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Originally Posted by Marna1957  My sticking point is why some have such issues with a work that covers the really tiny bred dogs.....and no, not all that breed that size are bad people or doing anything wrong. Some are breeding healthy dogs within the Standard for the Breed. |
Hi, Marna. I hope you won’t be offended if I address this particular point, not as a person with much yorkie experience but rather as a person with years and years of experience in animal rescue. There is a valid reason so many people have issues with a “word that covers the really tiny dogs.” The reason has nothing to do with loving dog owners who call their dogs “tiny” or “below average in size” or even (in the beginning, anyway) “teacup.” The issue arises when unscrupulous breeders and sellers appropriate a cute and innocuous word to mislead others. And that’s what happened with the word “teacup.” Unscrupulous breeders and sellers started using the word to mislead the public about all kinds of dogs (not just yorkies) and about other animals, too (believe me, there is no such thing as a “teacup pig.”)
Unscrupulous breeders and sellers, unfortunately, use this particular word for profit, without consideration for who they are harming. They purposely try to breed smaller and smaller dogs, because selling them is profitable, even if a fairly large percentage have deformities and congenital medical issues. They also mislead buyers with promises that pups will “stay tiny,” even though they know or should know that a fairly large percentage of the pups will grow larger than promised. Many of the pups of these breeders don’t survive, many of the pups who do survive suffer, and many of the pups end up being dumped by their owners because they have issues or because they grew “too big.”
Is all this the fault of the word “teacup?” Of course not. But when a word is used too many times in a harmful way, people should stop using it. That applies to any word used in a harmful way. Think of all the words used, in the past, to describe groups of humans that are not used anymore (or are not supposed to be used anymore) because of the harm they caused.