[Foster Mom]

I have a question

Back about 7 years ago i decided to breed yorkies. I had a gorgeous male from some top bloodlines and i got my female. Not to talk costs here but it goes to the story here, my male cost me 1000.00 and wa a champion male, my female cost me 3000.00 and she is the one I found out later was sold to me at 4 1/2 weeks old. Now when i bred them granted i did not know all the problems that could arise and I truly did not know how difficult it is to breed these little guys. My female was 7 pounds and my male 3 pounds, don't ask me how he did it....determination I guess. Anyhow we had 3 gorgeous little boys, via c section. After the c section my female rejected her babies, and I had to foster them out at a breeders place for 7 weeks at the cost of one puppy, which was fair. Now my girl stopped eating and drinking, numerous vet visits trying to figure out waht was going on and no answers, syringe feeding her and giving her fluids via syringe for 8 weeks followed. Then I had her spayed, i was NOT ever going thru this again and maybe losing my girl. Her breeder (and I use that term very loosley) said no do not breed her it will work out better next time and I will help you, I said NO WAY. She had n my contranct that she got one baby out of each littler my girl ever had, plus the 3000.00 plus stud services with my male (unbelievable). anyhow after her spay we went back to not eating or drinking, another 7 weeks of syringe feeding and syringing fluids in. Then she seemed to get better but not quite back to the dog she was before. At 7 weeks we got 2 puppies back, and within a day or so I had to rush them to the vet, they had coccidia, I called the breeder who fostered them and all she said is "well your bitch must have had it when she gave birth" I said I am not pointing fingers I just wanted you aware since you have 2 litters there and if these boys have it then it may be at your place. Well she kept the tiniest little boy, and he started showing signs, what did she do? Instead of treating him she just watched him and did nothing, he died the day before he turned 3 months old. Such a sensless death. When my girl was spayed I was told it was very lucky I never bred her again as her uterus was "paper thin".

Anyhow back to my question, so i bred them and had a litter. I had 2 puppies to sell so I had a couple of friends very interested so I sold them the puppies. Now the puppies stayed with me until they were 14 weeks old ( Personally I just could not part with them any sooner) they had all their vet checks for even the slightest case of the sniffles, they had their shots, they had been microchipped, registered, I had prepaid for thier bile acid tests as i was told they could not be done accurately until the boys were 16 weeks old. Each boy went with a toy box full of toys, a month worth of food (and the one boy I continued to buy his food for the first 2 years as she could not afford premuim food and i did not want him eating garbage). They were both registered with the Canadian Kennel Club, in short between that and what I paid in vet bills because of this breeding, I spent a small fortune . Then I sold the pups for 500.00 each, because to me it was more important to me to know they went to a good home than it was to get more money for them.

About a year after my girl had these babies, she lost complete use of her back legs, turns out her knee caps were along the inside of her legs so they had to go in and take the knee caps off and saw the bone and turn it, then put the knee caps back on ( I forget what the surgery was called but it was pretty invasive). She also had bad LP which was not apparent before she stress of the weight of these babies we believe. 2 weeks later she had to have one leg redone as the surgery did not "take". All in all with her c section, spay, all the vet visits to try to get her eating on her own again, the puppies vet bills and then her leg surgery, in one year I spent 17,000.00. Yes you read that right, 17,000.00.

Now, given all of this does that classify me as a greeder a BYB or just a fool for even attempting this to begin with? Even without all the vet bills my boys would have had all their shots, been registered, any medical issues that were known would have been taken care of, bile asid tests, microchips and the toys and food they went with. I still would have charged only 500.00 per pup rahter than a higher price just for the piece of mind they went to good homes......

I still keep in contact with the ladies who bought my puppies and sadly one of them passed away 6 months ago due to cancer.

Now i have my girl, and my fosters that come and go and I can tell you I WILL NEVER EVER AGAIN ATTEMPT BREEDING YORKIES. I willl leave it to the ones who know how and I have the utmost respect as I saw fist hand how hard it is to breed them.