Expert: Renee Cox - 11/14/2008

Question
My daughter just bought a boxer puppy. She is so cute and 2 months old but she only weights about 8 or so pounds. I know she is full boxer because of the other pups and we seen the parents and they are full boxer. She took the pup to the vet and he said she was full boxer but was the runt and would be very very small. Is this normal. I breed boxers but have never had one come out this small. The vet said she is perfet health nothing wrong with her just wanted to see if you could answer about her being so small. The vet also said she was the runt of the litter.

Answer
Hi. Quite often you get one puppy that is smaller than the rest for whatever reason. They may have just been behind his littermates in weight, maybe he wasn't the strongest. He could've been sickly at birth. If there is nothing physically wrong with this pup, then I don't see any reason why she won't reach her full growing potiental. I have seen the smallest puppies grow up to be the largest out of the whole litter, and this includes females. Like I said, there are many different reasons why a puppy is smaller than the rest, but with good food and great care, they usually grow up to be normal size. I personally had a fmeale puppy in one of my litters that was super small. She was under half the size of her littermates at 8 weeks old. She was perfectly fine health wise, she just needed a bit more time to catch up. She went to live with a good friend of mine at 8 weeks old. Once she was away from her littermates, plenty of one on one, she grew quickly, and withing a month she caught up to her very large litter brother that I had kept. Don't give up hope! And congrats on your daughter's new puppy.:-)