Tips for Grooming a Yorkie
Grooming a Yorkie is not an easy job, especially if you want to have a Yorkie with long and Shiny coat. It requires...Tips for Grooming a Yorkie
Grooming a Yorkie is not an easy job, especially if you want to have a Yorkie with long and Shiny coat. It requires special care from bathing, brushing, teeth, nail and trimming hair in certain area.

Taking a Yorkie to the groomer often is an excellent way to keep your little furry companion looks beautiful, but there is another way around, especially for you who want to know about how to do proper grooming in your comfort home.

Grooming your dog your house not only saves money, but also building stronger bonds between you and your dog. So, how to groom a Yorkie? Well, keep reading!

Bathing
You can't have those shiny coats without bathing, so yes; bathing is an important part of caring your fur baby. It'll be better if you can bathe her at least every three weeks, but be careful on choosing a shampoo, make sure you choose a shampoo that doesn’t remove the natural oil in the fur.

The oil is a natural form of protection to keep the hair shiny and strong. Using a shampoo that strip the oil poses two different risk; first, dry skin that can cause dandruff, and second, when your dog's skin continually dried, she'll produce more oil and cause too much oil in the hair and this makes your Yorkie looks really bad and hard to groom (trust me!).

So, only choose a shampoo that won't remove their natural oil and try to apply some conditioner after bathing. The conditioner will give temporary protection against dry and humidity, some conditioner also add some nutrients like vitamin e, this will strengthen the hair and make it look better.

Brushing
Yorkies are known for their silky smooth hair, it may tempting to brush her when she was dry, but please don't do it! This can break the hair, the hair just too soft to be brushed at dried condition.

Always spray some conditioner before any brushing, this will ensure that the hair is soft enough before brushing, the start it from the bottom upward.

Beware about tangle and mat; never-ever pull it forcefully with your brush. Pick it with your finger, or you can use tweezers, and gently pull it so you won't destroy the hair. Usually you'll find some mat in the underside chest or around the legs, especially the inner side and close to the body.

Teeth Care
All small dogs poses high risk of tooth decay, so each time you groom your Yorkie make sure you do proper check on this part. Regular brushing is important, if you never make your dog feel comfortable to brush their teeth, you can find the training tips from gum disease article here.

As a start I highly recommends use the tasteless toothpaste, after she feel comfortable someone touching her gums, you can start using the chicken or beef taste, this will make them even happier to brush the teeth.

Nails
If you have some pet nail clipper then you are ready to do this on your home, try to use a nail clipper with safety bar on it, especially if you never clip a dog's nail before, it will be a big help to know how much you should cut it, especially because Yorkie have a black nails, this makes it harder to notice where the skin is.

As a precaution always prepared with some flour or styptic powder incase you cut the nails too much and cause bleeding. Just apply it on the bleeding area to stop the bleeding. In case your dog has very sensitive skins that show some allergic issue with styptic powder you can use liquid medicine like Kwik Stop.

Ears
Yorkie have a very cute but intelligent face from their ears. The ears should stand up straight and shows some "dignity" or "proud", and believe it or not, there is some tips to have such ears with trimming the hair around their ears.

Hair will add some extra weight for the ears, so trimming it up will makes the ears lighter and able to stand up better. Just trim about 25% - 50% from original hair in their ears.

Don't forget to pluck the ears, this area poses a great risk bacteria and yeast infection, and doing regular cleaning is the best prevention. Use some apple cider vinegar and add some alcohol (make it 1:1 composition) and use a cotton swab to clean the ears. Make sure you take all the accumulated "dust" there.

Tail
Try to take some hair in the tail area, hair in this area are so easily get dirty (and smelly), fortunately trimming this area is probably one of the easiest, just cut some hair as much as you want, and leave some hair to keep her looks good. Show more

7 Tips to Train Yorkie Faster

Training a Yorkie can be quite challenging sometimes, although they are so energetic (which is good because it'll...7 Tips to Train Yorkie Faster

Training a Yorkie can be quite challenging sometimes, although they are so energetic (which is good because it'll allow you to train for longer period compared to the less energetic one), Yorkie are just so playful creature and tend to lose their concentration fast, this makes them somewhat harder to train because they feel bored so quickly with the repetition.

Once they feel bored, they just won't listen. This can be quite defiant and just plain stubborn each time you try to teaches them something. I've dealt with such Yorkie before, and after some time I found quick tips to help me dealing with this problem.

Tip #1 Train your Yorkie every day!
This is necessary because a dog only have a short span of attention, and even Yorkies are smart dog they still can forgot previous lesson after you miss one or two training day, this law also applicable in other dog breed. If you want to seriously train your dog, then try to train your dog every day.

Tip #2 Praise and Treats as a Reward
Treats and heartily praise are what a dog expects when they succeed doing something, especially Yorkie, they are small animal that easily feel attached to the owner, once this happens they will expect you to shower her with love, especially after she did something great.

The praise and treats will reinforce the positive mindset. It will makes her thinks that what she just did is good, so she will try to do it again and always expect you to give the order, this will train your dog to be more focused on the training session because she feel like she can earn something by following your order.

