German Biewer vs. American Parti
The Biewer Yorkshire a La' Pom Pon is a Tri-Colored Yorkshire Terrier. Born from 2 Jr. Champion Traditional Yorkshire Terriers. The Original Biewer Yorkshire a La' Pom Pon were Yorkshire Terriers. How the Biewer Yorkshire a La' Pom Pon came to be:
In the 1970's Mr. Biewer purchased a lot of his dogs from Streamglen Kennels. Streamglen Richard, DOB: October 6, 1972 & Streamglen Flora being 2 of them. Streamglen Richard was a consistent Championship Show Winner & became a German Champion. Mr. Biewer raised most of his dogs from Streamglen Richard.
These dogs were the foundation of what is known as the Biewer Yorkshire a la' Pom Pon. In order to produce a Tri-Color puppy a recessive Piebald gene has to be present in both male & female Traditional colored Yorkies. Mr. Biewer's first Tri-Color Yorkie was born from 2 Champion Traditional Yorkshire Terriers.
Mr. Biewer bred Darling von Friedheck to Fru Fru von Griedheck & on January 20, 1984 a beautiful Tri-Colored Yorkshire Terrier was born. He named her Schneeflockehen von Friedheck. There was 3 other puppies born in this litter, all 3 of those were standard Traditional (Black/Tan) Yorkies, Sultan, Sascha, Steffany.
He continued to breed for the Tri-Colored Yorkshire Terriers. From here, he line bred & inbred to keep producing the Tri-Colored (Parti) Yorkies. He first registered them in the VDH/KFT but they designated them as being the wrong color & not for breeding. KFT would register the Tri-Colors as long as they came from VDH/KFT as Yorkies but if they were Tri-Colored the papers were marked as "Not For Breeding". So any of the offspring's couldn't be registered. It's said that Mr. Biewer then began his search for a registry that would except his Tri-Color Yorkies. The ACH (Allgemeiner Club der Hundefreunde Deutschland) was the only club to accept them as a Biewer Yorkshire Terrier. At first they called them "German Yorkshire Terriers" but that changed in 1986 when the dogs were officially registered as:
In 1989 when Mr. Biewer signed the standard for the Biewer Yorkshire a la Pom Pon. It was a Yorkie with the color, blue, gold, & white. The standard was short & brief. The Biewer had a docked tail until May of 1998 when Germany banned tail docking & removal of Dewclaws. The tails were then left intact. On May 23, 2003 Dagmar Pryzstaw & Daniela Braun opened the Deutsche Biewer Club but after some time Dagmar left the Deutsche Biewer Club because of conflicts with Daniela. In September of 2004 Dagmar opened 2 new Biewer Clubs, Deutscher Biewer Club & the International Biewer Club (IBC). It's been said by some of the American Biewer Clubs that Mr. Biewer never bred back to the Traditional Yorkies. That is another MYTH!
Mr. Biewer bred Darling to several of his Tri-Color females. He bred Darling to Grand Pom Pon to get Schneerose & he bred Darling to Schneeflokchen to get Schneewitten. Even as late as 1992 he was breeding to Traditional Yorkies. Then he bred Schneewirbel von Friedheck (Tri-Colored) to Janny von Friedheck (Traditional Yorkie) to produce Schnee-Monsieur von Friedheck, just to name a few.
Mr. Biewer passed away in 1997 & his wife, Gertrude Biewer dispersed all of his dogs & discontinued the breeding program. After his death breeders in the USA starting importing the Biewer a la' Pom Pon. They were being called Biewer Yorkies, then gradually changed to a cousin of the Yorkie by some American Clubs. They have changed it's name & some have even changed the standard which Mr. Biewer set for his Tri-Colored Yorkies.
Most of the Biewer Clubs in the USA believe in breeding only Biewer to Biewer, they say to keep the breed pure. Yes, it does keep the breed pure because what they're doing is line-breeding, breeding a Tri-Color Yorkie to Tri- Color Yorkie will always produce a Tri-Colored Yorkie. That's exactly what Mr. Biewer did, he bred his Tri-Color's to each other to get the Tri's. All ARE Yorkshire Terrier's.
The history of where the Biewer begins is extremely important & should never be disregarded, shoved under the rug, or just plain ignored, as some of the US Biewer Clubs are doing. You can't go back to certain dogs like Fru Fru & Darling & say the history started there. There were more dogs involved in the path that Mr. Biewer took to get his Tri-Colors than Fru Fru & Darling.
Careful breeding can cause a specific line within a breed to produce certain traits but genetics is genetics. If the gene pool consisted of Tri-Color (non-standard) colors & markings the end result would still have to be a Yorkie whatever the coloration. Being born another color (non-standard) of a breed does NOT make it a new breed.
