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Estimating how heavy your Shih Tzu is on a particular stage of development is aimed not only at indulging your curiosity, but also at checking whether everything is ok with your beloved pet (e.g. weight loss during growth is not ok). In general, you should expect swift growth in the first few months. Next during about 9 months the dog will gain weight and grow in both height and girth. Also you should take into consideration such circumstance that male dogs are generally heavier than male ones. But first things first.
The Chart
- Newborn Shih Tzu is about 5 ounces (140 g).
- 4 weeks old. A healthy Shih Tzu puppy is supposed gain weight of about 1.2 lbs (half a kilo), which is only 10% of an adult age mass. It means that you’ll have to multiply this datum by ten and get the weight of your grown-up dog in future.
- An 8 weeks old pooch should weight about 2 lbs (almost 1 kg). Roughly, it’s around 20% of his adult weight. Multiply the weight by 5 to calculate how much he will weight when adult.
- 3 months. At this moment this guy should gain 1/3 of his adult weight, which is about 4 lbs (1.8 kg). Multiply the number by three.
- 4 months – 6 lbs (2.7 kg).
- 6 months old puppy is now must be half as heavy as adult Shih Tzu specie, his typical weight is supposed to be 10.3 lbs (4.6 kg). At this moment the puppy is 83% as big as an adult dog. The formula for calculation is: Wpx1.2=Wa, where Wp is the puppy weight and Wa is an adult dog weight.
- 7 months old dog should weight about 12 lbs (5.5 kg). At this stage you can hardly call such Shih Tzu a puppy; it has almost grown up entirely. After 7 months the growth will become less intensive.
- Till 1 year. At this stage average weight reaches the terminus and totals 12.5 lbs (5.6 kg). Now the dog is considered adult.
Things to Consider
Don’t forget that those are average numbers, whereas in reality they can vary significantly depending on many factors:
- Activeness of your puppy;
- Amount of exercises he receives;
- Amount of consumed food;
- Overall healthiness;
- Genes.
At that the most decisive factor is usually the genes. Parents play the main role in determining how heavy their offspring will be. However, no matter how hard you try, you will unlikely breed a teapot small or a coach big Shih Tzu. Their weight can rarely be less than 9 or more than 16 pounds.
Besides you should note that in terms of puppy/adult weight ratios this chart can hardly be applied to dogs of other small breed and definitely cannot be applied to dogs of bigger breeds. Furthermore, it’s probable for the smallest puppy in the litter to quickly catch up to his siblings.
