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Originally Posted by SnowWa I have a lot of respect for those of you who are breeders and who work to maintain a wonderful respectable line of Yorkies. This is a lot of work, a lot of expense, and it takes years to do this well.
However - I read YT a lot - and there are a lot of other people (on this site) who breed their pets who aren't as careful about Yorkie standards. And, I am sure that many of these people aren't as knowledgeable about what they should be looking for in their own dog before they breed it. I know they love their pets and think they are wonderful and would love to see a million little duplicates of their wonderful little dogs --- but aren't a lot of people still breeding Yorkies (and other breeds) that shouldn't be bred?
To be more specific - I see very small dogs being bred - very large dogs being bred - Yorkies with short coats and nonstandard color coats being bred, etc. etc. etc.
The excuses I have seen for many of these breedings are: "My sister loves my dog, so I'm going to breed my dog so that she can have one of its pups." "I think it would be fun to have a litter of pups. It would be so educational for my children." "I just love my little Yorkie. I want her to have pups just like her." "My friend has a female and wants to borrow my male to breed."
If anyone ever writes the book about Yorkies that someone mentioned, we should have a chapter called "When is it appropriate to breed your Yorkie?"
I know that a lot of inappropriate breeding is going on - and often for the wrong reasons - and a lot of it is being done by our own members right here on YT.
Do you agree with my thinking that more than most breeds, it is especially important to be careful, knowledgeable, and experienced before you breed a little Yorkie. We certainly read about many heartbreaking results over and over again that should never have happened and could have been avoided.
Again - I have a great deal of respect for those of you who are familiar with the Yorkie breed standards, who breed good examples of this breed, and who
are experienced, knowledgeable, and know what you are doing.
Carol Jean |
I agree with you Carol Jean and i can give you some prospective not only from my point of view but also from what I have seen by experience.
First of all, any pups I sell for pet are just that, pet quality and if I don't want it bred that means I don't want the buyer to breed it. That is protecting my lines.
For breeders that show our dogs and hopefully have a good eye for a dog, we are also hopefully carrying those genes to the next generation. As I had said before, not all our pups are show quality and those are sold for pet and are usually pretty nice representatives of the breed and you get certain health guarantees or should. But as a pet quality Yorkie they are not going to contribute to the breed so don't want them bred.
So, let's say you haven't bought a yorkie from a show breeder because you don't like the contracts and want 'just one litter'. So you buy from someone who either registers or not, doesnt' know anything about the lines their dogs have come from and later on breeds it. If you bought a female and want to find a stud you aren't going to get a show breeder to breed your female because of protecting our lines. You go to someone else that bought a male under similar circumstances and the background including health issues are unknown.
Now you might have a litter of puppies from two pet quality parents. The result can go anywhere, where the puppies may be quite nice or end up not looking much like Yorkies at all. Always remember all puppies are cute but it is the adult you will have and the adult is what you have produced in your breeding efforts. Plus you don't know what might show up as a genetic problem. When you are breeding too small especially a female, you are risking her life. I don't use too small for a stud because I don't know if he might be small due to health problems that can come up later and I don't particularly want itty bitty anyway as they are too delicate and aren't what Yorkies are supposed to be. If you have the female, whelping is risky, you can lose your girl, whether she is big or little, puppies and all especially if you don't have the experience and have no mentor to help you.
I have a pet grooming client that bought her unregistered Yorkie from someone who bought a male here, female there. My grooming client loves her little dog dearly, a little female. She ran into a few problems with her at about 5 months and this little Yorkie was diagnosed as having a liver shunt. It isn't too too serious a shunt but this is something the owner will have to deal with for the rest of this Yorkies life. The breeder she got it from owns both the parents of this pup and I told this pet owner she has to tell the breeder about the shunt as these two dogs should not be used for breeding again. The result is that the breeder ignored the whole thing bred them again and produced a litter of 4 pups.
The breeder is sure none of these are going to exhibit shunt. BUt if the parents have produced a shunt puppy, they are carriers, there is a good chance any of these 4 pups and indeed any of the previous litter may carry shunt in their genetics. Now someone else comes along and these 4 puppies are sold for pet, unregistered. Maybe the new owner wants 'just one litter' finds a male and breeds the female or if one of these pups is a male, it is used for their sisters Yorkie to have pups. Guess what can happen? And on it goes
I also know of a small pup, Yorkie/maltese cross. Both breeds, Yorkie and Maltese have been known to have liver shunt. This little cross breed exhibited health problems at about 5 months, diagnosis - liver shunt. What about the rest of that litter and so much for hybrid vigour in crossbreeds.
Liver shunt is a serious genetic problem, there is also Legge perthes. If you are going to breed you darn well better know what these are and if there is any dogs anywhere in any pedigree for either parent that could be carriers of any genetic problem.
Large breed dogs have their problems too most especially hip displasia. Show breeders or at least the reputable ones, will have the parents xrayed and cleared OFA and CERF for hips, eyes, elbows so pups sold even for pet are less risk of having these genetic problems that can show up relatively young. The same argument I just presented in Yorkies also goes for large breeds just different genetic defects can occur and just as serious.