# Catahoula leopard pup



## ctaylor94 (May 13, 2013)

I just purchased a Catahoula Leopard and the breeder told us he was 8 weeks old well come to find out he is actually 6 weeks old. He only weighs 3.5 lbs (he doesn't eat much and verly drinks anything but we did take him to the vet to make sure he is okay) which seems really small to me I was just wondering if anyone could tell me if his weight is normal? He is suppose to be a big dog. Here he is:


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

That seems very small for a catahoula. My dog will max out at 50lbs and at 6 weeks he was around 6lbs.

Did you meet the parents? Did you see where he was raised?


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## HollowHeaven (Feb 5, 2012)

Even for 6 weeks old, he seems very very small...
Did you happen to see the parents?
To me, he looks either mixed or a lot younger than 6 weeks. Which is not good at all.


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## Kayla_Nicole (Dec 19, 2012)

I agree that sounds much too small for a 6 week old pup of his breed. My Wheaten will be around 40 pounds in adulthood, and she gained almost exactly a pound per week from birth til she was about 7 months old. So she was around 6 pounds at 6 weeks, 8 pounds at 8 weeks, etc.


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## ctaylor94 (May 13, 2013)

I did not get to meet the parents but I asked the guy to send me pictures, he said he will send them tonight when his wife gets home with them. He is suppose to be pure breed catahoula, does he look like it? He has the blue eyes. I thought he was younger then 6 weeks too but the vet told me based on his teeth he is roughly 6 weeks. He's still wobblely and not that active, he mostly sleeps. Maybe he is just under weight? He does look fairly skinny to me so I am feeding him every couple hours. I thinking maybe the breeder did not pay much attention to him and all the pups gobbled up the food and he did not, also I dont think he was ready to leave his momma yet.


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## kcomstoc (Mar 9, 2013)

Just a reminder for the next dog you get, always see the parents BEFORE you buy the pup  just to be safe. Did they do health checks? they don't sound repurable to me


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

The merle coloring is found in breeds other than catahoula, so at that age, it's really hard to tell. Whether he is purebred or not will be more apparent as he gets older.


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## ctaylor94 (May 13, 2013)

My husband went to go get the pup, if I would have gone I definitely would have asked to see the parents. I'm not sure why the puppies weren't around the parents to begin with. He said they dewormed them and gave them shots themselves. Which the vet told us shots do not even work until the puppies are 8 weeks so we have to get the first set of shots and dewormed again.


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## ctaylor94 (May 13, 2013)

Okay well thank you anyways. Do you think maybe he is just underweight and with proper feeding he will be back to normal weight?


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## packetsmom (Mar 21, 2013)

Poor little guy...he seems TINY to me, but then, I'm getting used to my beast. I'm glad he's been to the vet and it sounds like you're working hard to put weight on him. I'd also keep him nice and warm.

My current pup, for medical reasons related to the mother, had to leave his mother at 5 1/2 weeks. He still looked a lot more developed than this little guy. At first, we found we had to water his food a little bit so that it was easier for him to eat, but by about 6 to 6 1/2 weeks he was able to eat kibble fine. It took a bit longer before he caught on to eating treats for training.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

ctaylor94 said:


> Okay well thank you anyways. Do you think maybe he is just underweight and with proper feeding he will be back to normal weight?


It's possible. Pups who are undernourished tend to have big growth spurts and catch up to where they should have been.


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## ctaylor94 (May 13, 2013)

packetsmom said:


> Poor little guy...he seems TINY to me, but then, I'm getting used to my beast. I'm glad he's been to the vet and it sounds like you're working hard to put weight on him. I'd also keep him nice and warm.
> 
> My current pup, for medical reasons related to the mother, had to leave his mother at 5 1/2 weeks. He still looked a lot more developed than this little guy. At first, we found we had to water his food a little bit so that it was easier for him to eat, but by about 6 to 6 1/2 weeks he was able to eat kibble fine. It took a bit longer before he caught on to eating treats for training.


I feel bad for him as well. He seems very small to me too but I guess we will see, maybe now that he is be fed well he will start to sprout. We have him on blue buffalo soft food and we add a tiny bit of water to that as he seems to be able to lick it up better. Once we run out of this though we will switch to hard food and soften that with water as well. Is it normal for them to have runny stool? I thought maybe it's runny from the soft food.


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## ctaylor94 (May 13, 2013)

elrohwen said:


> It's possible. Pups who are undernourished tend to have big growth spurts and catch up to where they should have been.


Hopefully he gets a growth spurt soon. It would make my mind at ease.


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## blenderpie (Oct 5, 2012)

The soft stool is probably from the change in food. Both of my pups had it when I brought them home (though one was on the same food as the breeders) I blamed it on stress and the digestive tract being new (have you seen infant poop?) If it's actual liquid or he seems dehydrated, then I would be concerned.


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

He looks younger than 6 weeks to me. As a frame of reference, my sheltie was 3 lbs at 6 weeks and topped out at 25 lbs. 

It's not good to get a dog that young but also know that many people do and end up with well adjusted dogs. We got our sheltie at 5 weeks- much too young, but she was a great dog. It sounds like you are off to a good start with the dog food. Blue buffalo is a good food to feed.


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## JohnnyBandit (Sep 19, 2008)

ctaylor94 said:


> I just purchased a Catahoula Leopard and the breeder told us he was 8 weeks old well come to find out he is actually 6 weeks old. He only weighs 3.5 lbs (he doesn't eat much and verly drinks anything but we did take him to the vet to make sure he is okay) which seems really small to me I was just wondering if anyone could tell me if his weight is normal? He is suppose to be a big dog. Here he is:


The pup in that picture looks about 4 weeks to me.


My Catahoula experience is becoming dated but I have been around a good number of Cata Litters and produced one myself... 6 week old Cata... at least 7 pounds. And 10 would not be unrealistic.


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## Oscar m (May 6, 2013)

Yea he looks small did ya see the rest of the puppy's is there anny chance they gave you the runt and not told you my axle (bully/staffy) was the runt and was only 1.17 kg his mates where at least 4 times bigger than him at 6 weeks now at 7months he weighs a hefty 20 kg what I did was make up warm milk formula (dog stuff) and wet his food with that and that helped They can often get runny poo,s from worming med's at that age


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## Kyndall54 (Apr 26, 2013)

ctaylor94 said:


> I feel bad for him as well. He seems very small to me too but I guess we will see, maybe now that he is be fed well he will start to sprout. We have him on blue buffalo soft food and we add a tiny bit of water to that as he seems to be able to lick it up better. Once we run out of this though we will switch to hard food and soften that with water as well. Is it normal for them to have runny stool? I thought maybe it's runny from the soft food.


My own puppy did not get along well with the blue buffalo puppy food, she always had soft stool until we switched. We're on blue wilderness puppy now. However I haven't met any puppies under 8 weeks and I don't know if it's normal for puppies to have soft stool when they're really young? He's super cute though! Feel lucky he's mostly sleeping now, that will change soon


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## komdothedragon96 (May 28, 2020)

just got a pup! any tips??


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## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

komdothedragon96 said:


> just got a pup! any tips??


Instead of tacking your unrelated post onto a seven-year-thread, please start a new thread. You can do that by going to the subforum and clicking on the box that says, "Start Discussion."


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