Does poor nutrition for a puppy effect adult size?

Question

A friend of mine adopted a rescue pit bull that was severely neglected by its previous owners. The dog was about a year old and was practically wasted away. You could see all the bones in its skull, the spine and ribs and it had no muscle mass. My friend has had the dog for about 8 months and the dog is perfectly healthy now, but is very lightly built considering that he's a male. He's 20+ inches tall and weighs a little over 40lbs. I know my friend feeds the dog Merrick and takes the dog every where he goes (he's a runner) so the dog gets plenty of exercise. Will the dog always be a little smaller than he should be, because of the terrible condition he was in the first year of his life? Is there a chance that he will continue to grow heavier with a good diet and exercise? Just wondering because I know it irks him everytime someone mistakes the dog for a "pretty girl" because he isn't as massive as your typical male APBT.

Answer 1

Well.. I've experienced this phenomenon a couple of times already.

The first year of the animal's life can influence their later build quite a bit.

We adopted a white German Shepherd at five months old - she was so starved, we could count every rib on her. And despite the fact that she's got a perfectly toned body now, she's still a bit smaller than your average White Shep.

Same with my cats - my two had their kibble out all day to crunch whenever they pleased as kittens and got wet food too - they're huge! And I don't mean fat - they're just big.

Their litter mates got fed once every two days by the guy who adopted them (he actually tried to keep them small and insisted that feeding them little as kittens would make them grow up small) - they're half the size of my cats.

So your friend's dog might stay a little smaller than the usual Pit - but he'll continue to fill in until he's at least two and a half. I'm pretty sure that by the time he's fully grown, you'll hardly see the difference.

To counteract the "pretty girl" remarks - maybe a nice studded leather collar could do the trick?