Small, not teacup
Mini Shih Tzu Puppies for Sale
Mini is not a variety of Shih Tzu, it is a size, and mine are it: about 8lb grown, under the show standard. 6 miniature Shih Tzu puppies here now in Sedona, Arizona, and how to know what size a puppy will finish.
If mini means a Shih Tzu that finishes under the 9lb floor of the standard, mine are mini. They finish about 8lb. If mini means under 6lb, that is a different word, teacup, and it is not what I breed. Small, sound, purebred, and honestly described: that is the offer.
How to know what size a puppy will be
You cannot tell from the puppy. An eight-week-old Shih Tzu weighs two to three pounds whether it is going to finish at seven or at fourteen, and paw size tells you very close to nothing, whatever you have read.
What tells you is the parents. A Shih Tzu almost always finishes within a pound or so of its parents’ range, and mine are about 8lb. That is why I can say with some confidence that every puppy on this site will be a small adult, and why I will not say anything more precise than that. Ask any breeder what the parents weigh, on a scale, and you have the only reliable number there is.
Small versus teacup
The difference is a couple of pounds and a great deal of risk. A small Shih Tzu, 7 to 9lb, is simply a Shih Tzu from the low end of a normal range: same frame, same face, same sturdiness, a little less of it. A teacup, the word used for dogs under about 6lb, is usually the product of breeding the smallest of the small to each other, and I do not do that.
So when I describe mine as mini or small, I mean the first thing. The size words side by side, with the pounds attached.
Why I breed small
Because it is what the people who write to me want, and because it is what my own dogs are. I did not set out to breed under the standard; the dogs I fell for were small, and their puppies are small. An 8lb Shih Tzu is an easier dog to live with in an apartment, to carry, to travel with, and to fly with in the cabin, and none of that costs it anything in soundness.
What I will not do is chase the number down. about 8lb is where my dogs are and where I intend them to stay.
Three of the six
Both boys and one of the girls. All will finish about 8lb. The rest are on the available page.
All 6 puppies, in full · Each one described · How buying works
Mini Shih Tzu puppies for sale near me
We are in Sedona, Arizona, two hours from Phoenix airport. We meet Arizona families at an agreed public place, and arrange ground transport or a flight nanny for everyone else. How that works. If you were thinking toy rather than mini, that page is the same dogs from the correct angle. The six available now.
Ask about a puppy
Tell us which one has caught your eye and where you are.