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Hi, I am new to Border collies. I just got a pup from a breeder. At first I was concerned with her small statue. After some research I am more at ease given that her mother is a wee thing at 17" and 27 lbs but the dad is 40 lbs 19". The pup weight 4 lbs at 8 weeks and breeder was telling me that this is normal for this litter. She assured me that I will not end up with toy BC. Pup seems happy and eats 1/3 cup kibble 3 times a day. Sometimes I sneak in piece of steamed chicken.

What do you think how big might she end up?

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Her weight at 4 months might be a better indicator of her adult size. In general, the 4 month weight is about 1/2 of the adult weight.

 

There is no way to know at this time. Perhaps if this is a repeat breeding, you could find out the sizes/weights of a previous full litter (i.e. same dam bred to same sire). A guess would be the pups might be a size between the 2 adults, but then again, I know of several litters where one or more offspring were larger (or smaller) than either parent.

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It's impossible to know for sure. Yes, the 4 mo. weight doubled is often put out as an indicator of adult since, but I've found it to be pretty unreliable.

 

As Jovi said, past litters from the same breeding, if there were any, would be more meaningful in estimating.

 

And what she said about parents' sizes not always being reliable indicators is also true. I bred a 36 lb. female to a 48 lb. male. One of the pups was a very lean 70 lbs. at one year old and would have filled out a bit by the time he'd fully matured.

 

I'd love to have a tiny border collie like that for therapy work and if I knew a reputable breeder who's producing dogs that size I'd be very tempted to consider buying a puppy. :ph34r:

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just was wondering the same thing myself (in regards to total weight I should expect), at 13 weeks my pup was 22 lbs, I'd say closer to 25-26 at 4 months (now), though i have no means of weighing him at the moment.

 

I was expecting, as per the person who sold him to me, to get a 50-60lb dog. Does this seem like an accurate guess as to his adult weight?

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I found the links below to be reasonably accurate. I entered my puppy's info about once a month and they pretty consistently predicted her adult weight to he in the 28 -30 pound range. She is now 14 months and weighs around 27.5 pounds. Obviously I have no ability to promise they woukd always be this accurate, but they did turn out to be pretty accurate in my case.

 

http://www.puppychart.com

 

www.puppyweights.com

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:lol: I used that website (puppychart.com) with my last puppy and it was wildly inaccurate. It kept changing the predicted adult weight every few weeks when I entered his new weight and in the end his weight was different from any of the predictions.

 

A friend used it also when she got her English shepherd pup and it was also way off for her.

 

It's interesting to me that it predicted Rush Fan's pup's adult weight (and at 14 months old she may well fall exactly in the predicted range when she's done filling out) and was so useless for me. It says a lot about how hard it is to predict.

 

I didn't know about the puppyweights.com site so can't can't speak to that one.

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I took it with a grain of salt as I got my prediction each month. Now that I think about it, I'd guess it could be that it was more accurate in my case because my girl is at the very bottom end of the weight range for border collie. So because she was so tiny throughout her puppyhood, it was easy just to predict her adult weight at the bottom end of the expected range for the breed.

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FWIW, human growth charts are often off too. There are always outliers and genetic/environmental influences. My 45lb lab mix has a 90lb litter mate. I also believe I stunted her growth by pushing her to run with me too young. I was young and pretty naive.

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I used that growth chart with my last Border collie puppy as well. He consistently tracked at 1 lb per week of age. The chart said he'd be a 20-odd pound dog. Instead he's 35 lb of solid muscle (not an ounce of fat on him). I kept him lean through his entire puppyhood.

 

Lean puppies are far healthier (and less susceptible to joint problems) than fat ones. Don't let your puppy become roly-poly. The tables on the back of dog food bags would generally have you WAY overfeeding a puppy. Feel your puppy's ribs to assess whether its weight is correct - don't base your feeding on the number you read on a scale.

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