I agree with you~

I think all breeders need to know what is in their lines, they need to breed for the love of the dogs, not the money and they need to pay attention to primarily health and temperment and genetic defects.

As far as the standard where it relates to outward appearance I am not so concerned and feel that pets do not need perfect conformation. I will leave those concerns to the show breeders. I just don't think it's fair to impose those standards on the pet breeders because their priority is to produce a companion dog, not a beautiful show dog so the emphasis is different and the standard should be too.

I keep talking about coming up with a pet standard or even a club for yorkie fanciers who don't show....maybe we should really do this and come up with a responsible "Pet Standard" with an emphasis on temperament and health.

I am not of the opinion that this would hurt the breed or denograte it in any way as the show breeders will guarantee the logevity of their "standard" by continuing to breed to imporve it. I just feel slighted sometimes as pet fancier because i don't feel enough attention is paid to the temperament aspects and too much is paid to the outward appearance or esthetics. JMHO.

That makes me VERY sick to my stomach and VERY sad.. :( I am lucky to not have someone like that around my area and if I did I am afraid my husband would be bailing me out of jail!

Melanie

How long have I been breeding my dog, or how long have I been in breeding in general? Trixie's pups are our first litter from my dog...which is why I consider myself to have been so fortunate for her to have had such a healthy pregnancy/delivery/pups. I realize such is not always the case. I worked with breeders of various breeds, mostly Yorkies, for 2 1/2 years before I ever even got Trixie and before my father got Cody (the father) and another 1 1/2 years before we ever bred her. Trust me, we did all anyone could do to gain knowledge on the matter, pros and cons, before we ever thought about actually proceeding with breeding ourselves.

Completely agree with you here! You can have an absolutely goergeous dog, but that doesn't mean it won't be crazy as a loon!

That is great! Congratulations on doing it right. Sounds like it paid off.

:D Thanks. I like to think so myself! :D

GREED

Huh? :questione

Sorry to all you who aren't familiar with me and my posting....=)
 

OH NOWAY!! I have no problem with a breeder who is ethical, critical, and well back both financially and by others breeding to happy, healthy, sound dogs. It's the ones out to make a quick buck or just want Foo-Foo to expeirience birth are the ones that turn my stomach. I can usually call a fraud when I see it. Those who say "I've done my research" but don't even know VERY common terms and are clueless about basics. Those who rather have the wool over their eyes as to breeding quality rather than just alter their SOOOOOOO pet quality dog and be done with it. I am shutting up now.

Just be responsible people. It's one thing to have a mentor and know your stuff and another to lie and impress your online buddies and lose a very speical companion being ignorant and STUPID, to be very understated.

Visit the pound, even with no intention to buy. Look at those hurt yet so trusting and loving eyes and imagine that in a few days, that poor pet will be put to death because SOMEONE refused to alter their cute PET!

I am not new to these boards and for those not familiar with me, I apologize for not getting more detailed about this. I have done some catching up and after debating whether or not to even respond at all, I felt it was NECESSARY! =)

I always tell myself that if I am buying from a reputable breeder that I am also buying the breeder! They will be there for you through good or bad and help you and their puppy in anyway they can! They will not run to the bank, cash your check and you NEVER hear from them again!

Melanie

As a show person, and pets, I and all the show people I know, breed for appearance, temperment, size (4.5 -7 pounds), structure, health, and color. Having one trait without the others is useless to us. We have terriers and want the terrier disposition. Some may prefer the shorter snout to the longer, or shorter legs to the longer, but basically we all breed for healthy dogs that can definately be recognized as yorkshire terriers. We do tests on our females and males before breeding to assure that they are healthy to begin with, and I have my pregnant female monitored by my vet, that specializes in canine reporduction, and have x-rays done near whelping time to make sure that I know all puppies are born and nothing left inside my bitch to cause a problem. I have my vets beeper number and cell number in case I have any problem with delivery, and I have called on a Sunday night at 11:00 to have an emergency C-Section and had 2 vets come into the office for me. This I feel is a truly dedicated team of Vet's that care about me and my dogs. This was a single puppy birth where the vets were not even sure the puppy would live, as it was not breathing and it took over 5 minutes of rubbing, oxygen, and warming to get her to breath. I was elated that they did not give up on the puppy, and my bitch got wonderful care, and all the while I was in attendance of the entire process. That single puppy is now 8 months old and my miracle gal. Because she did not gain as she should have in the beginning she did not have tail docked until she was 3 months old, and if I had known she probably would not grow large enough to show, I would not have had it done. But she is a spunky, healthy, noisy girl of 3.5 pounds now, and probably will not grow large enough for me to show, so will end up being sold.

Well that sure not me! I'm lucky to pay my vet bill! lily

This message is not directed at you personally but to educate people on what goes on in City Pounds.

I just wanted to clarify your statement on you feeling the shelter is responsible for taking care of the ill dogs. I am not sure what shelter you got your dogs at but in my city and almost any city the City Pound are employee's of the city paid by your taxes. They have a budget set by the city (of which they are all under budgeted) for the mass number of dogs/cats and other animals they receive everyday. Most of the vets that work for the pounds are paid to make life and death decisions (which dogs lives and dies each day) and spay and neuter the animals. Most try to help ill animals but there is NEVER enough $$$ to do this and frankly it is not their job. Also, many cities have law on how long a dog can stay at the pound. If the animal is not adopted out within (xx) number of days/weeks then the animal is destroyed making room for the next animal given up by irresponsible people :thumbdown . Even the Humane Society cannot take care of all the ill dogs and they have to make the same life and death decisions everyday, who lives and who dies. Again they do not have enough $$$ either. The City Pounds were set up to get animals off the street and to hide this country dirty secret of the hugh over population problems we have. Many city pound employee's and the vets do care about these animals but they have laws they have to abide by and they also know tomorrow will bring another hugh group of animals. Parvo is rampant at any of these City Pounds but go look at your pound and you can see why. They do the best they can do with the $$$ they are given. You can get a dog from the Humane Society with Parvo also. In our city the Humane Society's budget is 5x's the budget of the pound. This is sad. If you really wanted to find out your city's budget for the pound you can find it in their yearly report and it is published on-line or your library would have a copy of the city budget. I believe you can do the same for the Humane Society as they have to also publish a yearly report because they are non profit. I think you will be shocked at how little they really have to spend for the amount of animals they receive.

I guess if anyone is reading this I would hope if you adopt a shelter dog then you need to immediately go to your vet and get a full blood panel done on the animal. Yes, the initial adoption fee is low but if you don't go to the vet your animal will either die or you will have high vet bills down the road. There is no free lunch in this world but I commend ANYONE that wants to give a second chance at some poor animal that was loved (?) as a puppy.