Hello everyone,

I'm slightly concerned about my puppys' weight. She's almost 8 weeks old and only weighs 6.8 pounds. Is this normal? I've been searching the forum and it looks many puppies were in the 10 pound range at her age.

How many other puppies are in the litter? Do you know how big they are? It could be that she was born of a slow growing line and that they start small and catch up later. If she was part of a large litter as well she could be behind in her growth because of over competition. For the most part as long as she is eating well, pooping well, and has energy she will grow at whatever rate that works with her genetic line. Being on the light side is far better for her than being a chubby puppy.

Both mine were 7 (Mishka) and 9 (Kohdi) pounds at that age.

When we got Gabby she was 7.5 lbs. She had Brothers in her litter that were almost 14 lbs. At 3 years old, she weighs around 37-40 lbs. Your pup may be the runt but I wouldn't say its a super runt and I suspect she will probably grow up to be at about the minimum of the standard.

TwisterII wrote:

How many other puppies are in the litter? Do you know how big they are? It could be that she was born of a slow growing line and that they start small and catch up later. If she was part of a large litter as well she could be behind in her growth because of over competition.

These are great questions. I will follow up with the breeder!

Yuka was was the runt and was 7.4 lbs at 8 weeks ... He is now 31 lbs at almost 4 months and is only about 1.5 / 2 lbs lighter then his brother who lives right behind us and are the same height.

Marco Berck wrote:

Yuka was was the runt and was 7.4 lbs at 8 weeks ... He is now 31 lbs at almost 4 months and is only about 1.5 / 2 lbs lighter then his brother who lives right behind us and are the same height.

Good to know! It's wonderful that your little one catching up to his sibling!

The breeder got back to me and said Kay was in a litter of 5 and was weaned at 5 weeks old. She said some bitches will feed until the puppies leave and those puppies will be bigger. She said it shouldn't affect Kay's size in the long run

Unless you are looking to make her into a show dog, I wouldn't worry too much.
I have a male husky who is a few weeks away from a year old and he barely makes the low end of the female husky size/weight chart. He's always been on the small size.

But, he's happy, healthy, and very energetic. I was actually hoping for a larger dog as I plan to have the guy doing some joring of various sorts, but with the energy this guy has, I don't think the size issue will matter.