To answer a couple of questions made by the BTCA on their website:
If you're going to reference Joan Gordon's one incident, out of her decades of breeding, well, that statement in itself speaks volumes. Joan said, yes, they had one. She said that it was the only one they'd ever had born. What does that prove? There were lots of other lines producing Tri- Colors. Many in Germany & other countries do not practice the breeding of only Biewer to Biewer, they allow the Traditional color Yorkies to be bred into the lines. Germany admitted that they did not have enough unrelated and healthy biewer lines.
In Germany some health issues in the Biewers popped up, that came from all the inbreeding of Biewer to Biewer with not enough unrelated & healthy Biewer lines. Eventually some breeders in Germany were no longer breeding the Biewer's because of the health issues. Some German breeders that are still breeding feel it is necessary to breed their Biewers back to the Yorkshire Terrier (and they do). They feel the Biewer is a Yorkshire Terrier, only the color makes the difference.
It is said that Mr Biewer wanted recognition that the Biewer is a tricolored Yorkshire Terrier. That was the reason he left the VDH. That was the reason he set the standard from the "Yorkshire Terrier" , he only included the special color of the Biewer. It's only a Biewer if the puppy is born Tri- color, the ones born Traditional colored are considered Yorkie splitters, or F1 Biewer's, meaning they carry the Piebald (Parti) gene. So you can have both traditional & Biewer puppies born in the same litter but registered 2 different ways because of the color.
German Yorkies can be Chocolate, Chocolate Parti (Biro's), Gold Sable (Ocean Pearl), White Ocean Pearl (Sable Parti), and Golddust. All colors that have been in the Yorkie for years. Just like the Yorkies born in the USA. Breeders of these dogs are making new breeds of them.
There's no such thing as a Merle, Blueberry, or Blackberry Yorkshire Terrier, not any with blue eyes that hasn't had a separate breed mixed in somewhere back in the line. If you've fallen for one of these colors & purchased a puppy...Congratulations, You're now the owner of a mixed breed mutt!!!
Are they separate breeds of each other? If a Biewer is bred to a GoldDust & both carry the Chocolate & Piebald gene, the puppies that result from this breeding could be, Chocolate, Biewer, and Biro (Chocolate Parti). How would you register them? Is it registered as a Yorkshire Terrier or a German Biro? It is much too complicated, so let's all call them what they are, "Yorkshire Terrier's".
IF you plan on buying a Biewer, do a lot of research first. I would recommend buying one that has outside lines bred into it & isn't a 3rd, 4th or 5th+ generation Biewer to Biewer breeding. Some Biewer's have shown up with liver shunts, seizures, & some other health problems.
The Biewer is a line of Yorkies (like the Durrer or Wildweir lines) that a man in Germany bred & called them after his own name. Biewer is the name of a bloodline, not a separate breed.
On December 10, 1976 (8 Years before Mr. Biewers Tri-color) Joan Gordon & Janet Bennet had a Tri-color puppy born into their Champion Kennel (Wildweir) from their line. They decided to keep him & not put him down. They did register him with AKC, but as Black & Tan because AKC had no tri color classifications at that time. "Trippy" lived to be 12 years old. Joan is quoted as saying "That at the time Trippy was born she had heard of Tri's being born in England" She said that the Tri-Color Yorkie was imported into Germany from English stock.
Joan Gordon of Wildweir Kennels writes that Yorkies can be born Tri-colored in her book in 1976. (The Complete Yorkshire Terrier) Page 205. This was written years before anyone ever heard of what is now called as Biewer.
In the 1980's Tri-color's also showed up in the Champion Nikko's line of Yorkshire Terriers, but the owner did not put them down, instead she passed them out the back door as pets.
The Nikkos line & the Biewer line of Tri-Color Yorkies both trace back to the same dog, Streamglen Shaun. He (Streamglen Shaun) was a Yorkshire Terrier. So how can the Parti Colored Yorkies & the Biewer's be considered a separate breed but yet have the same ancestors???
Tri-colored Yorkshire Terriers have been around as long as the breed has but was considered a disqualification of the breed & breeders either destroyed them or gave them away as pets. They were ashamed of them, unlike Mr. Biewer, who celebrated the birth of his 1st Tri-colored Yorkshire Terrier puppy.
Mr. Biewer did in Germany that which is not accepted in the USA. He took a purebred Yorkshire Terrier & gave it a new name, then registered it in new clubs in Germany that would except them as Yorkshire Terrier's but with the Bloodline "Biewer" so they could be registered, bred and shown. If you have ever seen a German IBC pedigree, you will see that they're continuing to call them "Biewer Yorkshire Terriers" to this day. He decided to inbreed & line breed for more.