Tip #3 Special Tone
Special tone when you talk to your Yorkie is a key to make her understand that you are talking to her. Use slightly different tone than your normal speaking tone, a dog can learn it fast because dog is an excellent creature n recognizing a voice. When she make mistake try to use strong and firm voice tone but don't yell, yelling is not a good idea to do the correction, but the firm tone will make will speak by itself that the dog make mistake without making them feel scared, being defensive or surprised.

Tip #4 Playtime after Training
As I said before, Yorkie is so playful. So take an advantage here, use their playful behavior as a reward! Make the play time after training so she feel like she "earn" the play time, this will build further foundation for a Yorkie to listen to you in the training session while keeping them happy afterward.

Tip #5 The Quieter the Better
Other animal and people can distract the concentration, try to make the training session as "private" as possible, this not only increase your bonding, but also make her easier to listen to your command and follow it. Unless the training requires more than one person, then try to do it alone.

Tip #6 Train it One by One
Unless you know what you're doing or having a specific training program (like 7 weeks training program or 10 weeks training program) your best bet is to train your dog once at a time. Until she mastered the command then move on to more complicated training.

Tip #7 Consistent Cue Word
Cue word is one important role in any dog training, although my training method allow my customer to use their own cue word, I always suggest to use it with consistency, this include anyone inside the household. If the word is "SIT" for sit, then all in the house should use the same cue, and make sure you also maintain your consistency in your voice tone, this will avoid slower learning because the dog confused with the cue word.

These seven tips should be done synchronously, so you can get the maximum benefit from the application. Show more

Free or Cheap Yorkie Puppy? Really?

You probably find ads about "Free Yorkie Puppy" they probably tell you that you only need to pay the shipping...Free or Cheap Yorkie Puppy? Really?

You probably find ads about "Free Yorkie Puppy" they probably tell you that you only need to pay the shipping fee. Other may just try to sell you the puppy with very low price, say $200 or $500? You check out at some legit breeder and they put their puppy for $2000 or even $4000 price tag. So, you think you are "lucky"? Not that fast!

There are numerous scam report at scambuster(1) about such scamming method. In their way to convince you, they probably say something like "need urgent money because someone got cancer and need to do some expensive therapy" or probably, they need someone to take care for the pet since now they're going to move aboard, so they need your “help” asap.

Unaware dog lover may found such ads very interesting, and try to contact the owner. Some probably have an idea to directly pick-up the puppy, but the scammer will refuse, or probably ignore your request to pick it up directly. Instead talking about how long it'll take to get the puppy to your home, what the benefit of having this puppy and providing some extra "cute" picture of their puppy.

Of course after finding their request to pick up the puppy get ignored some people will turn away, but seeing another picture of these cute breed animal some people then just giving up, send the money with irrevocable payment method like western union or liberty reserve to the scammer. They ask you to wait for a moment, and then after sometime you realize the puppy never arrive.

There's another trickier method using user-generated photo sharing website such as flickr. They put lots of puppy picture, give some explanation about the puppy condition, and leave some contact information. Usually, the say something like puppy for adoption, puppy for-sale, and other “sales” explanation. Such method can grab many people's eye, because many blogs or website syndicate photo from flickr. This automatically increases the chance to scam somebody.


What the Legit Reputable Breeder Will Do before You Can Bring Any Puppy, and What These Scammers Won't

Most scammer will talk about the size of the puppy (this is because the smaller the size the higher the price), how they look (because many unaware potential puppy buyer pick a puppy by its look)and say something very adorable about the puppy (common sales trick), some even try to tell their experience with the puppy (this to grab your trust with a very convincing experience story, so you think that they really have the puppy) and in the end will tell you something "accidental" condition like someone in the family diagnosed with deadly disease, have to go aboard for job, study, or anything that make it looks like urgent need.

While the legit breeder will talk about something else, the health condition of the puppy, the pedigree, the parents of the puppy, what training program ever taught to the puppy, how to take care of the puppy, special trait for the puppy and how to handle it (since they don't want you disappointed and abandon the puppy someday and since legit breeder really know that not every puppy even from the same breed and parent have the same trait).

See the difference? The scammer try to sell you a dream, the cute expression of the puppy already have adorable face to "brainwash" most people, so yes, talk about something completely unrelated to their current health condition is a common way for the scammer to steal your hard earned money.

Another noticable difference is scammer and Puppy Mill want quick transaction, while the legit breeders want to make sure that the puppy will suit you for years to come. This is the sign: the legit breeder will ask you many question about you! He probably asks for some personal information and asks various questions to find out how ready you are for the puppy. A scammer is on the other side, they’ll be very “friendly” and never really care about how you will treat the puppy later. The same attitude also true for puppy mill, they won’t ask you about how you’ll treat the puppy because they only care about the money.

The puppy mill will try to sell you puppy at very cheap price. The problem is they tend to be over-breed the parent. When a dog forced to give birth for too many times (and too often) then suddenly separated with their children too often, then the separation anxiety will occur, this will lead into bad behaved pet and your puppy will have a big chance the to inherit such bad behavior. Over breeding also make the DNA fragile, this lead into various health problems for the puppy, so please stop giving “incentive” for the puppy mill to operate.

