Yorkshire Terrier

[KittyLarkin]

My beloved yorkie passed away recently and I am devastated. I have decided to get a yorkie puppy. I have no idea how to find my puppy. Can anybody offer any help with websites I can try. I have looked on the Kennel Club website but no luck there.

I’m so sorry for your loss.
Start by contacting the breed club or society. Be prepared to wait.
Also consider a breed rescue.
Worth remembering KC reg means nothing other than a registered pedigree. It’s no guarantee of a decent breeder.

I've got a yorkie, he's 6 and a little star. There are a few pups for sale on dogsandpuppies.co.uk
There's also a Yorkshire terrier owners website.
Condolences on your loss.

Please don’t buy from a stranger online. By far the majority of puppies sold in this country come from disreputable breeders.

Champdogs would be my first port of call.

Not mine. It’s just another way to advertise online.

On the Kc website you can register for alerts when a Kc assured breeder has pups available. You still need to do all the usual checks but it’s a good place to start. They also have contact details of breeders from each region so you could email each one individually and ask if they have any litters planned or due. That’s a good way of building a relationship with them.

Some well-bred puppies with health-tested parents are advertised on ChampDogs. You would still have to do your due diligence to assure yourself that it's not a front for a puppy farm, buy there are some legit breeders on there. Someone I know has advertised a gundog litter there, out of a health-tested dam who has done well in field trials. I also know of sensibly-bred litters out of pets, where the breeders have considered health and COI, and have raised the puppies carefully. You just need to be cautious, rather than writing it off entirely.

www.thekennelclub.org.uk/services/public/findapuppy/Default.aspx?id=Yorkshire+Terrier

I used champdogs as part of my search tools for battendog.

I used it to:

• cross reference breeders there with their KC listing initially

then when I'd found a potential breeder...

• follow links to the litter's wider family and use the details of dogs to cross reference what the breeder told me about their line, along with health details on the KC site etc.

It was just another reference site where I could see details of the breeder's dogs and pictures (in some cases) and compare them to things like pictures of those same dogs being shown etc. It gave me additional peace of mind that my breeder's 'story' added up and meant that when I met her and the dam I already knew exactly what she should look like, markings etc. Though this obviously doesn't help much if your breed doesn't have varied markings.

None of that replaced good old fashioned meeting the breeder and using questions and my own eyes to make the decision but the internet tools did help.

Wolfie, I would be curious to know how people would go about getting a well-bred dog in this day and age without the use of online communications? I find Champdogs is one of the better ones - you can research the lines as they have pedigrees up on there for all to see, you can check health tests that have been done. They do not allow commercial breeders or 3rd party sellers.

They do have a much stricter code of conduct on there - they will ban people found to be crossbreeding on the side, breeding from dogs with unsuitable health tests, purposely breeding for non-standard fad colours, breeding a bitch too early and more than once a year. It's not perfect, but it's a start - whereas other pet selling websites allow puppy farmers to advertise!

That's not to say people should be just picking a cute puppy from an online advert, and I would always advocate for people visiting the breeder way in advance to check out the environment they're being brought up in, the condition of their dogs, and asking plenty of questions (as well as being questioned by the breeder to ensure that they care about the sort of home one of their pups goes to) - a good breeder will be more than happy to accommodate this and you can build a rapport with them. I would never just turn up on the day a bring a puppy home just like that. What I'm saying is it can be a good first point of contact to get in touch with a breeder.

I would much rather go through the breed club. They won’t recommend anyone who isn’t breeding carefully, you will find other people who know the breed and make really useful contacts.