Member

Posts: 14
From:northbrook, Illinois, USA
Registered: Dec 2003

posted 01-19-2004 01:11 PM         

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Our "Buster" is doing pretty good. Went to the vet saturday & he is 4.8 pounds at 7 weeks. Two questions..1. Does he seem small? What would be average for a male lab puppy at 7 wks? & 2. He refuses to eat any hard puppy chow. We mix it with soft food..but he picks the hard out? Any advice?
Also...thank you all for your advice & concern with his stomach problems. One more thing..good luck honeybear..I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you.

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Posts: 926
From:
Registered: May 2003

posted 01-19-2004 01:45 PM         

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Chalms, thanks for your thoughts. I dont know about the weight, Labs can vary in size a great deal. Jake was a little butterball. As for the eating, maybe he just doesnt like the flavor and you have to experiment by getting samples or small bags to see what Buster likes. Once you start adding canned food or soft treats to the food it can be very hard to break. You do need to make sure Buster in getting his nutrtiion if he doesnt want to eat much. hopefully someone else can answer that is more familiar with puppies.
Honeyber

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Posts: 30
From:
Registered: Dec 2003

posted 01-19-2004 03:47 PM         

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My female lab pup was 10.6 pounds at 8 weeks. She wasn't the runt but wasn't the biggest either. But as honeybear mentioned, there can be a great variety. Did the vet say anything about him being too light? Maybe since he was sick, he'll start to put the weight on now.
My pup was fed canned food when she was weaned but I lucked out. Her first meal with me was kibble with a bit of canned food and the second one was kibble only and she didn't have a problem. At first she would not eat all of her allotment but it didn't take long before she was scarfing it down and looking for more. A friend of mine has a labX and he isn't a big eater so they switched to free feeding him so he can eat whenever he is hungry.

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Member

Posts: 1387
From:Portland, Oregon US
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 01-19-2004 04:12 PM         

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I did a little search and found this chart on a breeders site. She had some good information on her site (I didn't read all of it so use your own judgement) Scroll down to find the chart, it shows the average weight of a 7 week old puppy at 9-10 pounds and yours being a male should be at the upper end of that. However, really look to your vet for advice here, your pup has had a rough start and your vet should be able to tell you how he is doing.

I guess the link would be good eh? LOL http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/helpful-hints.html

[This message has been edited by Maisey (edited 01-19-2004).]

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Member

Posts: 14
From:northbrook, Illinois, USA
Registered: Dec 2003

posted 01-20-2004 04:58 AM         

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Thanks...great site. Our vet didn't seem concerned at Buster's weight. But we still are. I guess we are just worried parents..but he is undersized...at this point anyway. Yesterday we switched to Eukaneba puppy chow. HE LOVED IT! First he played with it..& then we put some water in it & he chowed down big time.

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