I don't know anything about your little girls condition, but a lot of the hereditary diseases can happen in yorkies of any size. The smaller ones just seem more prone to it. I think in a lot of cases, they are small because they are sick, instead of being sick because they are small. Take Liver shut for example...it does occur in yorkies of all sizes but seems to be more prevalent in the smaller ones. One of the symptoms in liver shunt is "failure to thrive" so the liver shunt basically can stunt their growth. Unfortunately, bad breeders capitalize off this and sell them as micro minis when really they are small bc something is wrong with them. This, of course, isn't the case with every small dog and you can have a sick dog of any size...but it seems like the number of smaller dogs with problems is much greater than the bigger dogs.
On top of that, bigger dogs seem to be able to tolerate things better than smaller dogs...not even speaking just in terms of yorkies, but yorkies vs other breeds as well. Bc yorkies are small, their little bodies just don't seem to take stress and illness as well as say something like a lab or pit bull would. |