We were at the vet today for Dexters 12 week vaccine..

He did a medical check up on him, and Dexter fits in proportions, but he is very small. He is only 6 kilos, and he is 12 weeks old, the vet said he would expect a husky at Dexters age to be around 8 kilos...

I know you guys are american so you dont know how much a kilo is, but I dont know what you guys use?

Oh well but he said he was a healthy pup, and (for now) hips and health is perfectly fine.

Because of his size we decided to start over with the vaccines, its suppose to be the breeder who have done it, but the vet strongly doubted that Dexter infact was 12 weeks, and he said if Dexter dont start changing teeth soon (within 3 weeks) he would suspect him to be 1 or even 2 weeks younger than weve been told.

We got him when he was 8 weeks old, and he was very small when we got him, and he could barely walk, but I dont know how small a baby husky is suppose to be..

Well better safe than sorry! And for now he is a healthy pup, and everything is looking fine.

We also talked about if we some day wanted to use him for breeding, because then we need to have eyes and hips and everything documented, and when the best time was for that.. The vet was just SO nice and knew so much about huskies

Shii wrote:

We got him when he was 8 weeks old, and he was very small when we got him, and he could barely walk, but I dont know how small a baby husky is suppose to be..

Sounds like he was younger than 8 weeks when you got him.

Shii wrote:

Because of his size we decided to start over with the vaccines, its suppose to be the breeder who have done it, but the vet strongly doubted that Dexter infact was 12 weeks, and he said if Dexter dont start changing teeth soon (within 3 weeks) he would suspect him to be 1 or even 2 weeks younger than weve been told.

are you starting over because you fear that he never received the vaccines at all? can you contact the breeder at all? do you plan on showing him or working him? why do you think or feel he would make a good stud? how do you know this breeder is even a good breeder and can you trust any of the paper work they gave you on Dexter?

i am glad he was given an other wise good health check!

Something tells me if the breeder lied about the pups age for quick turn over and cash, I doubt what ever else they say will be truthful.




(1 kilo = 2.2 pounds)

I agree. It sounds like his "breeders" lied about his age and I would also make sure he gets any vaccines that he may have missed. Puppies grow at very different rates, but a dog that can barely walk is NOT 8 weeks old. You were also the one having some biting issues as well, yeah? That would very much explain why as puppies receive valuable bite inhibition training from their litter mates between 5-8 weeks old.

Please consider breeding very carefully before acting on it. Why do you want to breed? Jenn brings up some great questions. I'm not sure about Europe, but there is a very large over-population of huskies here in the US and many die in shelters everyday because of irresponsible and unnecessary breeders. We tend to call them "backyard breeders". Unless you are heavily involved in showing or racing, there are usually very few reasons to bring more puppies into this world.

The breeding should be in very long, we have dreams of getting a big big farm, and make the best huskies in the world, in europe they are quite rare, and most people only get them if they want to sled.. They have a very bad reputation here, for being very high energetic...

We have yet not contacted the breeder, because to me she seemed nice and its very hard to all of the sudden realise we might have gotten something we didnt ask for, a way too young puppy... It can all of the sudden give a lot of issues that we made sure (at least we thought so) that we wouldnt have to go through...

And yes we have a lot of biting issues, and now that you mention it I get all "argh" why didnt I even consider that but we really trust the breeder...

We will contact the breeder and have a chat with her, maybe see if we can get in contact with his brothers and sisters to see how they grow, and if its just a litter of small huskies...

Shii wrote:

The breeding should be in very long, we have dreams of getting a big big farm, and make the best huskies in the world, in europe they are quite rare, and most people only get them if they want to sled.. They have a very bad reputation here, for being very high energetic...

Just please do your research before you start. Breeding is so much more than mating two dogs and helping the bitch deliver a litter. Contact honest, reputable breeders in your area (like the ones who breed for racing or showing) and find someone willing to be your breeding mentor. I'm not trying to be rude, I just want to make sure if you enter into the life of a breeder you do so the right way so that healthy puppies enter this world to a good home. Even if they are just going to be family pets, the stud and the bitch should be shining examples of the breed in conformation and temperament. Poor breeding will only elicit health problems down the road.

And again, puppies grow at different rates. It IS possible that it was just a small litter, but an 8 week old puppy should be MORE than comfortable walking.

Check out the thread How to Find a Reputable Breeder. If your breeder couldn't answer those questions properly, then you should definitely be finding someone else for any future puppies. Being friendly doesn't make someone a good breeder, you know?

