What's with this SIZE? - Page 2

Thank you jdh... in my rambling I failed to state the obvious about not overfeeding the pups either.

Were they fixed early? Dogs that have been fixed early (prior to reaching physical maturity) tent to grow much taller, but narrower, so to speak than their intact siblings.

Well to be honest, i like the big size GSD long as they are properly filled out and not skinny and tall. is the entire litter like this.

when were they neutered? Early-neutered dogs often grow way taller then they would if they were neutered later - they also do not develop "masculine" muscle features and tone - they can be over- tall and "leggy".

Over-tall and leggy is a good desciption of some of those pups - including the very biggest. The tallest ones were neutered before maturity. All are lean. We are hoping that they will fill out with a little more age (remember, they are only 15 months old - kind of a lanky 'teenage' stage anyway). The 2 males & 1 female that are still intact are within standard height. I had no idea neutering young could make such a diference!

yes, neutering early can definately make a huge difference in the build/structure and size (more height mainly, and less body mass) of the dogs. molly

My dogs were BARF fed, they grew much slower than other dogs of similar age. They eventually grew up to their adult size when other dogs have stopped growing months ago. My last litter are 2-1/2 year old now and are midium size, just the way I wanted. People (layman) often came up to me and commented my dogs are too small and how their neighbours' GSD are huge, and I replied that if I wanted big pet I'd keep an elephant.

This is something I've pondered over for some time. I'm sure improved nutrition could have some influence on growth rate and size at maturity of our modern day dogs, but one has to question why this is not a 'problem' across all breeds. Some others have gained in size (eg Dalmatian) but others have not, or have decreased (eg Yorkshire Terrier). My own personal opinion is that it is linked to the importance attached to gaiting and wither height in the GSD showring. A tall dog of good wither height and proportions is naturally going to have longer forelegs than an equally well constructed dog of smaller size. His stride will be longer, he will gait faster ..... so he moves up the line. Selction has been focussed on movement, so inadvertently wither height too. It's all in the genes! JMHO :-)

Larus, Quantum, Ursus and a lot of VA dogs are out of the breed standard. Many breeders want to have displasic elefants.

I think that nutrition has a huge effect, on all specie not just dogs. For example, go to a museum an look at clothes worn 100 years ago. Tiny!