The beginning
of my PASSION for the tiny dog???..
I have
always been crazy about animals, and the tiny dog did not escape that passion.
I married at a pretty young age and the thought of being able to purchase my
very own pets ? well you can imagine.
On
honeymoon, I spotted a Saint Bernard and back then, a Saint Bernard was a dog
you just never saw. So one was ordered, and some months later I collected
Bridgette from the Airport. My dentist at the time, who came from overseas and
whose clients/patients included some of the very well known actors there, well his brother, bred Whippets, and exported
them all over the world. Two remained from a litter bred. I was offered one, as a companion for my
Saint Bernard. Doc Louis as we called him(after my dentist) then came to live
with us. I worked as a receptionist a PA
as it would be called today, at my Dads own company, so I had the opportunity
of my dogs, being able to go to work with me. WOW, that was just too good to be
true. The one member of staff would walk the dogs, periodically during the
course of the day. Not long after that, we got a show budgie, and that believe
it or not also went to work not in a cage but sitting on the Saint Bernard.
Sometime
after this I wanted that smaller dog, and approached two top notch breeders of
Toy Poms, I was sold two poms, small,
but I had told the breeders concerned, I would like them to have a litter or
two of pups. I was green, I had not bred anything in my life, my parents had
never bred anything in their lives. Our pets were always sterilized. I bought
these pricey little dogs, not having been told the first thing about breeding
them. I ended up with two girls and a
boy. The one girl I let mate at a
suitable age. Well that situation led me to spay both girls and neuter the
male. The female, got pregnant, I took her to the vet on the Saturday morning,
I sensed she was up to something, the vet on duty told me she was nowhere near
to giving birth. Later that day, It
became very obvious that Samantha was indeed in labour, when she ripped up the inside to her whelping box. I was
frantic, I called the emergency number of the vets practice I had been to
earlier that day. Another partner arrived to consult with me over my dog. Told
me she was in real trouble, should have been there earlier. WELL, HELLO?..she was???.. Samantha, had a caesarian
and three pups, they were all born fine,
but mysteriously by the following day when I was allowed to collect her and her
babies, all the babies had died???? We
mentioned this to a few people at the time thinking nothing of it, but as the
months and years went by we heard numerous stories about pups being born by Caesar
at this particular practice, the pups would be born alive and then prior to
being collected they would all have died----???? We would never know, but this did give us
cause to wonder?. The Toy Pom breeding
came to a very abrupt ending.
After this
breeding experience that I would not wish on my worst enemy, I started with my
own family. I gave up work in early
pregnancy and had two children. I was once again bored and not long after this,
I purchased my very first yorkie. I wanted small, but never expected him to
weigh 1kg as an adult dog. This started
me on a never ending road, with Yorkies.
I also got very involved with the Persian cat, the showing and breeding
of them.
I decided to
Breed the yorkie, and having had the experience with the TOY POMS, I knew that
you just never bred that smaller dog. I also noticed when I purchased my first
yorkie, that the mother dog, was not small, but the father was smaller, but
most certainly not TINY and the result was that small boy I had, the litter
sister was considerably bigger.
My initial
breeding of the yorkie many years back, resulted in the normal sized Yorkies being
bred, not the standards, the miniature as we know it today, (2.5kg and 3kg
adult weight dogs).. Sometime down the
road, we started producing that odd tiny dog. The first time it happened, I was
most surprised, both parents were anything but small. The stud weighed a good
2.5kg and the Dam at least 3kg, they were not BIG dogs, but they most certainly
were not small either. In the first
litter we produced, two females were born,
the one the size of the parents the other one, very small. (900gms fully grown)
The very small one was sterilized and we continued to breed with the bigger
one. We obviously had a number of other Yorkies and as time went by we would
find the smaller pup coming along, we NEVER bred from those smaller dogs, but
would keep the odd pup from that litter where those small dogs were coming
from. We have always had numerous lines
in our Yorkies, and therefore we NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL interbreed our
dogs.
Irrespective
of who got mated to who, we kept producing the odd small dog. Years went by and regularly those small pups
would appear. There was no set pattern, no special recipe and the strangest
thing of all, was breeders I knew at the time, had exactly the same lines, the
litter mates of the dogs I had purchased and those breeders never bred the
first tiny ever. People would joke with us ? saying do you starve your dogs, do
you put something in the water, do you give then brandy??? It became a huge
joke with our friends and fellow breeders.
Down the
line, many years later, we still produce on a regular basis those small dogs,
and in some cases the small has become major small, resulting in what I have
classed the genuine TEACUP for a good few years now.
We have
never gone out of our way, as so many folk have, to try and produce those
really small dogs. The gene is now carried in our lines. We often see those
extremely small pups in a litter, and often it is not just one pup, it has been
as many as three pups in one litter. This has resulted in my asking the
question to those who question our producing of those really tiny dogs, can you
get three runts in a litter????
A runt, as I
have mentioned in numerous articles I have written over the years and some of
those articles do appear on this site, is a pup that has issues health wise,
and they do not go unnoticed. A genuine
tiny pup, is a healthy pup from day one, may be considerably smaller than the
litter mates, but eats from an early age, as do any of the smaller sized Yorkies,
3 weeks of age to be precise. It shows no signs of being sickly or compromised
in any way. They are perfectly healthy and live every bit as long a life as the
normal bigger Yorkie, but this obviously is at the hands of their owner, the
owner ensuring they are looked after properly.
Irrespective
of what is said or put in print by some persons, you only have to know that our
dogs are all microchipped prior to leaving us. All vet checked, their health guaranteed.
We will
continue to produce these adorable, rare, unique tiny little dogs, for those
very special Animal Lovers out there, who go that extra mile. Who have the lifestyle to own and enjoy life with a companion GENUINE TEACUP ?????
If you have
any further queries or require any additional information on our tiny dogs,
please do not hesitate in contacting me??.