Breeding/Showing Question

I was planning on joining 4-H next year, so I'll look into it!

I would caution you about thinking of breeding a Yorkshire Terrier in order to improve coat type.

Coat is a very important part of breed type. If she ends up not having a correct coat, you would be much better off buying a different bitch from a better pedigree to start with.

Yorkies have small litters, sometimes only one or two puppies, so you need to be hedging your bets on getting something nice if you want to breed.

Please remember that breeding toys can be VERY DANGEROUS for the bitches. You are always risking your bitch's life any time you breed her.

The website of her breeder made me very sad to look at it. Your girl might be a very good one to learn on, but looking at that website, I would not use anything that came from there as a foundation bitch.

Keep reading and learning and growing. That is the only way to get to where you want to be. 4-H is great, but it will not prepare you for the AKC ring.

If you want to show in the AKC ring, join a local club, take handling classes, and study study study. Go to the AKC website, find some handling seminars and clinics, and attend. Get books and/or tapes. Anything by George Alston or Jeffrey Brucker would be a good investment.

Enjoying and/or breeding show dogs is an excellent hobby, but like many others it takes an extensive education and most of the time a substantial investment in money and time in order to be successful.

i was trying to find a website of a good yorkie show kennel as a example and you wouldnt belive how much crap is out there with yorkies
i couldnt find a single respectable kennel

This is very very true. Senior was bred to a bitch recently which would have been his 3rd litter. His first was two pups- both champed, his second was two pups, but one was stillborn, the other was pet quality, and his last litter died. Something went wrong with the bitch late in the pregnancy (I'm not sure I just was talking with the breeder a few weeks ago) and they had to take her in. The puppies (there were 3) were all already dead and the bitch was in a lot of trouble herself. They did an emergency spay and she was in ICU for ages. It looks like she'll be okay now. This was with a responsible/experienced breeder and paps are substantially bigger than yorkies. Toys are very tough to breed.

I may be acquiring a foundation bitch in the years to come, and I've already started looking into it. I have several breeders that are willing to help me find the best quality bitch I can buy. Your first show dog does not always have to be your foundation. They can provide lots of experience without breeding however. If you're interested in breeding, you need to make sure you start off with as good a dog as possible and be very certain of it's health and quality in it's bloodline. You must proceed with caution and research as much as possible.

With your girl, i'd probably try junior handling. I wish I'd junior handled when I could. It'd make things much easier now. Good luck with her!

These people are in Murfreesboro...

http://www.starwoodyorkies.com/

These are in Western NC.

http://www.ponderosas.com/

I would recommend you contact these people and ask them for help finding a mentor.

i couldnt find anything about health testing in either of the kennels, you'd have to call the first kennel to find out,
but the second kennel has a about their breedings page, it talks about health contracts and says nothing about genetic testing which it it would have if they did any, it says they test, heart, liver, lungs but not any of the more common tests

the second one also says that they breed dogs wen they are a year old

http://www.ytca.org/breeder3.html that might help. You'd still have to email the breeders to find out more, but it should be a decent start.

Many breeders I know aren't very internet savvy (including Beau's) and they don't have websites. Especially some of the smaller breeders.

Steve, those breeders came from the YTCA Code of Ethics breeders list. Toys are different. They don't have to wait until age 2 for health testing as I don't think HD is a concern. If they are clearing for Legg Perth and Patellar Luxation, that can be done at a year.

I'm sure you can agree that the dogs are nothing like the first website.

I don't know the first thing about ethics in Yorkies, but I know good dogs and people who are showing their dogs, and who care about their breed when I look at a website.

Couldn't you agree that these people might be able to point Dixie towards a better path to a show dog?

HD isn't a main concern but I'm still having Beau OFA'ed. In toys you ned to look out most for PRA and Patellar luxation. Both should be tested for in breeding stock every year. I'd think that the YTCA would be a great place to start looking into the breed.

If you have any concerns, I'd email the breeder and find out for myself.

oh they are extreme breeders compared to dixies breeder, i was very impressed by the ponderosa website, it seemed as though they were extremely dedicated to the breed,

I never knew that about health in toy dogs, thats good to know as my first show dog will most probably be a toy breed

Yep. For future reference, CERF testing is a must in most toys.

I am familiar with Ponderosas' dogs. There are a lot of them out there! Not a bad place to start when asking for advise, Dixie. Infact, they're probably familiar with your breeders dogs, the line, ect.

Thanks for all the help guys! I'm definately contemplating spaying her...but I'm going to wait until she's a few years old. Who knows. She could turn out great!

Thanks for all the links!! I'm going to contact that breeder in Murfreesboro! We're in Murfreesboro all the time, and were actually just there on Tuesday. Hopefully they can help me find a mentor, or maybe even they themselves could help me out.

Steve: It's true that the smaller breeds can be tested earlier, but if I breed, I'm still waiting 'til 2yrs so that Dixie can be OFA'd.

I took some new pictures today, and I thought I'd post them.

Even if an individual dog is outstanding phenotypically, you must take into account what is behind them in the pedigree. I agree with the others that stated, after viewing your breeder's website, that Dixie would not be a good breeding prospect purely because of what is behind her.

Juniors competition is an excellent idea to get your feet wet. If you want to try showing her in the breed ring just to see what happens, carefully select the shows you enter. Most entry fees are ~$20 a class. You wouldn't want to end up being the only (or one of the few) Yorkies that ends up attending a show, because then you won't have the comparison you are looking for. You can find what shows are likely to have a larger entry by searching sites like infodog.com and akc.org

You can also order full pedigrees online and have them within a matter of minutes through a service on akc.org

Good luck in your studies and kudos to you for being open to learning.

Thank you for the help Summitview! I'm going to check out getting the pedigree from AKC.org. Do you know if it costs anything? I'll check it out.

Anyone have any comments about her harness? My breeder told me that Yorkies have extremely fragile necks, and that I should never use a colar for walking her with, but I'm afraid that the harness is adding to the trauma to her coat....I only put it on when she's walking, but it's still gradually doing damage right? What's the prefered method?

We don't have collars on our dogs(Well, the paps) as much as possible for that reason. Obviously, when we take out the dogs to places or class we put collars on. We usually walk the dogs using their show leads as much as possible, though we have special leads for obedience. That's about all the advice I can give you there, though.

Honestly I wouldn't be using the harness. I definitely think that's breaking her coat. I'd teach her not to pull on the leash or do as Laurelin suggested and walk her on a show lead (it sits high up on the neck and is very thin, and if you get a leather one it shouldn't bother the coat)

Dixie is a beautiful puppy, though I do agree with Summitview about breeding her. Here's an example: My Border Collie, Dakota, is a fabulous dog (and no I'm not biased ) He's a great worker, quite sound, very attractive to boot . . . But his pedigree sucks. His parents are nice dogs, and the dogs behind his momma are nice dogs, but the ones behind his daddy are less than desirable. I'm not going to breed Dakota, because I think he's a fluke and don't think there is a good chance of him passing on what makes him so exceptional. Know what I mean? It's not that Dixie on her own isn't a nice dog, but the chances of Dixie throwing more puppies just like her is very slim. You want great dogs behind her too, to improve your chances of having a great litter.