New German Shepherd Puppy - size? full bred? - Page 2

She looks full bred to me, she may just be the runt, or small.

Hi guys thank you so much for all of your replies!!

Weirdly enough her pictures actually make her look bigger than she looks in person to me.

We do have the papers and she was born 12/24 . Her brother was with her and he looked normal size and was quite chunky.

Would there be any indication of telling her age?

We took her to the vet today after producing quite a few worms in her stool this morning and then coming out by themselves also and scaring us to death!! And so yes she has roundworms and has been put on the dewormer. Weird thing is that she was dewormed on the 22nd of this month and we picked her up on the 27th but the vet reassured me that she could have been tested and come back negative then because of the stages the worms were in.

I don't mind the runt of the litter at all and would prefer her on the smaller side (of course smaller but compltely healthy!!)

Here's another of her today

ChrisAmy
Smaller puppies occur in litters all the time;  yes, yours is a bit
undersized/underweight for her age.  But now she has started
to be rid of her worm burden, you may find she catches up
quite rapidly.  The best indication of her age is that you saw
her litter brother, looking 'normal'.  Presumably he had less
of the worm infestation ! 

Dogs are like other animals (including us) - however much through
'breeding' them we try for 'peas in a pod', individuals will vary in size.
I would expect a female to be smaller than a male, although at this
early stage in life the difference is usually less noticeable  : ).

Please don't rely on the idea she will always be small for the breed;
'runts' have been known to grow bigger than their siblings in the end !
As with others, I do not see much indication that your puppy / the litter
isn't 'pure' GSD [ but they don't have to be particularly good, breed-typical
GSDs to be pedigreed ].  Put the pedigree on this board when you have
the chance, you might get some more info from us about what the dogs
are like which are in her history.

Best of luck with her;  hope you enjoy having her.
Linda. 

ChrisAmy

Could you post her pedigree?  Some lines are slower growing than other and some do produce smaller dogs depending on who is the background.  Did you see her parents or at least her mother?

Margaret N-J.

Hi guys,

Not sure on her pedigree however we just spoke to a breeder today and let us know her mother is about 90/95lbs and the dad 100/110lbs

We had the conversation of how big do you think the puppy will be and she told us that it can really depend on feeding her and excercise.....I mean I understand you can make a dog leaner and not a little chunk so she wouldn't weigh a lot but if her parents are that big then she is going to be a big girl! I'm just having a hard time imagining this little 6.5lb puppy stretching to a 90lb dog. What do you guys think??

I htink it depends on the background breeding,  assuming the puppy is healthy.  If there are small dogs in the background, you will get the occasional small one in a litter even if the Parents are big.

Margaret N-J

You might want to also consider this. If they did a few ties with the parents then she could actually be a few days "Younger" than the other puppies in her litter. Since not all the eggs are released at one time. So she actually may be a few days younger then her littermates. Which is really not a problem, she will catch up and become a normal dog. She just need some time and now that those worms are gone she gets to keep more of her food too. She might not be 90lbs full grown but i'm sure she will be shepherd size.
Best of luck with her.
Fry

I think all the eggs attach to the uterine wall simultaneously. They're not like parakeets, that lay an egg every other day, commence incubation with first egg and so the eggs hatch every other day. Say you have five eggs in the nest, by the time the last egg hatches, the first baby parakeet is nine days old and way, way bigger than the last one hatched. If dog's egg began "incubating" as soon as it's fertilized, and breeding took place over a week or ten days, there would be a lot of preemies or over baked pups. But the eggs wait and attach at he same time, so that the pups can ripen simultaneously. ;-)

I once had a DDR litter in which there was a tiny 4# runt male at 6 weeks old.  I didn't have the heart to sell him since I wasn't sure he'd ever be "normal" sized, so gave him to a friend.  At this time, he is going on 2 yrs old and close to 100# LEAN.   So just because she's small now, doesn't mean she'll not mature out to a normal sized dog.

Again guys thank you so much for all of your opinions and info! We really appreciate it.


We got two pictures of her parents today...and let me tell you I think this little girl is going to be far from little if she takes after her daddy!! Actually makes me a little nervous :)