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.
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.
As AKC states: The FSS® (Foundation Stock Service) is not open to "rare" breeds that are a variation of an AKC-registrable breed or the result of a combination of two AKC-recognized breeds. This includes & is not limited to differences such as size (over and under), coat type, coat colors, or types that are disqualifications from Conformation.
In order for the Biewer Terrier (American) Club to get the Biewer's into FSS with AKC they had to say they were a mix breed & not a Yorkshire Terrier. AKC had already been registering the American Parti's, Chocolates & Chocolate Parti's for a very long time. They wouldn't allow the Biewer Yorkies to come in as Yorkies but they quickly realized how much money they were losing by not excepting the Biewer's.
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.
Just because you're breeding Biewer to Biewer doesn't make them another breed. They're still Tri-Color Yorkies that came from 2 Yorkies if no other breed as been introduced in the line, they're still Yorkies. As long as you breed them to each other they will always be Yorkies. Yorkies of a different color but nevertheless they're still Yorkshire Terriers.
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.
The Biewer's started in Germany with Mr. Biewer purchasing a stud male in 1975 from Streamglen Kennels, he purchase Streamglen Richard. At the time Streamglen was producing Champion status Yorkies & were selling Yorkies across the world & the USA.
Mr Biewer started breeding Ch. Streamglen Richard to all his female Yorkshire Terriers trying to make his own mark by producing Champion quality Yorkies that would come from his kennel. In his quest for Champions, he did a lot of line & line-breeding. Then in January of 1984 a Tri-Color Yorkshire Terrier was born from 2 of his Champion dogs, linebred from Streamglen Richard...Darling & Fru Fru.
On the other side of the ocean in the USA Nikko's Kennels (the Lipmans) were doing the exact same thing, breeding for Champion Yorkies. Nikko's Kennels purchased a couple of females from Steamglen. One being Streamglen Milady. Nikko's purchased their Champion male (Ch. Quarnhill Fusspot) from Stonybrook Kennels. Nikko's then began producing Champion Yorkies & continued to line breed as well. In the 80's Tri-colored Yorkies started showing up in Nikko's Kennels too. Gloria couldn't bear to put the pups down so she passed them out the backdoor as pets & told them not to say where they got them (her own words).
In the USA, Summit & Crownridge Kennels both got Tri-colored pups from Nikko's Kennel & wanted their Tri-colored dogs registered with AKC, as they were born from 2 AKC registered Yorkies. They also wanted the right color (Black, Gold, & White) to be listed on the AKC registration papers. So in 2000, after 18 months of DNA testing, AKC accepted the Tri-colored Yorkshire Terrier. AKC certificates state they're Yorkshire Terrier's with Parti color as the color on the papers instead of Black/Tan or Black/Gold. So the name Parti Yorkies has stuck with the Tri-color Yorkies since then.
During this time each country (USA & Germany) went it's own way in developing & registering the Tri-color Yorkies, but both the Biewer's & Parti's are one in the same. How can the Biewer not be a Yorkie? It's stated in all the Biewer clubs history that they started from 2 Champion Yorkies. If they've tested to not be a purebred Yorkie then you do have a mixed breed dog, not a true Biewer that came from Mr. Biewer's Yorkshire Terrier's...
With the USA's demand for more Biewer's there were possibly some mixing of breeds done in Germany to supply the demand for the Biewer's. The BTCA says they're a mixed breed because they've had DNA testing done on 100 Biewer's. If this is true, that they show up NOT as a Yorkshire Terrier then indeed some mixes were added which makes them not a true Biewer. The true Biewer (in name only), Tri-colored Yorkie in Germany came from 2 Traditional colored Yorkies. How can they be a separate breed? They weren't mixes, they were JR Champions & they were all Yorkshire Terrier's.
When breeders in the USA were importing the Biewer's in the beginning they were encouraged to breed them back to their Traditional Yorkies to broaden & improve the Biewer's lines. Nowadays the American clubs greed for AKC Biewer breed recognition & AKC's greed, because please don't misunderstand me, AKC realized how popular the Biewer's had become in the USA & understood just how much money they were losing by not recognizing them. It was an orchestrated plan between the BTCA & AKC to start them on the path of full AKC recognition by having them classified as a separate breed.
They AREN'T a separate breed at ALL! They're just Parti colored Yorkies that originated in Germany.
***All the above information & research provided above is thanks to Debbie Mullins***
Thank you Debbie for allowing me to use your hard work to explain how the Biewer's came to be & how Americans are out to destroy the breed we both love!!! I sincerely appreciate you & the extensive research you did.
Debbie bred absolutely stunning Biewer's for a very long time & eventually switched from the Biewer's to the AKC Parti Yorkies because she knew that American clubs were going to be the ruin of this beautiful dog.