Another difference is the guarantee. A legit breeder will give you a health guarantee or pet insurance for any puppy they sell. This something you won’t find when you buy from a puppy mill. A legit breeder will only sell healthy puppy, they know it because they really know the parent, they breed the dog safely, and they take care for it. When you ask about the breeding program and standard requirements, they’ll give you the whole details. A scammer or a puppy mill will be very unlikely able to answer this question.

So again, please don’t get too excited when you find such offer. It’s probably a scam! When it wasn’t a scam, you probably buy it from a puppy mill. There are various risks you’ll have to face when you buy from these guys, health problem is one of the risks, do you know how much the vet cost to take care unhealthy pet for 13 years (that’s the average HEALTHY Yorkie lifespan), and remember you supporting animal cruelty when you buy from these guy. Oh no I’m not trying to freak you out, just try to tell you the truth.

“Use your head” before sending any money to anyone online, a legit breeder won’t giveaway well-breed, well-behaved and well-raised healthy pup with a random website listing, instead they’ll easily found via your local kennel club or breed club, they won’t let it go cheap for some urgent and “accidental” reason either. Show more

Basic Yorkie Dog Traits

What is Yorkie (A Background History)

Yorkshire dog considered as "toy dog" or small sized dog. They come from Skye Terriers and...Basic Yorkie Dog Traits

What is Yorkie (A Background History)

Yorkshire dog considered as "toy dog" or small sized dog. They come from Skye Terriers and Paisley Terriers then breeds both with Waterside Terrier. First time introduced in America at 1880s but never gain lots attention until 1960.
The Yorkie’s real name is Yorkshire Terrier, named from their originating city in the UK. Because of its small size and terrier's instinct as a hunter, they are a perfect companion for hunting the mouse.

Appearance and Personal Characteristic

General yorkie appearance has long glossy hair. Their body is small, but maintains a good body proportion. This creature has a very intelligent facial expression because of their dark and medium size eyes. Their head is high, showing a "dominant" characteristic, confidence, and vigor. Their muzzle is round with even jaws. In general their tail is has a medium length and slightly higher from their back makes this tiny little cute creature look sexy.
The personal characteristic of the Yorkie are intelligent, independent, brave, vigorous, and what makes this tiny creature unique is they often think them self as big as The Great Dane. Often makes me laugh and smile when my Yorkie act like this one. Although they often bark at the stranger or other bigger dog (Yorkie thinks they are bigger!), they are quite friendly after a short introduction period.
Although most of them are bold and adventurous, some Yorkie with lack socialization during their growth can be very timid and have a tendency to withdraw when they see other dog out of their pack.

Maintenance and Upkeep

Unlike other small breed, a Yorkie is a “Terrier”, they need lots of activity! Fortunately running around your house is enough for a Yorkie to "heat up" a little bit. They really love when you take them for a walk, so take them for a walk often. They are meant to be inside dog, means they won't suit well if you force them to live outside.
Another maintenance for this pet is the food. Overfeeding can cause obesity and lead into various health problems. Any change in diet should be done gradually because they have sensitive digestion. Choosing high quality food is important, some cheap food may contain corn and and soybean wheat as filler which can lead into nutrition problem.

Training

One important training at early age is the socialization training. This training will help the puppy to have a strong "connection" with the owner and will avoid aggressive or timid dog. To socialize your puppy, you can take them for a walk to a park where they can met and interact with other dogs, noise, and human presence.
Other important training at early age is the housebreaking training, this is because the Yorkie are a toy dog. This means they have small bladder and have a higher chance to commit accidents inside the house.
One most successful way to help this training is using the crate/kennel. Such training relies on a theory that a dog would not mess around their sleeping space. The kennel size should big enough for the dog to move around and stand up but not too big so the dog won't excrete in one side and sleep on the other side without being bothered.
The challenge in this training is how to make the puppy comfortable inside the kennel. To make the puppy comfortable you can move their bed/ toys within the crate. And when the puppy enters the crate praise him/her! Furthermore try to feed the pet in the crate, and make it a playing space for the pet so they can associate this place as a fun place. When you found your puppy sleeping outside the crate, gently move it to the crate and let it continue the sleep. Another note to crate training a puppy is the puppy should not left inside the crate for too long!
The step to train your puppies is fairly simple, create a special place to excrete by placing a pad or newspaper in a certain place, and praise them for doing it in this place.
When you cannot watch them you should place them inside the crate, and since their intuition is to keep this place clean they will always try to hold on for a moment. After you left them in the crate for sometime, you find out that your dog need to use their "bathroom" now quickly (but gently) take it to that spot and praise them after they urinate in that place.

Some Common Yorkie Disease

Another worth consideration about this breed is they are prone to various disease just like other toy dogs. Some diseases like cataracts, low blood sugar, luxating patella (slipping kneecaps), skin allergies, trachael collapse (collapsing trachea range from mild to severe) often found in this dog. This make the health cost as a considerable cost.
To minimize the risk of having unhealthy Yorkie, you should consider only adopt it from a reputable and professional trainer. Not a backyard breeder or a puppy mill. Show more