Just sit down & rationally think about it...how did a dog born from 2 Traditional Yorkshire Terriers become another breed??? This is impossible unless another breed was bred into the line & if that's the case, then it's not a true Tri-color (Biewer) that came from Mr. Biewers dogs because all he bred were Traditional colored Champion Line Yorkshire Terriers.
What you can see is that in 1984 when Mr Biewers Tri color Yorkie was born, it was not a new breed nor a cross breed. It was a tri-colored Yorkie born from 2 traditional colored Jr champion Yorkies the result of 2 parents carrying recessively for the Piebald gene & instead of putting this mismarked puppy down he decided to inbreed & line breed for more.
Line and In Breeding:
By only allowing Biewer to Biewer breeding (1) You are closing your sources & only allowing for line breeding. (2) You are isolating the piebald gene & soon they will become washed out, more & more white will appear in the years to come. I see more & more showing up with white heads & split faces (half masks) already, including the AKC Parti Yorkies. The more you breed Tri-color to Tri-color the lighter they will get. That's why I feel it's extremely important to breed Traditional (Black/Blue & Gold/Tan) colors back into your lines, Therefore keeping the colors alive, vibrant & not washed out.
Some of the AKC Parti Yorkies have been inbred too, It's not just the Biewers. Before you buy check the pedigree. The Parti Yorkie has a much much wider gene pool to breed from because they're AKC registered Yorkshire Terriers, whereas most of the Biewer clubs believe in only Biewer to Biewer breedings.
Line-breeding, is a form of inbreeding practiced by some animal breeders to "fix" desirable traits in a breed of animal, without as high a risk of producing undesirable traits that may occur with close inbreeding.
A typical example of linebreeding would be: In humans would be considered a mating of first cousins or more distantly related individuals who share a common ancestor.
While linebreeding is less likely to cause problems in the first generation than does inbreeding, over time, linebreeding can reduce the genetic diversity of a population & cause problems related to a too-small genepool that may include an increased prevalence of genetic disorders & inbreeding depression.
Think of it like this, if your family only bred with cousins, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, grandparents & yes even mother to son & father to daughter, the genetic gene pool would become very narrow. Yes, you would all resemble each other but your sickness & disease would increase by tapping into the same genetic pool.
This is a typical pedigree of the Biewer
Most people only look at the first 3 generations of a pedigree and think they're not related. What one must do is look deeper.
I love the Biewers but I don't condone breeding only Biewer to Biewer. I feel outside lines are needed to make them flourish.
The Biewer Clubs in the USA promoting only Biewer to Biewer are still breeding these dogs with no outside lines. Count how many times the same dogs & offsprings are bred together.
As far back as we can trace the Parti Color has been in the Yorkshire Terrier. It's a recessive gene, known as the Piebald gene, & can be traced back to the 1970's.As for the difference of the two Tri-Color dogs, the Biewer Yorkshire Terrier (a la Pom Pon) & the Parti Color Yorkies, tracing the two lines of Tri-Colors, Mr. Biewer & Nikko's line. Both the Nikko's & the Biewer line of Tri-Color Yorkies all trace back to Streamglen Shaun.
When you hear people quote that Biewer's have a standard & Parti's don't, this isn't true. Parti's go by the Yorkshire Terrier standard except for color. The Biewer clubs also state that their standard has color specific placement & the Parti's don't. You can't predict the Piebald gene, you can't predit where the black or the white will be so therefore you can't be color specific. Other than it must be black/blue, white, & tan. AKC set the standard for the AKC registered Parti colored Yorkies.
A PIEBALD patterned dog has a white BASE coat with colored spots. Piebald means "White Spotted", so you use the other colors on the dog & Piebald as the pattern by which it's marked up. A Black/Tan Piebald would be a dog with a base color of white with colored spots & tan markings on the face, legs, & around the base of the tail.
Piebald isn't a breed or a type but a color pattern.
Piebald spotting is a pattern of spots which randomly occur anywhere on the body, including the torso. They're not of consistent size or location therefore dogs that have Piebald spotting (sp) can have a lot of colored spots or very few.
Biewer's aren't a rare NEW breed, they're just a Tri-colored Yorkshire Terrier that has been popping up thru the years. Because Mr. Biewer drew his Tri's out of the VDH/KFT they couldn't be registered AKC. In the process of him hunting for an avenue to breed & show his lovely Tri-colored Yorkies he possibly made a grave mistake by registering them with a non recognized FCI registry so he could raise & show them.
Below is the typical Biewer pedigree. This is the reason that some Germans still breed back to the Traditional Yorkies.
