Yorkshire Terrier Colors Explained

Forget the four color names for a minute. Almost everything about a Yorkie’s coat comes down to one fact: every last one is born black and tan, and the black clears to a steel blue as the dog grows up. The jet-black, bright-tan puppy in the litter photo is the darkest that dog will ever be. Eight months on, the black goes a dusty grey down the back and the rich tan creeps paler, and first-time owners swear the breeder swindled them or the dog is sick. Neither. It is doing the single most Yorkie thing there is, and nobody warned them.

I’ve trained and fostered these little terriers for a long time, and coat color is the thing new Yorkie owners get most wrong, because the Yorkshire Terrier is one of the few breeds where the dog you bring home is genuinely not the color you’ll have at two. So here is the whole story: why they’re all born the same, what the four real colors are, the clearing timeline and the exact tell to look for, and the golden, parti, and off-standard shades you’ll see advertised. If you’re picking a name off the coat, there’s a color-sorted batch over in the Yorkshire Terrier names guide.

Why is every Yorkie born black and tan?

Because that’s the base the breed is built on. A newborn Yorkshire Terrier looks almost like a tiny black-and-tan terrier of no particular breed: a black body with tan points on the muzzle, over the eyes, on the chest, and down the legs. What makes a Yorkie a Yorkie is what happens next. The breed carries a graying gene, the same kind of progressive-clearing gene you see in a few other breeds, and it slowly lifts that puppy black up to a blue. Not blue like a Weimaraner. Blue the way dog people mean it, a dark steel grey with a cool metallic cast, sometimes deep enough to still read as near-black in low light. At the same time the tan points warm up and deepen toward gold. So the finished Yorkie, the show-ring ideal, is a steel-blue body with rich golden tan on the head and legs, and it got there from a plain black-and-tan puppy.

The four AKC colors

The breed standard recognizes exactly four color combinations, and once you understand the clearing, they stop looking like four separate colors and start looking like two colors caught at two different ages.

Black & tan

This is the puppy coat, and the young-dog coat. A black body with tan points that haven’t yet warmed to gold. Plenty of Yorkies are registered black and tan simply because that’s what they are early on, before the blue comes in. A dog that stays truly coal black into adulthood without clearing at all is off the ideal, because the standard wants that adult body to be blue, not black. But black and tan is a real, recognized color, and it’s every Yorkie’s starting point.

Black & gold

Same black body, but the points have already deepened from tan to a warm gold. You see this in a slightly older puppy or a young adult whose gold came in ahead of the body clearing. It’s the in-between stage for a lot of dogs, gold points on a body that’s still dark.

Blue & tan

Now the body has cleared. The black has lifted to that steel blue, but the points are still on the tan side rather than a deep gold. This is a common adult coat and a perfectly correct one.

Blue & gold

The show-ring ideal, and what most people picture when they picture a grown Yorkie. A steel-blue body from behind the ears to the tail, and rich golden tan on the head, chest, and legs, with the two colors meeting in clean lines. When a breeder talks about a “perfectly colored” adult Yorkie, this is the one they mean.

How the clearing works, and the tell to look for

The change is slow and it runs on its own schedule, but the pattern is dependable. The black usually starts lifting somewhere in the first six months and keeps going until the adult coat is settled, anywhere from one year to three. Some lines clear early and fast, some drag it out, and a few dogs never fully clear and stay quite dark. The blue often comes in first at the roots and along the spine, then spreads.

Here’s the tell, and it’s the same trick I use on any color-changing coat. Part the hair over the dog’s back and look at the base of the black hairs, right at the skin. If the roots are coming in a lighter steel or silvery grey while the tips are still black, that dog is clearing, guaranteed, and you’re watching it happen. A puppy whose roots are dark all the way to the skin is either not clearing yet or won’t clear much. Same logic on the points: watch the tan warm up from the roots out as it deepens toward gold.

What is a golden or blonde Yorkie?

Some Yorkies never darken at all and grow up gold or blonde all over, with little or no blue body coming in. People call them golden Yorkies, blonde Yorkies, or sometimes “golddust.” They’re genuinely appealing, a soft honey color head to tail, and some carry Biewer or parti lines behind them. Understand two things before you pay a premium. First, a solid gold Yorkie with no blue is not the standard color, so it can’t compete in conformation, though it’s a fine pet. Second, some breeders slap the word golden on a dog that’s simply a normal Yorkie whose points are extra light, so ask to see the parents and ask what the pup’s littermates look like. A true stays-gold dog is a real thing. A photo of a light puppy is not proof it’ll stay that way.

What is a parti Yorkie?

