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July 8, 2014

Room to Grow

Time, like a puppy, is a funny thing. Time does funny things to puppies and puppies do funny things to time. Penny’s only been home with us for two months – no time at all – but already I have a tough time remembering what life was like with just
Time, like a puppy, is a funny thing. Time does funny things to puppies and puppies do funny things to time. Penny’s only been home with us for two months – no time at all – but already I have a tough time remembering what life was like with just one dog. And as is the case with all puppies, Penny grows at a prodigious rate which seems to defy all natural law. As always, I have a theory. Backed by zero science. About how that growth happens.

Here’s Penny shortly before she came home. By my estimate, at birth Penny already had about 90% of the total skin she’ll ever have

With each romp all the skin gets thrown forward

And then thrown all the way back again. Therefore, my research suggests puppies grow by virtue of shaking their bodies back and forth in order to expand

Penny’s already wiggled herself to double her original size, but by the looks of it she shows no signs of slowing down.

Plenty of room to fill out

Ok, so maybe my theory is not the best. But I guess Penny ends up weighing around 70 pounds as an adult. Eko is around 90 pounds, for reference. He, like Penny, was a wrinkly bundle of extra skin.

I know paws are a favorite indicator of many people, but does anyone have any other tips for what to look for when estimating how much a pup will grow? I’d be interested to know if there are any signs I should look for with Penny.

Comments for Room to Grow

  1. My granny tried this way once too, she bought all clothes with room to grow. Sadly this plan only works for puppies :O) There is a formula somewhere in the www where you can calculate weight and size, but I can’t remember where I saw it :o(

  2. meANXIETYme says:

    The formula is, whatever you expect the size to be, add 20%. 😀

  3. lexy3587 says:

    I know paws are a favourite, but I don’t trust them. My neighbour’s 11 year old labradoodle has the most enormous feet on her – when they shave her down, she looks like a giant 4 month old dog that’s going to grow into a behemoth. I’d say look at her parents and compare them to eko’s and where he ended up relative to them.

  4. Emmadog says:

    Wow, lots of skin there! We didn’t have any of that. For us it is our ears that are full size and we have to grow into them, learn not to trip over them, stuff like that. We have big paws, even as adults, so that isn’t really an exact science thing either. My paws are almost as big as Katie’s who is twice my weight! Enjoy those wrinkles, I have a feeling they won’t be around for long.

  5. Elyse says:

    You are quite a scientist, Will.

    Our new little guy Duncan doesn’t have any extra skin. His teeth are quite long and sharp. I’m thinking we can calculate his eventual size based on the amount of blood he draws from us. So I’m thinking this Springer/Aussie mix will be the size of a mastodon.

  6. Whatever size Penny grows to, she’s growing into an even more gorgeous girl.

  7. harrispen says:

    I love you stop action shots of Penny’s wrinkles when she runs. That sure is a lot of extra skin.

  8. I noticed on your beach video how much Penny had grown. She is growing FAST!

  9. OhMelvin says:

    Melvin still has extra skin like that, I hope he’s not still growing! My guess is she’ll be the same size as her brother.

  10. Kyla says:

    It’s a breed specific thing. My youngsters never had “extra” skin-just extra attitude.

  11. Marcela says:

    Omg, Penny is going to be a beautiful big girl:-)

  12. Tiffany F. says:

    Tonto has a lot of extra skin but he’s full brown.

  13. Dottie Wells says:

    Penny is so precious! I love the photos of her “flowing” skin. I hope she fills out enough to NOT need a tummy tuck. You’ve got it all, Will. Count your blessings, and keep on keeping on!
    Dottie and Tuffy-Cat

  14. raisingdaisy says:

    HAHAHAHA!! Will I love your theories – they’re better than any science-based theories, and probably more accurate too! 😀

  15. dogdaz says:

    I think you are right on with the skin idea – fill it in with each jump. LOL

  16. Misaki says:

    Wow that’s a lot of skin! I hope she grows into it lol

  17. Excellent theory! 🙂

  18. Amazing amount of extra skin. My puppy has quite big paws for his little body, so we are expecting him to grow [relatively] much bigger. However he sports no extra skin like Penny, but he has more than doubled in size in the almost six weeks he has lived here and if that is any indication I could well end up with an elephant sized pup! 🙂 I’m sorry Will, I’m not sure what that does to your extra skin theory though…..

  19. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a “wrinkly bundle of extra skin” and still be so darned cute. I’d love it if you could come up with one of your wise and clever scientific theories about how a wife, mum of twins, one dog, five cats and six fish, living in Australia could achieve this!! He! he! Seriously, though, I’m going to go right out on a limb and say that with that amount of romping, playing and running gorgeous Miss Penny may even work that skin so much that she might end up being bigger than handsome Mr Eko! BTW – you are so right about designer clothes for kids! xoxoxox

  20. Whoa! That’s a lot of skin! If that’s any indication of size, then 70 pounds is conservative. Look out Eko! Competition….

  21. Penny says – stop fooling around with a lady’s skin, please 😛

  22. She has got a lot of skin to grow into,

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