| Lorraine | 06-21-2012 12:11 PM |
I have Ethel Munday's book The Popular Yorkshire Terrier written in the 50's. According to the jacket of my book in telling who Ethel Munday was in Britain it states “ an International Championship show judge and Secretary of the Yorkshire Terrier Club (Great Britain) and was a successful ‘Yorkie’ breeder and exhibitor.”
Chapter 2 talks about the parent club The Yorkshire Terrier Club founded in 1874. That would have been in Great Britain. First page talks about the standard points and breakdown on how to judge the merit of a dog, coat, coat colour etc.
Then she states the original points were approved at the Annual General Meeting of the Yorkshire Terrier Club on Oct 16th 1946.
A Breed Standard was then adopted by the Committee of the Kennel Club in January 1950 and in that breed standard is
“ Colour. A dark Steel-blue (not silver blue), extending from the occiput (or back of skull) to the root of tail, and on no account mingled with fawn, bronze, or dark hairs. The hair on the chest a rich bright tan. All tan hair should be darker at the roots than in themiddle, shading to a still lighter tan at the tips.”
As I recall without going to the site and looking it up, our own YTCA was founded in 1952, breed standard being held by the YTCA.
At the end of the standard adopted by the Yorkshire Terrier Club in Britain in 1950, she outlines in this book she states
"In compiling this standard, the aim was to supply a word picture of an ideal dog. Anyone who aspires to success either as a breeder, exhibitor, or judge would do well to study this standard and devote serious thought to it. "
I kinda chuckled when she went on to say "If considered intelligently, it should conjure up a mental picture of a Yorkshire Terrier of the correct type, but since it becomes increasingly evident that a number of breeders either never refer to the standard, or, if they do, fail to grasp the significance of it, it would seem desireable to examine this description (meaning the breed standard as adopted in 1950) to clarify any doubt."
We are talking about more than 125 years since the parent club of the Yorkshire Terrier was first established which would have been after decades of introducing the different combinations of breeds into the YOrkie to what they produced at that time that threw true in the mating of Yorkie to Yorkie to produce Yorkie and indeed to what we have today. If you want to know more about that Joan Gordon wrote a History of the Yorkshire Terrier and how it was developed on the YTCA.org website.
I find it very humbling that a legacy such as the years of work, thought, and selections to have our noble breed the Yorkshire Terrier, to set the standard over 100 years ago is something I don't think we have earned any right to mess with. We do have an obligation to uphold and protect our breed, educate those who don't 'get it' and not just in Yorkshire Terriers but the purpose of the breed standards for all purebred dogs.
Colour which was strived for by the founders of the breed as outlined in the breed standard has been bred for, strived for, and upheld for over a century by Yorkshire Terrier breeder fanciers.
In summation, of anyone wanting to breed Yorkshire Terriers is to uphold our breed in what it is supposed to look like per the breed standard handed to us on a silver platter so long ago. | 