Do Dogs Grow to Match Their Pack?

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misterjinglejay

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Myself and a good friend were discussing this the other day.

She has a pack of 12 sibes, all working dogs (apart from two elderly ones), and all are big, stocky and solid, and all from different lines/breeders.

Over the years, she has met most of their littermates, and parents, and almost without exception, hers are much bigger. The majority of all these dogs are fed raw/barf, and are working sled dogs.

She doesn't live in a particularly big house, and all the dogs live as an indoor pack together, with access to a large garden (as do most of their relatives).

So, whilst taking genetics into account, do dogs grow to match the rest of their pack? I know it's said that fish will grow to fit the size of their tank, so how about dogs? Is it the size of their environment, pack, nutrition, or just random? Or all of these?

Anyone?
 
Interesting. I wonder if it's the fact that hers are working so are therefore more muscled up than others that are perhaps just pets; similar to horses, those in proper work, worked correctly and well muscled always look bigger than those not in proper work.
 
Size in sibes is a bit of an odd one anyway. People are often surprised or even disappointed by the size of mine when they meet them - whether they are perhaps confusing them with mals or simply expecting them to be bigger I don't know. R is at the very top end of the height limit and Dax exceeds it by a couple of inches.

My friend's pack are mostly from a very small, wiry racing strain and when we met at a show back in the summer we were asked about a dozen times if her bitch was D's pup - her bitch was eight years old! :D She is teeny weeny, less than 20", but with a corking working pedigree and she's probably worth two or three dogs like mine in harness.
 
But when the line/parents/siblings/grandsires/grandams/ etc size is known, so genetics,nutrition, environment, training and work together all indicate the approximate size of dog, what makes the all dogs in a pack grow much larger than everything dictates?

Has anyone studied the adult size of wild dogs in the same pack, I wonder, or wolves? Although that pack would presumably contain siblings etc and therefore that would cancel out my original question lol.
 
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