To buy imported or pedigreeless small toys for breeding is a complete lottery. Foreign breeders are extremely careless with regard to their strains, and purity of blood can never be depended on. Another point which must be insisted upon in relation to profitable toy breeding is the necessity for health in the kennel. I say kennel because it is a useful word, but am far from suggesting that toys of any kind should be kept in the way understood by "having a kennel" among larger dogs. The breeder who succeeds best is invariably the one who keeps one or two, or even four or five, _pet_ bitches, running about the house enjoying full liberty and all the happiness of personal favourites, with, it may be, a dog also of the party. The breeder who is most troubled with skin complaints, distemper, lengthy vet's bills, and all the expenses, such as sick diet, which eat up profits, is the one who has built or fitted "kennels," no matter at what expense, and filled them with dogs.
Very small bitches, and especially those belonging to certain breeds which are known to be "shy," are not only often reluctant to breed at all, but are not infrequently very indifferent mothers, while there are great risks to the bitch in pupping where the sire is larger than herself, or where larger dogs occur in the immediate ancestry on either side. For these reasons, brood bitches are always wisely chosen of medium size, and mated to very tiny dogs. In all the breeds which come under the head of toys, smallness is a desideratum, but the practice of inbreeding which has been extensively resorted to cannot be too highly condemned; while the equally mistaken idea of attaining this end by under-feeding puppies has also contributed to the weakliness of constitution which is an immense drawback to some breeds. Reckoning size by weight is another faulty practice much against the true interests of toys, which we want to be small and healthy at the same time; for a very tiny dog, if compact and sturdy, may weigh much more than a leggy specimen which, to the eye, seems half as large again.
A bitch from 5 lbs. to 7 lbs., if, as I said before, of a small strain, may be safely used for breeding, and the smaller the dog the better, provided he is healthy. The plan of sending away bitches to a stud dog saves the expense of buying a dog of one's own; the sire's wins help to sell the puppies very materially, and the good offices of his owner may generally be reckoned upon to assist the novice; but there are other facets to the question.