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Originally Posted by GreenwoodBiewer  Well.. that is your opinion and you are of course free to have it. And, based on the knowledge you have been able to gather I can see where you could come to that conclusion.
How do you account however for the exact same gene being in the Parti Yorkshire Terrier (in the states).. actually being documented prior to Heir Biewers pup? The yorkies in the states are producing and have produced the same Piebald gene without being bred with the Biewer or any other "mixes".. they have been DNA'd to be pure Yorkshire Terrier by the AKC. Generations of yorkies have been tested by a reputable lab for DNA parentage from a very well know yorkie breeder.
Now, if this can happen in the States with full pure bred yorkies, why does it have to be a different story with the German yorkies? Do you not think that if what the MARS lab said was really in the makeup of these Biewers (they only go back three generations) We would see some throw backs to some of the these dogs??
You stated in one of your posts that you believed that breeding back to the yorkie was a recent event.. far from it. What is recent is NOT breeding back to the yorkie. It is only within the last few years that people have decided NOT to breed back to yorkies and breed Biewer to Biewer only. (One club here in the states has always stated Biewer to Biewer only) In Germany, the country of origin, they have always bred back to yorkies, many breeders still do. Within one litter you have both yorkies and Biewers and they are registered by color into what breed they are. You can also have GoldDust and many other "colors" that are considered separate BREEDS! ooh so simple! But my point is breeding back to the yorkie is NOT a new thing at all, it was ALWAYS done, it had to be, and in my opinion it still should be.
Now, back to the MARS test.. IF the test had used a cross section of Biewers to get the markers against which all of the dogs were to be measured maybe the testing would have some validity.. However,. this was not the case. The dogs used to create the marker were from one group of people, one specific group of dogs. The samples were "submitted" by someone claiming to be a vet (who was not). Tainted test, tainted results FOREVER! Unless and until they totally start over collecting the information to get a good base.. that test is meaningless. MARS themselves have stated over and over again that this test, if taken for dogs from small populations and animals or dogs not bred in the US is note accurate.. if you look in the YT archives , I'm sure you'll find the letter from the MARS people stating such.
OK.. there, My opinion and a few questions too I guess  .. always more questions than answers!
Diana  |
Hi Diana, I appreciate the controversies surrounding this issue--they are very complex indeed. I answered the Parti question in another post. But if Partis are testing as purebred Yorkshire Terriers, one explanation could be that they have been crossed for so many generations back to Yorkshire Terriers that traces of other breeds are being diluted out by Yorkie DNA. That's one possibility. Since I haven't seen any Parti test results with my own eyes, and since Partis have not been subjected to as much analysis by MARS as Biewers, I don't have enough information to draw any firm conclusions. Sequencing the MITF gene in Partis would help a lot in answering this question. With respect to AKC DNA testing, they only do parentage testing, not breed purity testing, and I'm certain that their parentage testing does not predate the appearance of the first Parti Yorkies. If you have any information to the contrary, let me know!
You have a good point about German Yorkies, but my understanding is that pedigree records for them is not as good as in the United States. And again, there was no DNA testing back in the days of Mr. Biewer.
About Biewer to Yorkie breeding, once that is stopped, and you start breeding Biewer to Biewer, the gene pool becomes fixed and the breed stops becoming more and more Yorkie-like. That would explain the MARS results showing that the Biewers they tested were in a unique and uniform group.
About the Biewers that were tested by MARS, yes those mostly came from one club. I don't know whether the person who submitted the DNA samples claimed to be a vet or not, but it doesn't matter, because DNA doesn't lie. If someone has serious issues about the validity of the samples, they should ask for them to be retaken and retested, but I'm sure the results would be the same. I agree that it would be great to test all Biewers from all clubs, but since that might include Biewers coming from Biewer by Yorkie crosses, that would basically be like throwing mixed breed dogs into a purebred test--the results would be interesting, but they wouldn't be informative or normative. I understand that there is some kind of turf war going on with respect to which clubs have the "true and authentic Biewers." I would recommend that all of the clubs doing Biewer by Biewer matings get together, submit their dogs' DNA for analysis, go over the results together, and try to reach some kind of consensus.