[SnowWa]

Tried to post this earlier - but it looks like it wasn't a go......too long...(am posting it in two parts)

Dog and Kennel Magazine Part I
Dog and Kennel Magazine Part II
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The Yorkshire Terrier --- From Coal Mines to Cloud Nine
By Rick Beauchamp

In September 1993 a belligerent wind snatched the roofs off four houses in Saginaw, Texas, and airlifted a 4-pound Yorkshire terrier clear out of her yard. "We knew she had been carried away," said Jim Davis, the dog's owner, "because a neighbor saw her flying about 15 or 20 feet in the air."

The following day Davis got a call from a man who had found the flying dog, Sadie, running along a highway two miles north of Saginaw. The caller phoned Davis after reading a newspaper story about Sadie. But for a few ant bites, the dog appeared to be unfazed by her flight.
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Sadie is not the only Yorkshire terrier to survive an ordeal that might have killed a lesser dog. In June 1992 an 8-year-old Yorkie named Torver fell 600 feet down a sheer, rocky hillside in the Lake District of England. Torver's owners, who had been hiking on the hill from which he fell, searched for him in vain. Five days later, after an animal charity had distributed 50 lost-dog posters, and radio stations and newspapers had broadcast Torver's story, he was spotted under a recreational vehicle four miles from the place where he had fallen. He looked a tad bedraggled, and he had acquired a limp; otherwise he was unharmed.
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The Yorkshire terrier's size and doll-like appearance — to say nothing of the dainty ribbons with which it is often adorned — belie its toughness and determination. Toy breed fanciers are wont to boast that their tykes are actually "big dogs in little dog suits," but the Yorkie is one dog that can walk the talk. How many 5-pound toy males are up to breeding a 120-pound Rottweiler? Such was the bell-ringing achievement of Gizmo, a Yorkie male in Sarasota, Florida, who is the father of two Yorkie-Rotts. "He's a bigger man than we all thought," said Gizmo's owner to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Revolutionary Developments

The Yorkshire terrier is a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution in England. Prior to 1750 most Britons worked in agriculture, but as mills and factories — and the coal mines on which they depended for energy — hung out the "Help Wanted" signs, people matriculated from farms to the communities that surrounded these sources of employment.

The weaving mills in Yorkshire County in northern England attracted a number of Scottish immigrants, many of whom brought their dogs with them. The immigrants' dogs were called "Scotch terriers," but they were, in reality, members of at least two different breeds, most prominently the Clydesdale terrier and the Paisley terrier, both of which had long, silky, bluish coats and semierect ears. These working dogs, much larger than today's Yorkies, were adept at catching rats and other small mammals. Both the Clydesdale and the Paisley terrier eventually became extinct, but not before they had contributed to the development of the Yorkie.

The Scotch terriers that accompanied their masters to Yorkshire, England's largest county, were introduced to terriers already established there: the English black-and-tan toy terrier, the Skye terrier, the long-coated, blue-gray waterside terrier and, many observers believe, the Maltese terrier, whose long coat and general outline is reflected in today's Yorkie.

In addition to working in the Yorkshire mills, many Scotsmen found employment in nearby coal mines, where their dogs were welcome as exterminators. According to some accounts the Yorkie's golden-tan head and legs were developed so the dog could be seen more easily in the dark corners of the mine shafts.

The improvements wrought by terrier breeders in Yorkshire — and the magnificent show record of a dog called Huddersfield Ben (1865-1871) — inspired Angus Sutherland, a young reporter for the sporting newspaper The Field, "They ought no longer to be called Scotch Terriers, but Yorkshire Terriers for having been so improved there."
Sutherland's suggestion was not taken up at once. In fact, after the Kennel Club of England had been formed in April 1873, dogs from the same litter might be shown as either Yorkshire terriers or broken-haired Scotch terriers. Not until 1886 did the Kennel Club recognize the Yorkshire terrier as an individual breed.

Yorkies Among the Yanks

The Yorkie came to America in the early 1870s in response to the American fascination with all things Victorian. The breed was adopted by purebred dog lovers here and was admitted to the American Kennel Club (AKC) stud book in 1885, one year after the AKC had been established. Yorkies were a diverse lot at first, weighing anywhere from 3 to 13 pounds. By the 1930s the petite size and the modern-day Yorkie look were more universal, but the breed did not start to climb the AKC's hit parade until the 1950s. Indeed, 50 years ago the Yorkie ranked 57th among the 112 breeds registered by the AKC, with a mere 173 new registrations in 1949.

During the Eisenhower regime, when many Americans were buying houses for the first time, a number of people were buying Yorkies for the first time too; and by 1960, when 1,181 new Yorkies were registered, the breed had leap-dogged 23 spaces on the AKC's popularity list. The beat went on during the following decade, and by 1970 annual Yorkie registrations had increased more than tenfold (to 13,484), which was good enough for 17th place on the AKC list. By 1980 the Yorkie was poised at number 11 with 24,665 new registrations. After vacillating between 11th and 14th on the AKC list for a decade and a half, the Yorkie made the top 10 in 1995, when its 36,881 new registrations placed it 10th among the 145 breeds registered by the AKC. Last year the Yorkie, with 42,900 new registrations, ranked 9th among the 146 AKC-recognized breeds.