Puppy weight

[ness]

Alfie has just been to the vet for a check up on his absess, It's almost gone now he got weighed at the vet and weighs 3kg (7lb) thats seems pretty big for a 9 week old pup! when I got him 2 weeks ago at 7 weeks he was 2kg (4lb) so he has gained 1kg in two weeks. He is a really greedy puppy and always eats all of his food and he is pretty round lol but he is up to date with worming ect so it's just puppy fat not worms or anything does he seem big for such a young pup? he seems so big compared to some pics I have seen in this forum of pups the same age. Im glad he is healthy and has a good appititte though im just curious on average weights of a pup around his age. Is his weight normal? how much did/do you puppies weigh around Alfies age? I think Alfie is gonna be a big boy when he's older if he's this heavy already!

[Cathryn]

First of all please don't worry too much about your lads weight! One of my first dogs put on a pound a week every week for the first 6 weeks I had him and he finished up a nice sized 18lb show boy!!
Personnally speaking I like for a puppy to be a bit on the "bonny" side at this age, they can go off their feed when they start changing their teeth and if they are a bit on the bonny side they will have something to fall back on and tide them over.

How many meals a day is he on? Are you giving a lot of extra's in between? Personnally at 9 weeks he should be on 4 meals a day with maybe a large biscuit to gnaw on in the evening, but that is just my way of doing things!

Hope this is of use/help??

[Emma n Renco]

Don't worry - I posted about the same sort of problem last week. Our pup is 5 months old and weighs 8kg. They have growth spurts, he put on weight really fast at Alfies age and then slowed down, then last month he had another really big growth spurt and put on another kilo in just over a week. He always eats the same amount and at 5 months is not far off his full grown size which I found very strange but apparently it is fine. Don't worry, so longs as he's healthy and playful and you are feeding him the right amounts then he'll be fine. The first 5 months show such changes it's amazing! Alfie may just be a strong boy when he's older. Someone told me their young pup weighed more than their full grown cav in the thread I did so don't worry.. ;-)

[Caraline]

My Beau was gaining a kilogram every 3 weeks much to my horror as I thought it seemed an aweful lot for a little dog to gain, but now at 6 months his growth rate has really dropped off and he currently weighs 7.7 kilograms. Seems to me that small dogs grow faster than big dogs.

[ness]

Thanks everyone Alfie has been getting 3 meals a day of Eukanuba small breed puppy mixed in with a tiny bit of chicken, vegies and some rice. He has also been getting a small raw lamb flap bone or a chicken wing around lunch time and has a tiny amount of puppy milk in the morning. I havent been giving him any treats between meals and he hasent been getting any of our scraps or anything, he only gets puppy food as I dont want to make him a fussy eater. Thanks for all the info I just thourght he was huge lol he's already nearly as tall as my jack russell Lilly! (she's really short though lol )

[Karlin]

It can be really hard to tell where they will end up as adults --lots of really small puppies eg runts of the litter catch up to their siblings by the time they are adults though they may have been tony to start with! Some big puppies slow way down. There is a rough rule of thumb that boys will likely be about half their adult weight at 16 weeks but that isn't always the case for an early or late grower. Breeders consistently say most puppies end up the average family size over a couple of generations -- ag avg size between parents and grandparents, not the size of parents alone. Genes tend to even out over generations.

Either way you always want to feed a puppy what that puppy needs, regardless of whether it is large or small for its breed average. Most puppies regulate their food intake pretty well to what they need so I wouldn t be overly worried about exact weights . His final size will be a mystery til he gets there!