Future size of puppy--a surprising result

[Ginny Nightingale]

Back in February, I was curious about how big my 10 pound 8 week old puppy Rio might get.He was the smallest puppy in my labradoodle's litter of 5 boys and I thought he would be a smaller adult. I asked everyone to send in their pup's weight at 8 weeks and at adulthood. The results were all over the place! Now, 5 months later, I am pupsitting his brother Rafi, who was the largest in the litter (I called him Porkchop when he was first born!) He was about 30% bigger than Rio throughout their first 8 weeks. Would Rafi be the bigger dog?

Surprise, surprise. My Rio towers over Rafi--he is 2 to 3 inches taller and 3 pounds heavier at the age of 5 months. So much for the predicting power of the weight at 8 weeks! I have heard that you can double the weight at four months and that seems to be true of these two pups so far. 

[Kyoko]

Interesting!! I guess how and what they are fed will have a lot to do with it, too.... I wonder if that would have been the case if they were raised in the same house being fed the same way....

[F, Calla & Luca]

Alll very interesting really and interesting thoughts.

[Jenny & Henry]

Interesting.  My pup was the biggest of the litter and was a whopping 5 pounds at 7 weeks.  Crazy tiny when he came home.  Now at 4 1/2 months he's 32 pounds.  He's already at his minimum predicted weight of 30 to 40.  We were hoping for 40 to 50 pounds, but the vets think it will be at least 70.  So, we'll wait and see...and love him the same no matter what.  :D

[Jennifer Tramell]

Yep - I believe it.  Webster was right in the middle of his litter of 10.  Some pups were smaller, some bigger, but Webster was "average".  Now he is over 80 lbs - bigger than his dad (73 lbs), bigger then his brother who was also middle of the pack (now 65 lbs). 

[Carla, Lucca and Izzy]

We know 6 out of 9 of Lucca's litter and they range from 30-45 lbs adult weight.

[Kyoko]

Charlie was the smallest female, and she is still only 42lb. I don't know about the littler mates, but her siblings ( Same mom & dad, different littler ) on DK are much much bigger than her.

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Murphy was around 29 pounds at 4 months and is right in the 62-65 range at an adult age of 2.5 years.  He was one of the smallest in his litter but is the same weight as one brother who was quite a bit bigger by 8 weeks and he has 2 other brothers who top 100 pds. So I don't know that there is any real science to the whole weight thing, but the 4 month formula seems to be the most reliable.

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

That's amazing, Myla was the runt and she's still a runt at 19 pounds but she go taller than we thought. I guess you neer really know.