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Yorkie puppy weight

209 views 9 replies 3 participants last post by  Curls  
#1 ·
We just got a Yorkie puppy 3 days ago and took him to the vet for an exam this morning. The vet said that he weighs 3.17 pounds, which agrees with the cooking scale we used to weigh him yesterday, but that is about 3 times what the internet says an 8 week old male Yorkie should weigh.

I was just wondering about the weight of other male Yorkie puppies owned by people on this forum. My wife wanted a Yorkie because it is a laptop dog but now I am wondering what the weight of this Yorkie might be when he is grown.

Fortunately he seems to be very healthy and is running around like he is full of energy.
 
#2 ·
I haven't had a Yorkie before, but 3.17 at 8 weeks does sound a bit hefty for a breed that's supposed to mature in the 4-8 pound range. What's the source of this Yorkie? Any chance he's older than claimed, or perhaps a cross with a larger terrier such as the Silky?

His current size means you probably shouldn't rely on the feeding charts on the dog food package. You'll have a very hungry little dog if his genes want him to grow larger than normal Yorkie size. I'd start with his recommended ration divided into four meals per day: breakfast, lunch, supper, and a bedtime snack. That way he will always have a little something in his tummy, and his blood sugar will stay steady. If he inhales his portion and noses around the bowl looking for more, give him another half portion. You can work on calorie control once he's done growing.
 
#3 ·
I haven't had a Yorkie before, but 3.17 at 8 weeks does sound a bit hefty for a breed that's supposed to mature in the 4-8 pound range. What's the source of this Yorkie? Any chance he's older than claimed, or perhaps a cross with a larger terrier such as the Silky?

His current size means you probably shouldn't rely on the feeding charts on the dog food package. You'll have a very hungry little dog if his genes want him to grow larger than normal Yorkie size. I'd start with his recommended ration divided into four meals per day: breakfast, lunch, supper, and a bedtime snack. That way he will always have a little something in his tummy, and his blood sugar will stay steady. If he inhales his portion and noses around the bowl looking for more, give him another half portion. You can work on calorie control once he's done growing.
We bought the Yorkie from a local breeder who showed us the parents and they were relatively small. I suppose that there might be some non-Yorke in him, but all of the dogs in the breeder's backyard were small so I just don't know. He looks like a pure-bred Yorkie but I can't really know. But I am pretty sure he is 8 weeks old because he is small, if a bit heavy, and so is his sister. And he runs around like an 8 week old puppy, more bouncing than running.

We took him to the vet this morning and I called and asked her if the dog was overweight. She said he was fine but I have visions of a St Bernard sized Yorkie. :)

As for food, he is eating everything we give him and keeping it. My wife is feeding him 2-3 tablespoons of kibble, softened with water, 4 times a day but he is always hungry and sniffing around for food. I would give him more but my wife is concerned that he will be fat. I have told her that he is young and needs food and that we can address any overweight problems when he is older but she worries all the time about his health and worries that being overweight will damage his body and heart, so it is a bit of a struggle.

I just keep wondering what it will be like to have a Yorkie big enough to stare down Dobermans and Great Danes ...

Thanks for the reply.
 
#5 ·
Don't worry, your little terrier would not grow into St B sizes and staring down dobies and rotties will not be because of size but cheek and boldness. My 17.5 kg Tervuren girl weighed a bit under 4 kilograms at that age (one pound is a bit under half a kilogram) - she was smaller than my cat but outweighed him in a couple of weeks. I guess your pup is around the size of a JRT pup? My aunt breeds those and she has mentioned their moving to new home weight at some point.

Sometimes you get larger or smaller puppies in one breed - without mixing. But it is hard to say without knowing your pup's background and I don't know much of dog growth.
 
#7 ·
I don't know much about Jack Russel Terriers so I can not say if he is the same size. I am just very surprised that the internet tells me that my 1.5 kg (3.2 pound) Yorkie should only weigh a max of 1 or 1.5 pounds at this age.

> My aunt breeds those and she has mentioned their moving to new home weight at some point

I am sorry, but is there something missing from that sentence? Does moving cause an increase in weight? He has gone from being sedentary to a constant moving blur as he runs around the house and explores every nook and cranny. He eats like a vacuum cleaner.

I assumed his end weight by that of his parents, but if the first couple of days are any judge he will be close to their combined weight.
 
#9 ·
What tangents you find... I fell off the cart. (Literal translation of an idiom in my mother tongue.) I simply meant how much an average puppy in the breed weigh when the puppies usually leave for their new homes. I don't know if English has a word for that (rehoming sounds like shelter/rescue stuff) but my mother tongue has a specific word. Unfortunately I haven't managed to translate it properly. JRT is a hardy breed and not super tiny and I have never heard of any treshold weight for sending the pups off to their new places (instead we have our kennel clubs regulations about the minimum age puppies can be separated from their mother, and a breeder's personal view if their puppy is developed enough to move to a new home because no one bans keeping puppies longer (and tiny breeds' breeders probably often keep them until they are 12 weeks old when larger breeds can leave as early as 7 weeks old)). I didn't even know tiny breeds might have such issues when very young.
 
#10 ·
LOL. I love language quirks. "I fell off the wagon," means something quite different in English. It means someone with an alcohol problem has started drinking again after a period of sobriety.

I can't think of a universal formal English word or phrase for the day a puppy goes to its new home. You're right; adoption tends to imply rescue, although increasing numbers of breeders and puppy brokers now use it too. In the past, when people were less sentimental about dogs, it would probably just have been purchase day or pickup day. Some people, humorously, call it Gotcha Day (Short for Got You Day.) That's more of an in-group phrase among certain dog lovers. Most people would understand the meaning in context, but only a certain kind of dog lover would use it.