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Puppy Growth Question

AmandaMCavalier

AmandaMCavalier

Member
Hello!

My puppy, Milo is now 3 months old! I've had him for a little over a month. He is an absolute love!

I have a question about Milo's size. He seems quite small. I don't actually mind, as I am a small human, haha. I'm just curious to see if he is indeed on the smaller end.

At 8 weeks old Milo was 2.9 pounds. At 11 weeks Milo was 4.06 pounds. At that appointment, the vet I was told Milo was too skinny and we needed to make sure he was eating enough. So I changed his food to Natural Balance LID and he's started eating more and putting on a bit of weight..i think (I'm pretty sure the other food was giving him an upset stomach).

I bet he's 4.5 pounds now at 13 weeks. Is that pretty small for a cav? At our first puppy k class yesterday, there was another cav at 15 weeks who looked twice his size!!!

Thanks so much! Here's a picture of Milo at class yesterday and cute one of his bath earlier in the day. You can get an idea of his size :)


 
It does seem small, but he may catch up. Its hard to tell from the pictures, but is is adorable!

BellaMia was 7.5 lbs when we brought her home at 11 1/2 weeks and now, at almost 2 years she's about 16 lbs.
Milo was 8.14 lbs at 15 1/2 weeks and now at 6 months he's 11 lbs.
 
Maya was 5.1 lbs at 13 weeks and her two siblings were notably larger than her but the breeder did not feel concerned nor did our vet, both stated she will likely be on the smaller end of the Cavalier scale..... I don't worry about weight (we do clicker/treat based training so I know she eats) and she is happy in her personality which is what I am looking at first. If she were overweight I would worry (due to the potential health risk) but other than that I just try to meet her needs the best I can.
 
How adorable! He is a bit small and your vet was right to be a little bit concerned as that's not very much weight gain over that time period. You definitely want a puppy that is eating well, three times a day, and if the puppy is only on dry food I'd try doing half a good quality moist food of some type, too (in general, I don't think only kibble is a great option as a solo diet, especially in light of all the new work that shows a broad-based, fresh as possible diet is very important for healthy gut bacteria in humans (based on animal studies originally, so has to be true for animas too). And a heathy range of gut bacteria are linked to good health; poor bacteria are linked to everything from diabetes to serious gastro problems to an astonishing range of problems. Eating processed foods results in much poorer gut bacteria in humans -- and kibble is basically one big meal of processed food, day in and day out (like eating dry cereal for humans). But we have lots of discussions on feeding well in the Diet section -- personally I like a commercial raw as half (if not all) the meal, or on varying days, and it's rare to find a dog that doesn't love a raw diet. Just something to consider. :)

But back to size -- it depends on lots of things -- how many in the litter, was he the smallest in the litter, did he have to fight for milk, did the breeder try to ensure he got his equal share. In large litters puppies tend to be smaller, then catch up to average. A runt will be smaller but usually will catch up. Sometimes small size is caused by health issues so your vet will want to consider looking at other causes if he remains thin and not putting on weight adequately. I'd give a small puppy much more than you think he wants for a meal -- package recommendations are often very poor; he should get at least a good handful of dry, three times a day at his age, maybe more, and let him eat as he wants.Most puppies will eat what they want. Is he leaving food behind? Are you feeding 3 times a day? I'd continue to do that for the coming months as he's small. Adding a half pound in weight over two weeks recently sounds a better growth rate.

In short, most likely, given a good diet and a chance to eat his fill, he'll catch up to siblings or fall within breed standard or close to it. :) Breed standard in the UK BTW is a pound smaller than in the US. Personally I wish they'd increase the breed standard as there's increasing evidence that very small size is not very healthy overall (on the big picture side) for many breeds, cavaliers included. Many show breeders don't even use males anymore that fall into breed standard, but ones slightly above in weight, and few would ever show the really small-end of the scale dogs so it would make sense I think to increase the breed standard weights and sizes a bit. (I've got cavaliers running the full range, from about 12 pounds up to 18).
 
Hi Karlin,

Thanks so much for all your info.

I tried some canned food, as that is what my vet suggested, but he didn't eat more of that than the regular food so I switched back. My vet told me to leave the bowl out all day with food since it was important he eats. Three times a day I sit down with him on the food and take his toys away and encourage him to eat. Everyday he's been eating more and more since we switched. I'd say now, he's close to 3 full handfuls a day.

He also has some strange eating habits. First, it's not a priority for him unless it's a treat (freeze dried chicken breast) or cheese. If it's some other type of treat or his food, he'd rather play! Second, he prefers to eat from the spilled out of the bowl pieces, rather than directly from the bowl. He also tends to grab one piece and run away to eat it. Recently, he likes to plop down on my lap and eat. Or grab food and run to my lap to eat it.

Although I never feed him from my dinner, when he smells my food he goes crazy! That's why my vet said it could be a taste thing. But the vet assured me that he was very healthy and I didn't need to worry about that, just fatten him up a bit!

Over the past few days I have noticed that he has definitely grown a lot! I had a harness (Curli brand) that was size XXXS. On Monday it didn't close so I bought the XXS :)

I've heard a lot of people talking about the raw food diet. I don't know anything about it. Could you explain or do you know of a good website to help me figure it out? I might check it out if it will help him eat more!

Thanks!

Amanda


Karlin said:
How adorable! He is a bit small and your vet was right to be a little bit concerned as that's not very much weight gain over that time period. You definitely want a puppy that is eating well, three times a day, and if the puppy is only on dry food I'd try doing half a good quality moist food of some type, too (in general, I don't think only kibble is a great option as a solo diet, especially in light of all the new work that shows a broad-based, fresh as possible diet is very important for healthy gut bacteria in humans (based on animal studies originally, so has to be true for animas too). And a heathy range of gut bacteria are linked to good health; poor bacteria are linked to everything from diabetes to serious gastro problems to an astonishing range of problems. Eating processed foods results in much poorer gut bacteria in humans -- and kibble is basically one big meal of processed food, day in and day out (like eating dry cereal for humans). But we have lots of discussions on feeding well in the Diet section -- personally I like a commercial raw as half (if not all) the meal, or on varying days, and it's rare to find a dog that doesn't love a raw diet. Just something to consider. :)

But back to size -- it depends on lots of things -- how many in the litter, was he the smallest in the litter, did he have to fight for milk, did the breeder try to ensure he got his equal share. In large litters puppies tend to be smaller, then catch up to average. A runt will be smaller but usually will catch up. Sometimes small size is caused by health issues so your vet will want to consider looking at other causes if he remains thin and not putting on weight adequately. I'd give a small puppy much more than you think he wants for a meal -- package recommendations are often very poor; he should get at least a good handful of dry, three times a day at his age, maybe more, and let him eat as he wants.Most puppies will eat what they want. Is he leaving food behind? Are you feeding 3 times a day? I'd continue to do that for the coming months as he's small. Adding a half pound in weight over two weeks recently sounds a better growth rate.

In short, most likely, given a good diet and a chance to eat his fill, he'll catch up to siblings or fall within breed standard or close to it. :) Breed standard in the UK BTW is a pound smaller than in the US. Personally I wish they'd increase the breed standard as there's increasing evidence that very small size is not very healthy overall (on the big picture side) for many breeds, cavaliers included. Many show breeders don't even use males anymore that fall into breed standard, but ones slightly above in weight, and few would ever show the really small-end of the scale dogs so it would make sense I think to increase the breed standard weights and sizes a bit. (I've got cavaliers running the full range, from about 12 pounds up to 18).
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