Puppy Adult Sizes-According to parents
 

I realize the grandfather factor, if there's a big one in the rear you may get some from smaller parents. Curious, if you have two parents almost the same size and weight but the father is the larger one...do you get puppies, as adults, that are larger than parents, are the size of father or mother? I've seen growth charts and read if the father is smaller, puppies grow as smaller adults, right?

You can use a small male and still get offspring that are much larger than both parent.

I'm not particularly sure if this is accurate, but from personal experience I would say the size of either parent does not guarantee that you will have smaller or larger babies.

My Yorkshire terrier, Dexter, had a mother that weighed seven pounds and a father that weighed four pounds. The Grandparents both weighed under seven pounds as well. However, my puppy Dexter weighs almost ten pounds fully grown. I've met plenty of people who had a line of smaller Yorkies bred that still gave birth to larger pups. There is a lot more to breeding than just the physical size of the parents, but the genetics they are carrying for the potential of small and large puppies.

Again, I am not a breeder... so I don't really know!! But I do know that there are a bunch of wonderful knowledgeable people here that will have an excellent answer for you!

I'm talking about parents within ounces of each other.

Adult size has way more to do with what is behind the dogs you are breeding than the dogs themselves. For example. My Friday is a few ounces over 5 lbs. each time she was bred she got Normal sized, Very small then small and big in the same litter. This last pup is looking to be in the normal size range. Mind you behind the sires and Friday there is a mixture of sizes. So you can see there is no way to guarantee or even guesstimate an accurate adult size.

Maggie, you lost me a little...what is normal size?

In general, if there's no history of a real large one in the line, are they like their dad's, mother's weight or larger? A breeder who knows the answer would be appreciated.

I don't think the parents being within ounces of each other will make a difference. It is the actual genes of the dog that will determine the size of the babies. Some dogs carry genes for larger puppies and other dogs carry genes for smaller puppies, at least this is what I've come to understand from reading the breeding forums. So even if your parents are near the same size, and small, there wouldn't be a guarantee the puppies would be tiny, too. However, it is likely that the puppies will be small.

Puppies don't necessarily take after the weight of either parent. Just because the dad is larger doesn't mean the puppies will be larger, and vice versa.

So what would an honest breeder say the size of the dog will be judging by the parents? Not sure, you may get Beetovan? hehe

It is hard to predict what the adult size of a pup will be until the pup gets a bit older. Someone that has been breeding a long time will usually know about what the pups size will be by the time the pups are 8 weeks old but even then there are no guarantees.

Well, at 13 weeks...what do they look at? Fine boned, paws are a certain size? What about teeth? Off topic, a 3 month puppy should already have quite a bit of color outgrowth too, right?

How about another breeder out there that has a couple weighing in the 4 poundplis a a few onces range...dad's bigger than mama, so how big are their children be no big family members in the line? What do they produce?

Found this online but have no idea how big are the parent! Argh

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
I have a tiny little male, my precious Boss that is in my avitar....he has a line of dogs back in his 12th generation that is STRONG for throwing "larger" (breed standard) Yorkies....So that tiny little Boss, consistantly throws beautiful 4-6 pound offspring, regardless of the females I breed him with. So you can not just look at the dam and sire...you can not even just look at grandparents.....pull out that pedigree and go back 12-18 generations and see what you have and know what they throw!

I just took Pooky to meet his veterenarian. He said Pooky has real good fur and a good bite. I couldn't believe what he told me when I asked about Pooky's adult size and his parnts being 4 lbs 8 oz. He said,"don't feed him a lot. You control his food. Give him a little twice a day and he'll grow up small, give him a lot of food and he'll grow up big."
Well folks, from the mouth of a reputable Mexican veterinarian. The truth be known :)

Still surfing around and found a breeder in LA with this to say...I think she writes like she speaks so it's a challenge but interesting ;) :

Okay let's see if I can simplify this. If you have a 5 lb female and you use a male that is say 4 and a half pounds there is no guarantee the offsping will be in that size range. For instance say you breed the 5lb female to the 4 1/2 lb male three separate times resulting in 3 different litters.

Litter 1 has 3 pups and as they are growing they all weigh different amounts. as adults these pups weighed from 2lbs to 3 1/2 lbs

Litter 2 has 4 pups 2 are small and 2 are bigger. as adults the weight range from 2lbs to 6lbs

Litter 3 has 1 pup and this one has surpassed the weights of all the pups from the 2 previous litters at 4 weeks.

