Kath and Lauren - I know you both have small girls, both under 20 kg, so thought you might be interested. I think Sarah's Eevee is also around the same size. I met up with a friend earlier this week whose lab Nellie was very tiny at one year, not more than 18kg. She is now 28 months old. I hadn't seen her since last October, and to my amazement she has grown! Not only put on a bit of muscle and weight (she now weighs 21kg), but generally looks like ad different dog. I swear she has actually grown in height a little too. She and Poppy now look around the same size, though Pops is a little chunkier at just under 25kg. I was told by a judge recently that labs aren't fully developed until after their second birthday. So your little girls may end up not as tiny as you thought!
Re: Small Labradors Interesting! That's handy to know actually, as I'm very keen not to get into an 'overweight' situation, but I wasn't sure when I should expect her size to level off. I'm definitely seeing more muscle going on at the moment, and it's nice to know it's normal for that to continue for quite a while yet. I do the 'dogslife' survey so measure Merla's height regularly too, and she's currently 51 cm. I was just thinking this morning (while pondering the show/working lab debate) that she'd never get to the 55-56 cm in the UK breed standard. Seems like she might grow a bit more then, though probably not another 4cm. I'd wouldn't try breed showing, but she's a KC reg dog and theoretically I could breed from her (I'm not going to by the way) and register the pups even though they might never comply to the breed standard either, which is an interesting situation, and again ties into the show/working discussion. Thanks again for the info, Karen.
Re: Small Labradors The DivaDog - - is small at just under 20kg and I'm convinced she was bred from her first season so her growth stopped. We know her history is being a puppy mill.As well as small she is snipey nosed, her limbs are fine/thinner and has huge ears. All point to arrested puppyhood and it makes me wonder what she'd have looked like at 2 if she had been allowed to fully grow.
Re: Small Labradors That's really interesting, I wonder if Penny will grow anymore? At the moment she's 18.8kg and that 0.8kg makes her look a little tubby :O I'm not sure how tall she is.. I ei have to get the tape measure out so I can keep track and see if she grows anymore... All I know is that she's about 51cm from base of her neck to base of her tail - had to measure her for a coat! Lol
Re: Small Labradors She's probably about the same from the floor to level with the top of her shoulder then. Obi stopped getting taller at about 10 months (was about 24kg then and 56cm at the shoulder) but then kept steadily filling out with muscle over the following year. He looks a lot more solid now but it took a while.
Re: Small Labradors Yeah I don't think Penny grew at all from about 8 months, except to lose her puppyishness! I kept hoping she would have another growth spurt before she hit a year as she was so small I figured she wouldn't grow anymore after that... But maybe there's still hope for us!!! On another note I saw an absolutely gigantic Labrador the other day when I was on my way home from work. I don't know if he was crossed with anything but certainly looked pure lab and he was HUGE! I mean his should probably came up to the woman's hip.. Probably would have been almost to my waist and I'm 5"1'. That's not right.
Re: Small Labradors His shoulder came up to her hip?? Wow. My previous Lab was 61cm at the shoulder and I thought that was enormous
Re: Small Labradors I don't know, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, maybe top of her thigh... But he was MASSIVE
Re: Small Labradors Big boy, anyhow While Obi is not a small Labrador, hubby can lift and carry him if needed. Definitely advantageous to have a smaller, liftable dog!
Re: Small Labradors My 2 are completely different, have not weighed them lately? Will have to get OH to hold them. LOL
Re: Small Labradors Both mine are very much like the Lab on the left. I did hope for a small girl, but breeder only had boys left!
Re: Small Labradors Eevee is huge now. 10 months old and just hit 17.5kg. I can believe that she will be growing for some time to come as her growth pattern is completely different to honeys who was fairly near fully grown at 7 months.
Re: Small Labradors [quote author=Karen link=topic=4698.msg58440#msg58440 date=1393873578] She looks very well proportioned! Such a sweet face too. [/quote] Don't think I've ever described her as that before but yes, she is very well proportioned haha! The only thing that bugs me is that her ears very rarely sit forward as in the second photo. They've kinda got an extra fold in them so they sit back like in the first photo all the time! She'd never make a show dog hahaha
Re: Small Labradors Penny looks very similar to my SILs girl only she is black. Same very slim body, ears nearly always back (although hers are smaller) and full of energy with an unstoppable passion for retrieving. Penny's ears look a little bigger though. Georgie has more of a whippet look almost than a lab, whereas Penny looks more very slim lab. Meant purely as a descriptor and not to offend. I think it just illustrates how different dogs sre within the breed. Penny is a very pretty girl
