She stated that she also bred for Standard on her website at the time she gave me a female she was retiring. I did see her statement, but her website had been redone, so I can't say if it was on the newer site. The female she gave me is 6.5 pounds.
From a medical point of view, a teacup is the smallest puppy born in a normal (bred for Standard) litter of puppies, sometimes called a runt. These pups end up having more often the issues of congenital deformities, have a tendancy to be sickly, and prognosis on their survival is not good. These dogs should never be bred, or sold when they are born into a normal litter.
As I understand what Natalie was doing, was taking the smaller of the healthiest pups in a litter (not the runts) and over the years, breeding them to produce smaller than Standard Yorkies, and as they were not the runts of the litters, able to maintain healthy stock, and gradually develop a true, healthy Tiny sized line of Yorkies. She told me she never bred females under 3 pounds, and always bred them to smaller males to produce smaller puppies, keeping the females out of danger of having too large a pup to deliver.
Personally, if one is going to breed for tinies, her method would be the way to do that.
What I don't understand, are breeders that use larger than Standard females, to produce larger litters, and breed them to Standard but small males, which will produce dogs that are within the Standard for the first 1-3 years of their lives, but then grow beyond the Standard once they fully mature.
And I don't understand how member(s) who have openly sought out a Tiny for purchase for whatever reason, can come on here and criticize what Natalie was doing. Sorry, I really don't 'get' it.
And I'll say it now, not every dog from any breeder is going to be healthy. No matter how careful a breeder is, eventually something will show up. All that means is that Bitch 'A' cannot be bred with Sire 'B'. It does not mean the breeder is bad. A bad Breeder is one who will continue to breed Bitch 'A' with Sire 'B', knowing that this combination has produced problem pups in the past.
JMHO. What do I know
