Stunted growth from poor nutrition

[Chris Smith]

Does anyone know if it possible to stunt a dog's growth if they had poor nutrition as a young puppy? (either bad quality of food or not enough food like they were starving).

And if so, how would it affect them? (i.e. not growing to their full size of their breed, having short legs, disproportioned body, bowed/flared legs, etc.)

What months are the most critical for a puppy to have the best nutrition? (i.e. first few weeks, first 6 months, etc.)

[Grace Erick]

Chris, I know when my friend's male dog's breeding female had puppies, the ones that did not get enough milk were small, so she bottle fed them and then they ate more and got bigger, so I do believe a dog's size can be stunted by lack of food.

I can't answer your other questions since I don't know about birthin no babies:)

[heathea]

YES! it can have that affect most definately. We have our dog Life and we knew her parents off-handedly as they lived in a trailer park where some people we knew were staying. Her dad was approx. 50lbs, and the mom maybe his 60lbs. (the mother, named Precious [she was very very sweet] belonged to a very bad dog owner, he never hit her and she always had "food" and water, so there was nothing animal control could do, it is really indescribable actually...the mom's owner fed his dogs with road kill and the dad was a stray who stayed around for leftovers...he was eventually rounded up by animal control in one of their monthly sweeps of the area.) So we rescued our baby from the scary place when she was approx. 6 weeks along (the vet said to get her out of there as soon as we could-more worms than the vet had ever seen before in one dog). She now weighs just over 100lbs. She completely shot past her parents weights, the vet said that if a dog does not get proper nutrition while young, it does not grow into its full potential size, needless to say, my dog Life is at her full size potential. :D