Sorry I didn't get a chance to respond much last night, I literally had like 5 seconds to respond before I needed to head out the door (hence the super short and somewhat useless response).

Tori's advice and insight is pretty spot on so I really don't have much to add.

I would strongly second her advice to think long and hard about breeding. What worries me most is that the breeder you got Dexter from does not sound like a reputable breeder to me, so if Dexter is not from a reputable breeder he is more than likely not going to end up being breeding quality material.

Some 8 wk old pups can be small but they should be able to walk and get around easily. Do you have pics of Dexter when you first got him? Did you get paperwork with him showing his supposed date of birth?

Did you see the rest of Dexter's litter before and when you picked him up? How big were his littermates in comparison to Dexter? How big were Dexter's dam and sire?

It really sounds like Dexter is the result of backyard breeding which generally is not the kind of dog you want to use for breeding especially if your intent is really what you say it is "to better the breed".

I do want to say kudos to you for trying to get things sorted out even if things didn't go the way you might have hoped in the beginning.

Oh so many questions hehe

First of, let me just say; We have just been talking about some day getting so many dogs, so we could do some sled pulling ourselfs, and then we raised the question about breeding, as Ive always wanted to have a billion dogs, they have been my life forever...

Dexter will NOT be bred on, if we cannont 100% make sure he is a healthy, no matter what. Breeding is nothing we take lightly, and if we some day decide to do it, it will be with 100% respondsebility!

This is a picture taking the first day we had him.. ehm.. not a very good one...



We saw the litter, and Dexter was just as big/small as the others, the mother was a small husky id say about 20 kilos, we did not see the father though.
What makes me worried is the breeder was a veterinarian, so I dont get how anything can go wrong..

We have papers and everything on him, and we saw where he grew up and everything seemed to be really nice, only a few things we didnt like (The fact that it was a farm, and the dogs were living outside, but thats not "bad" for the dog just a matter of opinion)..

Our vet said we would be able to see if he is his age, when he starts teething, which he should do when he is around 14 weeks, so in two weeks...

Ive looked through all our papers now, and I think he is just small...

We have for example that if he turns out to have HD, and cant be used for breeding, we can get a new free puppy and stuff... well maybe she is just giganticly lieing, but I think he is just small, and the vet made us worried...

Were his parents health checked? Hips, elbows, eyes?

I think if you have these concerns (which are valid) you should most definitely contact the breeder. You can also do a little searching on the breeder and see if there have been other issues with them in the past...

Also if you could get a picture of him stacked or just standing up from the side with something comparable around him... we may be able to help a bit. Cheyenne was a small girl too and she still is today.

This is taken about 4-5 days after we got him, so just before he was 9 weeks old...

The parents were checked, as far as we know...

oh and the bedfram is 40 cm tall... (so to the top of the brown)

That DOES look about right... I'm concerned that you say he was barely able to walk. That is what has me worried and suspicious.

The mother was about right for size. Definitely on the small side, but still standard for a female husky.

In the future, I would suggest mandating that you SEE both parents AND copies of ALL health tests. I personally, would never buy a puppy without seeing and meeting both parents (both for reassurance and assessment of temperament), all copies of health certifications, and so forth. There are unfortunately too many dishonest people out there

We just talked about the walking... Because he didnt walk outside at all, because well it was new and he was scared...

And then we talked about us having wooden floor, and him not being used to walk on it, maybe thats why he was barely walking?

We didnt think of being that suspicious, because... yeah.. we are really new to this hehe.. We thought we had done our homework, but I can see now that when we can this easy become insecure, its really important to have everything checked out...

100% sure the next pup will be checked even more... If Dexter turns out well I cant say we wont get a pup from same breeder, we never asked to see the father really, I asked if we could see the parents, and she showed us the mother but she didnt have the father herself. But Im pretty sure we can get to see him if we want, but ofc. we cant be sure untill we ask...

Fingers crossed our pup is perfect, and at least we know that physically he is perfect!

Koda wrote:

That DOES look about right... I'm concerned that you say he was barely able to walk. That is what has me worried and suspicious.

The mother was about right for size. Definitely on the small side, but still standard for a female husky.

Agreed on all counts.

I'd just wait and see how Dexter turns out, no sense in worrying at this point since he seems to be healthy according to the vet. I'd definitely still contact the breeder and ask some questions and keep her in the loop.

The walking line was also what made me concerned. Good to see the pup is coming along better then how it was originally stated.

I'm sure if I tried stating something from English to Dutch a whole lot would get lost in the translation.