Well I'm going to try to shed so me light on this conundrum.
If you read "The Complete Yorkshire Terrier" by Joan Gordon and Janet Bennet, you will get some idea of why there are such big differences.
Part of it, at this time, is due to people breeding dogs that do not meet the standards.
But a big part of it, stems from the fact that most of the desired traits that are considered standard, actually come from recessive genes. Therefor although you may have bred two standard yorkies, you get some odd looking litter mates.
The breeders that started this breed were in-breeding the odd ones in the litters to get the desired look. So when breeding these guys, the farther away you get from the it's origins, the more deviations you are going to get. |