[Belle Noir]

Passion is good. I don't think there is anyone that doesn't love their dogs here. Just some difference in opinion in how that love should be expressed, I think, lol.

Can I add to your paraphrase? "A moment of knowledge, can avoid a lifetime of misery and a great amount of wear and tear on your wallet."

I recently told someone how my neighbor brought home a chihuahua... A week later she's banging on my door because the puppy is having seizures, and I'm the dog lady, you know?
Honey on the gums, and speeding down Spruce St to University of Pennsylvania, which is about 15minutes from my house. Puppy had critically low blood sugar.. Had she not come to me, had I not had a car, had UofP been further away, puppy might well have died.

What I didn't mention was that said neighbor could not afford to pay the hospital, and puppy needed to stay over night. I paid for it.

Oh, and this puppy... 6 weeks old. AND I had suggested to this woman that she wait until the puppy was 10-12 weeks old, but she just HAD to get the puppy UNDER 8 weeks of age. Some people, you talk to them, it's like beating your head into a wall, so I don't bother getting myself upset over other people's stupidity.

Pepper is doing well NOW, He plays with my guys, since I also have a papillon puppy a little younger than he is (they're now 4 - 41/2 months, and I have the yorkie's and now a maltese foster (Fatty is the self appointed fun police), so he can get some socialization in. But this didn't have to happen had she waited.
And as an aside, she has made no effort to pay me back a single penny. I don't regret it, it wasn't for her anyway, it was for the puppy. But some people, you just cannot teach them anything. If they do not want to listen, they will not listen.

I had talked with this woman for several weeks about this puppy, about waiting to get the puppy, and in the end, she says Oh, I heard everything you said, and it's not that I didn't agree with it, it's just I couldn't wait to get my puppy. Oh, and the puppy was bred by family, so if she had asked them to hold the puppy, they would have. She even admitted as much.

There is nothing you can do to get through to willful ignorance, except, maybe, let the puppy die. That would have taught her her lesson for sure, but I'm not that cold and cruel.

But for every ignorant neighbor, there are plenty of Pixies. There are many puppies that go home earlier than 12 weeks, with no problems. But with yorkies being as popular a breed as they are, with people caring less and less about paperwork, or showing dogs, there are to be a way to help separate the good breeders from the bad. That 12 weeks thing is a good way, I think.

Not that someone that let's puppies go at 10 weeks or 8 weeks care any less for their puppies. But those waiting 12 weeks are willing to take on the extra expense of caring for their puppies for an extra month. That tells me it's not all about the money for the breeder. It can mean something different to other people, but that's what it means to me.
This is of course, with the other added benefits of waiting until 12 weeks.