buying a puppy

RedBern

Hi, posting this for advice for a friend who wants to get a 'yorkie poo' pup for her daughter. She's asked me to help look in case her daughter sees searches on their computer.

I've googled 'yorkie poo' and 'teacup' and there are a few ads on .... had a reply from one which was very insistent about the 'pup' they had available but couldn't/wouldn't tell me how old it was (and it is a bit difficult to tell because they're so flippin' small anyway!:)). Another one says 'kc registered' - I thought these were mutts?:o

My friend knows all the arguments about rescue dogs needing homes, they already have a dog, and really wants to get a pup for her daughter. So please, just answers to:

where would you look to source a yorkie poo pup, and are they 'registered'?

thanks in advance

nonnatus

Hi there,

A Yorkie poo is a cross between a yorkshire terrier and a poodle so will never be "registered" because it's a cross breed. A teacup yorkie is just one that's been bred very small - it MAY be registered because it will be a pure kennel club Yorkie but it will fall outside the accepted standards of the breed (they have minimum and maximum height requirements for showing). Only small numbers of these are available and it's difficult to find them to order. From the internet they are quite likely to be puppy farmed which is a horrible thing (as you already know).
Best source is local newspaper, adverts in local vet but be prepared to wait until the right one comes along. Being in a hurry for a particular "brand" of pup will end in disaster! (And never pay over internet for an animal you haven't seen in its home environment)

Good luck!

(Hope you have a thick skin because you'll probably get a load of "comments" from some of the others here who are strongly opposed to people buying puppies rather than adopting homeless dogs, but that is another issue.)

Lobell

I'm in favour of people buying puppies, if that's what they want. However, I'm not in favour of deliberate crossbreeding to feed some fashion fad.

A Yorkie x Poodle is a crossbreed and, as such cannot be Kennel Club registered. It's parents may be KC registered but that's no guarantee of quality. There are other registries out there who will give out registration papers and pedigrees to anyone who parts with cash. The documentation is not worth the paper it's printed on as the pedigrees are generally false and will just be a meaningless list of fabricated dogs' names.

Anything labelled as Teacup is just a small example of the breed. What used to be known as the runt before 'small' became desirable. Incidentally...there is no such thing as Miniature Yorkie or teacup or anything else. The Yorkshire Terrier comes in one size and one size only. Any added description of size is merely a marketing ploy to con the average clueless puppy buyer out of more cash than it's worth.

My friend learned a very expensive lesson with the 'teacup' Yorkie that her husband bought for her as a gift. When they took the puppy for it's first vaccination, the vet checked it over and strongly recommended that it was eutahnised then and there to save it from a life of suffering...deformed jaw, non-existent knee joints and a list of other problems so long that I can't even recall. My friend was horrified, naturally, and refused to have the pup PTS. The corrective surgeries in the first year alone cost over £2K with several more surgeries since (£6k or so in total). The dog could not be insured because the problems were detected before insurance could be taken out and were therefore 'pre-existing' conditions. My friend still has her little dog 7 years or so later but it has never had normal mobility and cannot live life as a 'normal' dog....all because of bad breeding. And incidentally, the 'miniature' Yorkie turned out to be a donkey - she's twice the size and weight that the breed standard recommends!

My biggest bugbear with these types of crossbreeds is that the 'breeders' are only ever doing it for the money. There is little or no regard for the dogs used or produced in terms of health and welfare. You will have to go a long, long way to find a producer of such cross breeds that carries out the necessary health tests for each breed to check for the presence of herediatary conditions...yet they charge as much (and often more) than responsible pedigree breeders who strive to produce healthy, typical dogs of sound temperament. Such crossbreeds are a massively unknown quantity as you get a random combination of the traits of both parents breeds in each puppy - no 2 puppies in a litter will be exactly alike (in looks, personality or temperament) and you have no idea what the adult dog you'll spend the next 12+ years with will be like. You pay your money and take your chance.

Yorkies and Poodles are both delightful little dogs in their own right. Perhaps your friend could research both with her daughter and choose which suits them both.

jackieglasgow

I have met a few people recently who have paid upwards of £600 for designer crosses, thinking they are getting some fantastic KC registered breed. These dogs are mongrels like any other with two different breed parents, but giving them a fancy name makes it seem cool. Very very odd to me. and a licence to print money for the breeders.

