My puppies size

Hi all!
I have a male staffy named Coby. He's 10 months old and although he's still growing taller and filling out, I'm not sure if he's as big as he should be. We had him de-sexed at 3 months old and wondering if that has affected his size or if I should just give it more time?? Does having males de-sexed usually affect their size?





Moved your post to Health Issues, you will hopefully get a reply there.

Hello

Staffs aren't actually that big. They are classed as a medium sized dog (whatever that means lol) and Coby still has a lot of growing to do yet! Generally they stop 'growing' at 18mths - 2 years but still 'fill out' up to 3 years.

I've heard people say neutering early can stunt growth somewhat but as each dog is individual how in all honesty could you tell? There's so many variables such as food, exercise, genetics etc. Having said that, I won't be getting mine done till she's over 2. But for other reasons.

He looks like a lovely boy in your avatar and is perfect the way he is

A Stafford gets its height by 10 mths not 18 Rach

The knobbly knee affect you see on a pup/young dogs front legs are infact its growth plates. While the front legs still look like they have knobbly knees then your dogs not reached its final height, if the front legs have smoothed out the full adult height has been reached.
Growing in width and a bit of fine tuning carries on till your dogs 3 yrs old.

Sorry to go off on one there Miranda, but answer to your question is your boy has his height, has desexing early stunted his growth ... well thats debate-able as some will say yes and others no.
What i do know is as he was desexed at such a young age he may retain his puppy looks and not a macho male look that the hormone testosterone gives in an intacted male.

Denise wrote:A Stafford gets its height by 10 mths not 18 Rach

The knobbly knee affect you see on a pup/young dogs front legs are infact its growth plates. While the front legs still look like they have knobbly knees then your dogs not reached its final height, if the front legs have smoothed out the full adult height has been reached.
Growing in width and a bit of fine tuning carries on till your dogs 3 yrs old.

Sorry to go off on one there Miranda, but answer to your question is your boy has his height, has desexing early stunted his growth ... well thats debate-able as some will say yes and others no.
What i do know is as he was desexed at such a young age he may retain his puppy looks and not a macho male look that the hormone testosterone gives in an intacted male.

Haha! Sure I was told it's 18 months for height! Oh well.

Yeah agree about the puppish/feminine look - seen it with my own eyes between two mastiff brothers.

As far as I'm aware, early neutering makes the growth plates close at a later date ans so the dog may become taller & narrower than he would otherwise have been. Also, at that young an age (3 months ) he will probably never be a very masculine looking male.

Im sure he is fine. desexing will mean he wont have the normal testosterone so he won't bulk out as much in muscle so may look leaner than a male usually would, but it shouldn't effect his actual HEIGHT

Thank you folks, all your replies were very helpful! I'm not too worried about the fact Coby may not look like a macho male because he's a big softie anyway! But I am glad to hear he's got much more growing ahead of him. He's sire was quite a large staffy and I had been hoping Coby was going to be similar in size so I'll keep watching for those knees to smoothe out!! And thank you Rach, I think he's perfect too