Now remember all these pups are from the same 2 parents.
The previous generations of the parents are various weights and sizes so that is a factor in the adult weights of the pups.
As a breeder I will not guarantee the pups size as an adult. But I can get a rough estimate on what the adult size may be by looking at various features of the pups. So far I have been right on the money with their sizes. The features I am referring to are nose, paws and ears. The ears are still tricky because you can have tiny ears or you can have big ears that can throw you off . Right now the 4 week girl I have has big feet and her nose isn't tiny. When I say nose I mean just the nose and not the muzzle. Just to clarify what I meant by Normal I meant 4 to 6 lbs. I am not knocking any Yorkie that doesn't fit in what I call normal I show my Yorkies also and this is the range I like for showing.

I would say time for a new vet. I have never heard a vet say it depends on how much you feed them. You would just end up with an undernourished dog!!!

Maggie, one of the main points of this thread was to asking what do you get when the father is the larger partner. Not dangerously but ounces. Does the dog take after it's father or mother or would be larger than both of them? That one breeder said 60% of size comes from the mother? Would that still be the case if the father is a little larger than the mother?

Regarding food...I looked at the vet when he told me that and said, "I don't want him to be hungry." This why I'm asking all the different questions in other threads. I'm trying to figure out if people with heavier dogs just let them graze and don't monitor their eating or if the dogs choose for themselves their weight and leave food even if offered to them. Our dogs will just walk away and none of them are overweight. They're all 2 years and under. We have two working class breeds and now 2 toy breeds. Then there's the neutering/spaying factor. So far the girls that have been spayed are still a healthy weight, my personal protection dog will not be neutered, I can't risk him getting lazy or indifferent, but Mr. Pooky-Bear WILL be neutered...however, I'm a little nervous about the surgery...can't think about it right now and besides that, I've gone off topic on my own thread,hehe

Back to the vet. He's the best vet in town. He'll save a dog rather than put him down and he's very practical. Believe me, I was just as shocked at that response as you were BUT it does kind of make sense. I'm just going to feed him what's recommended for his weight each month and see what happens. There's no way I'd starve or malnourish anything on purpose.

maggie, tell me more about this:
Pooky's paws are really small...he's overall much smaller than his 1/2 brother who's 8 days younger. They may have been the bigger and smallest of each litter.

At what point are you looking at the paws and have you ever measured the paw? Is there a Yorkshire book about this that I should just download?

I understand what you are asking. But there is no way to know regardless of the sizes of the parents what the pups sizes will mature to. You have to know what was behind each generation in regards to sizes. It's like Russian roulette you never know what you will get. That was what I was trying to show with the 3 litter reference. As far as the Nose , ears, and feet reference it has always been very close when I look at those features on a pup and I can get within a good range of what they will mature to as adults. my previous litter of pups 2 were big they had larger features than the other 2 pups in that litter. When I get a chance I will look through my pics of the previous litter to find some that show what I am referring to.

In regards to the food issue, I am surprised a vet would say that. If you feed a pup less it will only cause problems. Puppies need all the nutrition they get from the food they eat to develop properly. If your not feeding them the proper amounts it will cause problems with their health and developement. I am sure your vet may be the best but what he told you was wrong.

I take alot of pics of each litter of pups. I don't measure their paws or anything. When I was younger it was something I was told that you could look at a dogs paws and know that with the size you could get an idea of if the dog was going to be bigger or smaller. but that was also in reference to mixed breed pups we had looked at as children. It came back to mind when I started breeding several years ago. So far it has held true.

Seriously, are you sure you understood what he said? Could there be a language problem? This is a false statement. "Give him a little twice a day and he'll grow up small, give him a lot of food and he'll grow up big."
While it's true you don't want to over feed an adult dog, you can't over feed a puppy, if you are using a nutritious dog food and not some bad human food. If you want a dog a certain weight you should buy an adult. Personally, I'd find another vet.

Pretty clear and straight forward. I am just a little concerned that no one has mentioned the accuracy of the length of the tail to the circumference at the base of the tail, as a predeterminate factor of eventual adult size.

I forgot that! We need to see more pictures!

What is the tail factor about, how interesting!

Could you upload a few more pictures?

I thought perhaps some of you had forgotten it....we dont use it often, but it is pretty accurate....at least as accurate as some of the charts available....I have been measuring tail length/base circumference ratios for years....seems to work pretty well.

Could you put us up a "chart" on how we do this please :).

I totally forgot about the tail.

I'm not really a dog poser...does it count if his tails been a bit docked?? To funny, I went to another vet, who has pet store. I didn't tell him anything about Pooky. Just said, "I know it's a game, what do you think, how big will he be as an adult?"

He said, "Really big, he's about 1.5 months right now, just about 2 months and will be the size of a silky terrier, weighing between 8-9 kilos, (which is like 18 pounds)." lolol ya, I have real confidence in that one.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1129851...eat=directlink

Maybe if you posted some pictures of Pooky, the very knowledgeable members here could give you a better "quesstimate" of how big he will grow up to be. Maybe take some good close-up shots of his face, teeth, paws & tail. This might help you get the answers you so obviously want to know. Just a friendly suggestion. :)