Kittendreich

If they want a KC breed registered puppy they will need to get a pure bred dog (the KC also register crossbreeds for activity and companionship, but this has nothing to do with their breeding) - this would count out any poodle crosses. Everyone has different views on how important it is to have a 'pure' bred dog with KC registration - their are good things (e.g. limits on how many litters a mum can have and at what age), but also bad things (e.g. limited gene pools in many breeds lead to genetic problems being generally more common than in mutts).

It is important to be happy with the conditions the dog is being bred in (if they feel uncomfortable when they visit the litter, they should walk away...no matter how long they have been waiting to find a particular type of dog - if that is the route they go down).

There won't be a society for yorkie-poos or anything as they are not a standard breed - so you will just have to look in free-ads, internet sites etc until a litter comes up.

Everyone has different reasons for chosing their dogs. I have a mutt of unknown breeding (bearded collie...ish!) as he was a rescue. I did consider getting a puppy to have more control over their socialisation etc as we had kids in the house and round about, but saw an ad and he was exactly what we were looking for. I don't like 'designer' dogs - i.e. ones bought for fashion, or to match outifts etc that will be discarded when no longer fashionable. Crossbreeds are not the same as that to me and breeding dogs with known characteristics to gain a different set of characteristics is how the many 'pure' breeds were started - so I'm not sure why there is so much hatred of crosses of this type from people who are 'into' breeds.

Finally, I hope your friends have lots of energy and a strong will as a cross between a poodle and yorkie will be a feisty wee package!

Bubby

Oh no:(:(:(:(

Please direct your friend to www.champdogs.co.uk and click on the forum, they can tell you plenty of horror stories about the unscrupulous breeders of "designer" crosses!

If she wants a lifetime of vet bills and to put more cash into puppy farms then tell her to go ahead and get one!

hethmar

Tell your friend to be VERY cautious about ads on the net or in papers as there is a well known scam where you are offered a pup at a low price or even free "because we want a good home" but you are then asked for large amounts of money for the dog to be couriered to you by a specialist - course, you pay for this courier and never get the dog. Just be warned.

Oh and have a look on little dog rescue and also many tears. They often have small yorkies. There are a few on dogsblog too.

RedBern

hethmar wrote: »

Tell your friend to be VERY cautious about ads on the net or in papers as there is a well known scam where you are offered a pup at a low price or even free "because we want a good home" but you are then asked for large amounts of money for the dog to be couriered to you by a specialist - course, you pay for this courier and never get the dog. Just be warned.

Oh and have a look on little dog rescue and also many tears. They often have small yorkies. There are a few on dogsblog too.

yep - already been offered a 13 week old puppy for delivery 'tomorrow' - just need to send the money and it's coming from the Isle of Man:(

foreign_correspondent

Sensible/reputable breeders will not be turning out litters anytime close to christmas, so she may need to be prepared to wait some time.

Both parents should be heath checked for the inheridted conditions particular to their breed.

There are loads of puppy scams on the internet, and a lot of puppy farmed pups - these are often hard to spot, so do be wary - you may want to have a loof at the puppylove page to find out more about this problem and how to avoid it - http://www.puppylovecampaigns.org/

The dogs trust also have some useful info about what to look for when buying a pup - http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/_resources/resources/factsheets09/factsheetgettingapuppy09.pdf

Caroline_a

This crossbreed thing seems to be the latest scam to part people with their hard earned money. I was out walking my dog with my friend and her dog the other day and we met a lady with a quite cute cross breed pup. We chatted and my friend asked what breed the pup was ... the lady said 'a Poochie'. I'm pretty good with my dog breeds and thought she meant that was its name... no... it was apparently a cross between a poodle and a schitzu. Yup, another fancy name for a mongrel.

However when we walked away, my friend suggested that maybe, rather than a 'poochie' that the dog might be a schit poo.... :rotfl::rotfl: maybe not the most flattering name for any dog :T:T

jippynip

just a thought rescues have all sorts of puppies so whichever puppy, i won't go into my opinions about designer dogs but, whichever puppy your friend wants will be in a rescue somewhere not too far they are full. Yorky rescue could be a first place to try?