Quote:
Originally Posted by berkdogg  Hey Caelestis, I did by from a reputable breeder and my dog was purchased as working dog, not pet quality.
His diet consist of 1 cup of bill jacks/raw ground beef, 3 cups of proplan (puppy), 1 spoonfull of unflavored yogurt, 1/2 cup ground carrots. He will usually eat 1/2 in the morning and the other half at night.
I have not had any blood work done as of yet, I am just speculating at this time that there may be something wrong with him from the post I have read here. Fecal scans continually come back negative.
I know that I am not in control of mother nature but I figure breeders should at least be able to roughly gauge the weight and height of pups from particular breedings. Like I said I wanted a dog particularly for working, and should it turns out that he be smaller than most females, then I am definitely not happy with the purchase.
It is a good idea to determine the weight of his litter mates.
He is a little over 26" and is about maybe 65lbs (has been since 8.5 months old).
And Caelestis, if you are a Breeder please tell me the name of your operation so I can stay away from self assuming, pompous, know it all, unfair breeders, who don't stand by the dogs they sell because they don't know what the hell they are doing. |
So, let's sum this up, Berkdogg:
He's your dog, in your care and custody--and you have had concerns over his growth rate
for six months and have not once pulled a baseline bloodwork?
You do not know the size or growth rate of his littermates, and apparently haven't contacted your breeder to find out.
You did not answer the questions about your conditioning program, so I can't speak to that issue, but it's an important one.
His diet looks like it could use some tweaking. Have you spoken to the breeder about it? A good dog nutritionist? (NOT a vet as they typically have little to no training on nutrition.)
And he has a history of roundworms--have you had any advanced fecal studies done, like a snap test or fecal cultures?
Look, raising a pup into a well-rounded (both literally and figuratively) adult is a ton of hard, intensive work.
I remember one of your past posts where you cited some incidents of aggression as positive things and as protection, where at least one of them smacked much more of resource guarding than protection. (Not an attack on you or your cool puppy, just a worrisome observation.)
I say, buckle down, read, read, read, talk
respectfully to your breeder and THEN see where your thoughts lie on your pup's size issue.
Or, you could go buy from Kimbertal. They will have a hugetastic dog for you and a ready set of easy to hear spin doctor answers for any of your concerns.