How To Care For A Yorkie Rescue Dog

You are not alone in raising your Yorkie rescue dog. Fortunately, there have been a lot of people to take in a Yorkie rescue dog before you and are willing to share their Yorkshire Terrier information. One of the best places to go for help, should you find you need it, is to the organization you adopted your dog from.

If they can’t help you, they can at least narrow your search by pointing you to the right direction.

Before you bring a Yorkie rescue dog home, be sure you have a veterinarian. There are good veterinarian clinics in most major pet store chains. Find out if and where an emergency veterinarian care is in your area. Know how to get there before an emergency arises. You will also need a bed or crate or some other place that can be your Yorkie’s safe haven. You will also need assorted brushes and combs for his coat. And you need a lot of money and patience.

Over the decades, Yorkies have been bred to be companion dogs, to be guard dogs and to kill rodents. Although there are Yorkies who will ignore small fuzzy pets, you should not tempt fate by getting a Yorkie if you already have pet hamsters, mice, rats, gerbils or guinea pigs. Keep in mind that Yorkies will bark (or yap) more than some breeds of dog, because that’s one of the things they were bred for.

Yorkies need to be the center of your universe. The late, great author and dog-lover Roger Caras described his Yorkie as ruling every aspect of his home, including twelve other dogs that were all much bigger than the Yorkie! Caras described Yorkies as benevolent dictators. Get used to having them follow you everywhere and wanting to be with you. Yorkies seem to have a need to investigate and supervise everything that goes on in their homes.

There are two other things to keep in mind before you commit to a Yorkie rescue dog. They are more expensive to take care of than the average dog. Because of their silky, fast-growing coats, they need to be trimmed by you or a professional groomer about once a month.

Most Yorkie rescue dogs, though, are well over the breed standard’s seven pounds! Yorkies need to have their coat clipped once a month, need to go to the vet nearly as often and need to eat hard food to help their notoriously weak teeth.

Yorkies also often have trouble being able to hold their urine before they have a chance to go outside. However, these clever dogs can usually be successfully treated to use a cat littler box. You need to be prepared for accidents and how to clean them up. If you’ve never housebroken a dog before, you will need to get a lot of training on how best to do it. And never be afraid to ask for help with your Yorkie.