Yorkshire Terrier: health conditions to watch
Yorkshire Terriers are tiny, spirited dogs. Their small size brings a few characteristic issues — most notably the windpipe and, as small dogs, dental and liver considerations worth knowing.
What to watch in a Yorkshire Terrier
A predisposition is a “worth knowing”, not a diagnosis. Most Yorkshire Terriers never develop these — but knowing the early signs means you can act early.
Collapsing Trachea
Learn about Collapsing Trachea →A weak windpipe is common in toy breeds; a honking, goose-like cough (especially on excitement or a tight collar) is the classic sign — use a harness.
Join the Breathing & Airways community →Start here
Stent or Medication? How to Think About the Tracheal Collapse Decision
The diagnosis is probably already made by the time you reach a page like this. Your small dog has a collapsing windpipe, the honking cough has a name, and someone, a vet, a forum, a worried part of your own head at two in the morning, has used the word stent. Now you're trying to...
Collapsing Trachea Explained: The Goose-Honk Cough
A small dog, often a little older, suddenly produces a cough so dry and harsh it genuinely sounds like a goose honking. It tends to land at the worst moments: when the doorbell goes, when they get over-excited, when they pull on the lead, or after a drink of water. The first time you hear...
Living With a Long-Term Cough: The Honest Long View
A long-term cough usually arrives with a name attached: collapsing trachea, or chronic bronchitis, or a bit of both. The diagnosis is in, the acute fright has passed, and your vet has started a plan. What the consult room rarely has time for is the question that comes next, once the dog is snoring beside...
Cough Flare-Up: How to Settle It, and When to Act
There's a difference between the cough you've learned to live with and the one that arrives tonight. The familiar one is dry and honking, a note you recognise and mostly manage. Tonight the bouts are closer together, the sound is harsher, and the smallest thing sets them off. The question that actually matters in that...
Canine Chronic Bronchitis: The Other Long-Term Cough
A small, greying dog who coughs most mornings, after a nap, the moment they get up to greet you at the door. Not a one-off, not a kennel-cough fortnight that came and went, but a cough that's become part of the furniture. If someone has said the words "chronic bronchitis" to you, maybe alongside "we've...
Calming a Chronic Cough at Home: The Daily Things That Genuinely Help
A dog with a collapsing windpipe, or a long-term cough of some other airway kind, usually comes home from the consult with a diagnosis explained and a tablet or two to give. Then the honking cough carries on punctuating the evening anyway, and the obvious question is what else there is to do. That question...
Looking after a Yorkshire Terrier
- Use a harness, not a collar, to protect the windpipe
- Ask about bile-acid testing if a pup is small or slow to grow
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