Coat
Curly Coat .... Straight Coat
Poor Layback of Shoulder .... Good Layback of Shoulder
Poorly Angulated Stifle .... Well Angulated Stifle
High-set Tail .... Low-set Tail
Heavy Bone .... Light Bone
Deep Chest .... Shallow Chest
Straight Topline .... Swayback
Good Spring of Rib .... Poor Spring of Rib
Short Stifle .... Long Stifle
Light Pigment .... Dark Pigment on Skin of White Dogs
Normal Hearing .... Deafness
Good Eyesight ..... Night Blindness
Good Eye Pigment .... Walleyes
Self-color .... Parti-color
Black Nose .... Dudley Nose
Good Mouth .... Overshot or Undershot
Normal Palate ..... Cleft palate
Normal Lip .... Hare Lip
Straight tail .... Kinked or Bent Tail

It is noted that some are incompletely dominate, some are linked to others and others, such as cleft palate, are considered lethal genes.

Could we use this list as a basis to discuss breeding Yorkshires? Genotype vs phenotype, line-breeding, in-breeding, out-crossing, linked genes, etc. are all possible subjects for breeding healthy, typey Yorkshire terriers. I know many of these aspects have been previously discussed, but it might be nice to see them discussed in a cohesive manner with your own personal experiences.

Thanks in advance for your input.