Puppy Weight Predictions - Weigh-In

So, in this post I used a set of data to predict that my dog would "add 6-7# over this next week (1/3 of his current weight, or 13% of his adult weight)" (that is, over June 4-10).

How much did he actually gain? About 2 pounds.

Notice the divots in the black line - Dexter Black's line? Those match up to long car rides we took. Up until his 15th week, I deemed him too young to take the motion sickness drug Cerenia. I would have preferred to wait one more week, but we had to make a road trip, and it was either Cerenia, or shitloads of Benedryl, and put up with some vomiting anyway (but less than if he were going drug-free). (The 16-week limit is coarsely set by clinical test data: one dog in the younger-than-8-weeks test experienced fatal marrow development issues, under heavy dosing; 205 dogs aged 16-24 weeks showed no significant effects; dogs between 8-16 weeks weren't tested.)

So, if the dips are fairly clearly attributable to car trips & ensuing sickness (vomiting, diarrhea from swallowing mucus, and nausea afterward disrupting his eating cycle), at least the good news is that the curve seems to return after a few days. (The data in the graph above is fairly sparse; the dip that extends from week 13 to week 14.5 only has one data point.) Recovery to the overall growth pattern isn't next-day, so it isn't merely water & food loss, but more like a postponement in growth.

However, when I took that big car ride with my boy in the 11th week, and his weight gains dropped off, I was a bit anxious - because anxious is what I do best. Now, in his 17th week, I have proof that my travel needs probably didn't stunt him for life (yeah, really, I think like that sometimes).

And, as for my prediction that "he will be about 50# (between 38# and 55#) when fully grown," he's still on track for that, generally - although about 45# seems more likely than 50, now.

His appetite, apart from travel periods, is very variable. I've seen him put down about 25 oz of meat, liver, fat, and bones in a meal (the equivalent of a 9-1/2 lb meal for me!); I've also seen him call it quits after about 10 oz (which is about what he ate for a meal at 9 weeks, when we first started his raw diet). Nowadays, his jaws are so powerful that he can even break down big bones (like those in pork necks!), and he's been discovering bones in the woods out back, so it's hard to say how much snacking is supplementing the meals I give him - although mostly that's minerals, and not calories. Still useful for a growing boy.