Breed hub
Yorkshire Terriers
A terrier in a handbag-sized body. Everything we've learned about living well with a Yorkie, from the first thirty days to the senior years.
New · interactive handbook
The Complete Yorkshire Terrier Owner’s Handbook
The articles below answer one question each. The handbook puts the whole breed in order: the terrier in the tiny body, the first 30 days, toilet training, the sugar dips, the honk, the knees and falls, food and the liver, training, adolescence, barking and small dog syndrome, the coat and the teeth, family life, and health by age. Twelve chapters with tools you tap, slide and tick, a tiny-dog sign checker, a portion calculator, a grooming map, a true-or-myth test and a certificate.
Before you get one
Honest answers for the thinking-about-it stage.
Are Yorkshire Terriers Good for First-Time Owners? The Honest Answer
Tiny, portable, clever and long-lived, and also a real terrier with a fragile body, expensive teeth and a reputation for barking that is mostly the owner’s doing. The honest pros, cons and costs of a Yorkie as a first dog.
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Your Yorkshire Terrier Puppy’s First 30 Days: The Tiny-Dog Rules
A toy puppy under a kilo has rules no general puppy book mentions. A week-by-week plan for a new Yorkie: feeding every few hours, warmth, no sofa jumps, toilet trips, socialising on their own feet, and the habits that save teeth and coat.
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Toilet Training a Yorkshire Terrier: Why It Takes Longer and How to Do It
A grape-sized bladder, a hatred of rain, accidents too small to notice, and owners who carry them everywhere. Why Yorkies take longer to toilet train, the schedule by age, the rain routine, and when an indoor toilet is the right call.
Read more →Behaviour, coat and teeth
The things that decide what kind of Yorkie you live with.
Yorkshire Terrier Barking and Small Dog Syndrome: Why It Happens and How to Fix It
Small dog syndrome is real and it is made, not born. Why Yorkies bark and lunge, why most of it is fear, how picking them up makes it worse, and how to fix alert, fear and demand barking without a collar or a shout.
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Yorkshire Terrier Coat and Grooming: Long Coat, Puppy Cut, Mats, Tear Stains and the Topknot
Silk that mats in two days. Long coat versus puppy cut, the daily routine, where mats form and why you never scissor them out, tear staining and the topknot, ears, nails, and why a Yorkie needs a jumper.
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Yorkshire Terrier Teeth: Retained Baby Teeth, Gum Disease and How to Keep Them
The number one Yorkie health problem. Why forty-two teeth in a tiny jaw go wrong, retained baby teeth, what gum disease does to the heart and kidneys, daily brushing, dentals under anaesthetic, extractions, and what to chew.
Read more →Body and health
What goes wrong in a two-kilo body, and when.
Yorkshire Terrier Health Problems: Hypoglycaemia, Tracheal Collapse, Knees, Liver Shunt and More
What goes wrong in a two-kilo body and how urgent each thing is: hypoglycaemia, the goose-honk cough, slipping kneecaps, Legg-Calvé-Perthes, liver shunt, pancreatitis, teeth, eyes, fractures from falls, and the senior heart and kidneys.
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Feeding a Yorkshire Terrier: How Much, How Often, Fussy Eaters, Fat and the Liver
Every gram matters on a three-kilo dog. How much and how often to feed by age, the kitchen-scale rule, the waist test under the coat, why fussiness is usually trained, pancreatitis and fatty food, and the liver shunt question.
Read more →Yorkshire Terrier Health by Age: Puppy, Adult and Senior Care
Thirteen to sixteen years, on a schedule. The puppy months of sugar dips, shunts and baby teeth, the adult years of knees, trachea and dentals, and the senior heart, kidney and mind changes that are not just age.
Read more →Not a Yorkie question?
Our Dog Language Handbook reads any dog’s eyes, ears, tail and posture, and the plan finder matches one problem to one step-by-step plan.