[Belle Noir]

I am not posting this to get a rise out of others.. though I am sure that there are some that think I post what I do, just for such reasons.. I'm genuinely curious.
To me, a dog is a dog, it doesn't matter if it's 15 lbs or 150 lbs.. I've had them from both ranges. And I have bred dogs in the past, did pretty good in the shows with my line and they were generally quite healthy.

What confuses me, is this. I have heard reasons that people give for not sending the puppy home until 12 weeks, and to be really honest, the only one that makes sense is that toys have a greater chance of hypoglycemic episodes until about 16 weeks, give or take.

Really, it sounds to me that everything else.. Learning bite inhibition, housebreaking, and so forth... is a bit of a cop out. After all, MOST other breeders send their puppies on at 8 weeks. And the breeds that have the LEAST amount of bite inhibition (in my opinion only) seem to BE the toys.

I have raised many dogs, and I will grant, it was always easier to house break a puppy when I had adults around to help teach the puppy, but that doesn't mean that I am (or others are) incapable of housebreaking a puppy without the assistance of an adult dog in the house. Or that puppies won't learn without momma around to teach them.

Actually, the easiest puppies to house break were the ones that I had to bottle raise, I guess because they were always right there.

As for bite inhibition... Part of that, in my opinion, is your own personal training. After all, it doesn't matter how well the puppy learned from it's littermates if, when you bring the puppy home, you let it walk all over you.
That brings me something else to mind. Stillwell and Millan.. Stillwell likes to do the "pretend you're a littermate and yelp really high pitched when your dog gets too rough with you, and turn away and stand still". That always bothered me, because basically, you're telling the dog we're equals, and that gives the dog a chance to decide that he wants to be ahead of you.
Millan, on the other hand, "this is what the momma dog does when the puppy misbehaves, because she is a the pack leader to the puppy". More my speed, I think. If I am my dogs mommy, and her owner, and her pack leader, I have to approach from a position of authority.

And having raised many dogs, having had many puppies... Having even gotten them as young as 2 weeks.. That whole teaching them bite inhibition thing doesn't make sense to me, because I have never had a dog that would even THINK about biting a human over anything... Biting other dogs... Well.. some of them would.. but that wasn't bite inhibition, that was dog aggression plain and simple.

But for medical reasons.. yes, I can see that. Pixie came home at 8 weeks, 3 days. While I stayed on top of constantly offering her food, most of what I offered her, she actually didn't seem to recognize as food. And a few nights after I got her, she did have a hypoglycemic episode. Had I not been alert, and had I not known the symptoms, things could have gone very badly for her. As it stands, I caught it almost as soon as it started, and other than one or two other times, when she played too hard, she's never had another episode.

However, that means that a professional yorkie person shouldn't have an issue letting pups go at 8 weeks to another professional yorkie person. Yet I see people that have a lot of experience with yorkies saying that they would not take an 8 week old puppy.. And I'm confused as to why. My thoughts say if you know yorkies, then you know how to prevent and watch for hypoglycemia. And if you have adult dogs, there is the house breaking portion of the reasons given.. And well.. bite inhibition.. How many yorkies are singletons? Besides, adult dogs do just as good a training for bite inhibition (if not better) than littermates.

Again, I'm not asking this to stir the pot, I genuinely DON'T get the whole 12 week thing. Not for the reasons given, except for one. And I'd really like to understand.