Rare breed has her heart

“Don’t you just love him? Isn’t he gorgeous?” asks Karen Jacquard.

Five-month-old Ryley is a Biewer, a rare breed of dog that originated in Germany in 1984 when Werner & Gertrude Biewer ended up with blue, white and golden pups after breeding two blue and tan Yorkshire terriors.

Biewer cultivated the recessive piebald gene and continued breeding the unusual dogs to achieve their white bellies and four white paws.

Although not recognized by the American Kennel Club, or the Canadian Kennel Club, the breed does have several breed clubs of its own including the Biewer Breed Club International and the Biewer Terrior Club of America Inc.

Jacquard, a resident of Yarmouth, co-owns Ryley with Holly Muise. She fosters out her other Biewer, one-year-old Sydney, to Trevor and Darlene Cosman in Beaver River. She borrows him for breeding purposes occasionally. In total she has eight toy dogs of different breeds, four of which are fostered in other homes.

She says the colours attracted her to the Biewer so she began researching them. Her first attempt at buying one ended badly.

“My first one I got scammed $1200 on the Internet in March,” said Jacquard.

“I saw it on Kijiji. I put the money in her bank account and I trusted her. She never shipped the dog. I was devastated. I went to the police and they told me it was a civil case. I have to fight it myself. I know where she lives and I have her name,” she said.

Her second attempt was more successful; from a breeder in Ottawa.

She says she can’t help but love the pint-sized dogs she owns.

“It’s my life. My kids are grown and this is what I do.”

She adds that a lot of people want the small mixed breed dogs now because they say there are not as many health problems as they get older.

“They call them designer dogs: poodles, shih tzu, maltese... people want a small, compact dog,” she said.

The standard for the Biewer calls for a general appearance of an elegant longhaired tri colored toy terrier with the hair parting down the middle, hanging straight and evenly on both sides of the dog, as though a comb had been used to part the hair from the nose to the end of the body.

The tail should be carried high over the body in a teacup handle fashion and covered with a long flowing plume. The ideal temperament is described as being “lighthearted, whimsical, with a child like attitude. Although mischievous at times, they are obedient and make a loyal companion.”