[yorkietalkjilly]

My little Tibbe is only 9" tall at the withers and 9" from the base of his neck to his tail but when I got him at age 9 mos., he weighed 5 lbs., having lived all his life confined to a crate with little proper nutrition or muscle development. Now he's 7.3 lbs.. at age 7 years and all hard muscle from stem to stern. He still seems very tiny to me - so little - but to lift the little tank is getting harder to do!!! hehe. His vets always list his body habitus as "ideal" but to me, he's just a little extra sturdy.

I have had two 3 lb. Yorkies that were just too tiny for their own good though they were sure easy to lift and travel with! One was my very first Yorkie and the only pup left when I went to look at the litter and I had no idea he would stay so small & the other was the sickly runt of a litter of otherwise normal-sized Yorkie pups and I took her on as a sort of rescue as a regular owner may not have been able to give her the kind of special care, constant vetting and time she needed to have her best life.

Knowing what I know now, I really prefer a larger Yorkie as they are less likely to get easily injured(which I always worried about with my two tinies) and seem to have far less medical issues than the tinies deliberately bred for their petite size. With a bigger Yorkie, you don't absolutely panic if he hears a cat outside and suddenly jumps directly off the couch, bypassing the doggie stairs - though my heart still just stops every time Tibbe does that. He's still far too little to be jumping directly off couches as he's still only 9" x 9" and I imagine his little joints aren't that substantial, even with the muscle support he's got now!