Parti means white plus color in clear patches, so a parti Yorkie carries white along with the blue and tan, often a white chest, collar, blaze, or legs on top of the usual coloring. For years these were treated as a fault or hushed up, but the AKC has recognized the parti color in the breed since 2000, so a parti Yorkie is a registrable purebred Yorkshire Terrier, not a mix. The white comes from a recessive gene that was in the breed all along, quietly carried, and two ordinary-looking Yorkies can produce a parti pup if both carry it. They photograph beautifully and no two are patterned alike. The one thing to keep straight is that parti is recognized while solid off-standard colors are not, so don’t let a seller lump “parti” and “chocolate” together as if both are the same kind of rare. One is a recognized pattern. The other is off the standard.

What about chocolate and other off-standard colors?

You’ll see Yorkies advertised as chocolate, liver, red-legged, or solid colors that don’t fit the four recognized combinations. Chocolate Yorkies are the most common of these, a warm brown body instead of blue, usually with a liver-brown nose rather than black and often lighter amber eyes. The color is real and it can be genuinely purebred, tracing to a recessive brown gene, but it is off the standard, so a chocolate Yorkie can’t be shown in conformation. It makes a perfectly good pet.

Here’s where I get blunt, because this is where the money games live. A color being uncommon does not make the dog better, healthier, or worth double. “Rare chocolate,” “exotic golddust,” and “rare parti” are often the exact phrases used to justify a price that has nothing to do with the health of the dog. Parti is recognized and fine. Chocolate is off-standard but real. Neither is a reason to skip asking the only questions that matter: were both parents health tested, are the eyes and knees and liver clear, and does the pup come with a real health guarantee. A careful breeder of standard blue-and-gold dogs beats a color-chaser every time, whatever the coat.

Do Yorkie colors change with age?

More than almost any other breed, yes, and it’s the single thing I wish more first-time buyers understood before they fell for a puppy photo. The black clears to blue. The tan deepens to gold. A coal-black-and-bright-tan eight-week-old is a steel-blue-and-gold adult in waiting, and the puppy in the photo is very literally the darkest that dog will ever be. This is why I keep steering people back to the same point. The color is the one thing on that puppy almost guaranteed to shift. The size, the coat texture, the terrier temperament, those hold. For how big the finished dog gets regardless of coat, I break it down in the Yorkshire Terrier size guide.

Does a Yorkie’s color affect its health or personality?

Temperament, no. Flat no. A blue-and-gold Yorkie is not calmer than a golden one, a parti is not more high-strung, a chocolate is not sweeter. This breed’s personality, the bold terrier streak, the barky watchdog wiring, the velcro attachment to its person, comes from genetics and how you raise and socialize the pup, not from the coat. Anybody telling you a color “tends to be” more of anything is selling, not describing. I get into shaping that temperament properly in the Yorkshire Terrier training guide.

Health has one honest footnote, and it’s about breeding practice, not the color itself. When a color is rare and in demand, the temptation is to breed for the color first and health second, pairing whatever two dogs throw the fashionable coat regardless of whether they should be bred at all. That’s the risk with any “rare” Yorkie, not some property of the pigment. A responsibly bred chocolate or parti from health-tested parents is as sound as any blue-and-gold. A color-first litter from a backyard operation is a gamble no matter how pretty the coat. Judge the breeder, not the shade.

How should color factor into picking a puppy?

Here’s my honest advice after doing this a long time. Pick the dog, not the color, and doubly so with this breed, because the color you pick is probably temporary anyway. Sit on the floor with the litter and watch which pup comes to you, which one’s bold and pushy, which one settles in your lap. That eight-week temperament read is what you live with for the next fifteen years. The coat is the one thing on that puppy that’s actively changing while you watch.

And refuse to pay a “rare color” premium on its own. A supposed rare chocolate or golddust is worth exactly what any well-bred Yorkie is worth, no more, and the surcharge is for the word, not the dog. The other tell to walk away from is “teacup” stapled onto a color to stack two premiums at once. Teacup isn’t a color or a size class, it’s a marketing label for a dangerously undersized dog, and I explain why I steer people off it in the size guide. A healthy, standard-colored Yorkie from careful parents beats a flashy one from a color-chaser, every time.

Whatever shade you land on, that long silky coat needs the same work, brushing to the skin and keeping the face and eyes clean, which I lay out in the Yorkshire Terrier grooming guide. For how big the dog actually gets, see the size guide, and start with the full Yorkshire Terrier breed guide for temperament and whether the breed fits your home. If you’re comparing the little ones on looks, the rest of the AKC Toy Group covers every small breed the Yorkie shares a ring with.