Yorkshire Terrier Health Care & Feeding

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Yorkshire Terrier Health Problems

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Complete list of Yorkshire Terrier health problems

Like most toy breeds, Yorkshire Terriers are usually long-lived, with a typical lifespan of 12-15 years.

Accidents and injuries

The leading health issue in toy dogs is INJURY. You must keep Yorkshire Terriers under constant surveillance and leash/arm control. Too much can happen to these small creatures in the blink of an eye.

• Bone fractures or a concussion can occur from jumping off furniture, or falling or leaping from your arms, or being hit on the head by a thrown or falling object, or being stepped on.
• Yorkies can choke on the tiniest object and it takes very little to overdose them with anything toxic.
• Yorkies can squeeze through the smallest crack of a door or fence and be gone.
• If you allow them to act foolishly aggressive toward larger dogs, their neck can be broken with a single grab.
• If you let them off-leash, their excitable chasing instincts may send them under the wheels of a car.

Liver shunt

After accidents, the major concern in Yorkshire Terriers is liver shunt. The liver's job is to remove toxins from the bloodstream. You might wonder how toxins get into the bloodstream in the first place? They're the waste by-products that result from eating food. They're not harmful as long as the liver does its job of filtering and eliminating them.

But when a Yorkie has a liver shunt, the blood that's supposed to be filtered bypasses the liver. That means the waste products aren't filtered out. Instead they build up in the bloodstream and have toxic effects on the dog's brain and other organs.

Occasionally, a liver shunt is mild enough (just a partial bypass) that it can be managed with a careful diet. But usually it requires surgery – very tricky and expensive surgery.

At one veterinary teaching hospital, a full one-third of their liver shunt patients are Yorkies. As a prospective Yorkie owner, you're taking a big risk if you buy or adopt a Yorkie without doing a simple blood test that tests for a healthy liver.

Orthopedic disorders

Many toy breeds inherit loose knee joints, where the kneecap pops in and out of its socket. It's called luxating patella, which means dislocating kneecap. It can be mild, causing temporary bouts of lameness, or it can be crippling and require expensive surgery.

Yorkshire Terriers have the 2nd highest rate of luxating patella of all breeds, with 1 in 5 Yorkies affected.

Even more serious are two degenerative hip diseases that occur in Yorkies – hip dysplasia and Legg-Calve-Perthes disease.

Dental disease

Miniaturized dogs often don't have enough room in their mouth for strong, healthy teeth. Instead we see teeth pointing in various directions, malformed teeth, and teeth crammed together. Plaque and tartar build up rapidly on those teeth, causing gum disease. Then the teeth wiggle around in their loose sockets and need to be extracted by the vet.

Repeatedly putting a small Yorkshire Terrier under anesthesia to have teeth pulled is both worrisome and expensive. You should brush your little dog's teeth weekly and scrape the tartar off his teeth before it builds up.

Collapsing trachea

Tiny breeds such as Yorkies, Chihuahuas, and Maltese can have a genetically weak trachea (the windpipe through which they breathe). A windpipe is a long tube and if it's weak, it can temporarily collapse in on itself, limiting the amount of air that gets through. Then the dog coughs and gasps, producing a distinctive goose honking sound.

Collapsing trachea is a serious condition that always gets worse over time. Sometimes surgery can help, but more often not.

To make matters confusing, Yorkshire Terriers are also prone to a condition that resembles collapsing trachea, but is completely harmless. It's called reverse sneezing. It tends to occur when the dog is excited or when he's eating or drinking.

Eye diseases

In Yorkies, we see cataracts (often progressing to blindness), retinal dysplasia, dry eye, and occasionally progressive retinal atrophy (PRA), which always leads to blindness.

Heart disease

The Big 3 heart diseases in Yorkshire Terriers are patent ductus arteriosus, mitral valve disease, and cardiomyopathy.

Hypoglycemia

Tiny dogs can have difficulty regulating their blood sugar. In Yorkshire Terriers, tiny not only means a young puppy, but even an adult Yorkie who weighs less than 3 or 4 pounds.

If blood sugar drops too low, a tiny dog can have a hypoglycemic attack, which might be mild if immediately treated, or which can progress to coma and death.

Other health concerns in Yorkshire Terriers

• epilepsy
• thyroid disease
• Cushing's disease
• diabetes
• allergies (which cause itchy skin)
• urinary stones
• colitis

Preventing health problems

Some health problems are inherited. For example, if both parents of your Yorkshire Terrier have certificates proving they were tested and cleared of luxating patella and eye diseases, your Yorkie has less risk of developing those conditions. And the dog himself should have a simple bile acids blood test that tests his liver function.

Other health problems can be prevented, or partially prevented, by the ways you raise your dog.

FREE eBOOK! My free online health care program, 11 Things You Must Do Right To Keep Your Dog Healthy and Happy shows you how to raise your Yorkshire Terrier puppy (or adult dog) in all the right ways. It will help you be your dog's health care champion!