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I was recently out of town for a few weeks, doing research for a book I'm writing, and when I returned she looked bigger. It was not my imagination. When we adopted her in December she was about six months old and weighed 30 to 35 pounds. Now she's closer to 40. Of course, many dogs don't stop growing until they are two years old.
As previously discussed, Pippi seems to be either a Dalmatian, German Shorthaired Pointer, or both (we're going to send away for the doggie DNA test soon). Her paws were (and are) too big for her body in that classic clumsy cute puppy way, but I've heard from numerous sources that it's not a good idea to guess a dog's full-grown size based on the size of her paws. (This can be deceptive.)
I've read that a good rule of thumb for small and medium-sized dogs is to take her weight at four months and double it. From talking with Pippi's foster dad, it's safe to assume she weighed about 25 pounds at four months. That would predict a full-grown size of 50 pounds, which would put her in the range of dogchannel.com's estimations; they say a full-grown Dalmatian can weigh between 40-65 pounds, and that a female German Shorthaired Pointer usually weighs 45-60 pounds as an adult.
Do these seem like good guesses? Have your rescue puppies ever turned out to be much bigger (or much smaller) than you expected?
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Well, I adopted an Akita puppy at the age of 6 weeks from a family that breeds them, but was in the process of moving to a new home. They were just looking to find a home for her, she was the last one, presumably the runt, and I happened along. Pure bred, no papers (that was the deal, but I didn't care, I was looking for a family member, not a showpiece) and brought her home. She has black and white 'Funeral Tuxedo' color markings, and she just grew and grew... and grew... on 8 Feb, she will be 9 years old, and she weighed in at her last vet visit at 145 lbs. Now that's a BIG Akita!!
I was told by a rescue that my dog, Rocco was a Yorkie/Chihuahua mix and would be 5 pounds. He was 2.5 lbs at 8 weeks, the vet estimated he'd be 8-12 pounds based on his paws. He's 19.
I have an Akita that I got from a Breeder when she was about 14 weeeks now she is about 7 months .... Will she stay this size or will she get bigger? I was sent a picture of her Brother(same Litter) and WOW He is masive! She is not? She is now about 45lbs. maybe 55lbs. and the petsmart nurse says @ 6months that is about the size maybe a bit bigger but not by much.... So what do you Akita Owners think? Also any other information on Akita's would be GREAT ! as there is not much information out there on Akita's
Thanks,
Akasha
I adopted a puppies that was 4 months old and said to be a small doberman he had a very pointy nose and weight 8 lbs. now at age 3 he is huge and 75 lbs. I recently adopted a havenese pekenese mix I sure hope she doesn't get over the 10 to 12 lbs. she should be.
I was in Petsmart once with my Great Dane when I fell into conversation with a woman who was waiting for her dog, who was having his toenails clipped. She said her dog was also a very large dog, although it was a mixed-breed which she had gotten from a shelter when it was a little puppy. While we were talking the groomer led out this ENORMOUS dog, actually larger than my Great Dane! The dog clearly had Great Dane bloodlines in it. I asked the woman whether the shelter had told her that the puppy would get this big, she said they had told her the dog would probably grow to around 50 lbs! The REALLY funny part: turns out the shelter had been adopting out the entire LITTER of puppies, ten in all! There are nine other people out there somewhere who'd been told they'd have a 50lb dog and instead are living with a 170lb behemoth and wondering what happened! Hopefully they're not upset - the dog I met was beautiful and very friendly, and his owner said they absolutely adored him.