When will she stop growing?

[Patches]

Bess is 6 months now. She seems quite big for a Border Collie. She's not being overfed, just has her rations of Beta Puppy.

When will she stop growing? If she gets much bigger she'll be as big as a small house! I know literature suggests she will have a growth spurt at about 9 months and finish at full maturity at 18 months, but I just don't see how she can/should get any bigger.

 

[fmay]

Is she pure bred or a cross?

I would agree with 18 months for full size but her growth rate should slow down before then

 

[Tia]

Proper sheepdogs like Bess, and mine, tend to reach their full height by around a year old, however I would say it is at around 3 or 4 that they stop their filling out. Bess' ears will sort themselves out at around 18 months to 2 years old as her head will broaden.

When Poppy was a puppy, she looked like she was going to be big, but she wasn't. She turned out normal working collie size.

 

[Patches]

This is Bess, fmay.

She has gone from this in August (how cute?)

To this now.

Taken Friday, with her favourite toy

"Throw the ball...thrown the ball....THROW THE BLOOMING BALL!!!"

 

[Patches]

Funnily enough, Tia, someone said the other day to us..."She's got a bit of Collie in her hasn't she?"

A BIT?????

I was quite offended. I've seen mummy and daddy. She's a fully bred working sheepdog stock, border collie.

She doesn't look like anything else to me. Unmistakable.

Those ears.....glad to hear she'll actually grow into them. She's quite mature looking and I'm getting a bit worried that we're exercising her too much. Apparently she should only have 30 minutes total per day. She's currently out for loose walks/run in the fields for at about 1 1/2 hours a day over three walks and she gets two lead walks as well of about 10-15 minutes each, either side of the day.

 

[Aru]

Were either of her parents large dogs for collies?were they working sheep or cattle?sometimes the cattle dogs are bred bigger where im from..is she a working dog or pet?iv seen a few cases where the pet collies were much larger than both their parents and litter mates..vet i was with said it had something to do with the work the working pups were doing at a young age and the difference in diet and amount of exercise..
if you ask me shes getting enough exercise so i dont see that stunting her growthlol

by the sounds of things shes getting her recommended 30 mins with the 2 walks and the time she spends in the field she can choose to run or walk so she's probly regulating her body needs fine and keeping her sane to id say..if she was to tired she wouldnt be energetic in the field...she a beauty love by the way and im sure she'l grow onto her ears fine

 

[MurphysMinder]

The amount of knuckle she has left on her "knee" on her forelegs is a good indicator of how much growing she has left to do. From those pics she still looks as if she has a bit of bone there. My Evie is 7 months, and still has to grow a bit more at the front (bum high at the mo), but I reckon she wil have reached her full height in a couple of months, but GSDs carry on changing/maturing until about 18 months. I suspect collies might mature a little earlier than that but not sure. As most of her exercise is free running I wouldn't think you are doing her any harm, although I know some people believe that a lot of exercise can cause pups to end up very leggy, if not actually bigger than they would normally be.
She is gorgeous , and I love her ears, whether she grows into them or not

 

[Patches]

Hi Carney.

Thanks for your reply. Her parents were working sheepdogs...as in they worked sheep specifically, but did occasionally see cattle).

Bess is destined to be a working dog. We are dairy farmers. At the moment our cows are in for winter housing, but she will assist with fetching them in for milking twice a day during the late spring, summer and early autumn months.

She's not being fed anything unusual. Just a simple diet of Beta Puppy complete food.

I'm glad you have mentioned her exercise. I was so concerned that we were letting her do too much. However, like you touch on, we think she's become more than mildly insane if we didn't allow her to let off steam over the fields a few times a day.

She doesn't live in the house either. She comes in during the day for a few hours but sleeps outside in the brick built shippon. She has a run that's about 40ft long and 8ft wide, with calves the other side of a mesh divide.

The idea of her living outside is that she's not really seen as a pet in the in-laws and hubby's eyes. The don't want her getting excited at cow fetching time in the mornings (when it's that time of the year) and waking the children up when we leave at 5am. By the same token, we don't want to have to chastise her tendency to round things up, which she may do to the children, cat etc when in the house.

She gets alot of cuddles, even though she lives outside. In the summer, she tends to spend alot of time roaming the yard with us when we're doing "stuff" about the farm.

We think she's an amazing dog.

 

[Patches]

Arrr yes. We noticed the "knuckle" too and assumed it meant she has more growing to do!

She really is quite huge. I thought girls were smaller than dogs too.. There is a woman at the school with a Border Collie two weeks older than Bess. Millie was always so much bigger than Bess but now she looks quite young and immature next to her. Obviously, I should point out they are not from the same litter. I have no idea if Millie is show or working stock.

However, Millie lives in a terraced house with just a small back yard and only gets a twenty minute walk to the school and back per day. Now, I'm not knocking where she lives, I was meaning to point out that she doesn't get as much natural exercise as Bess does. If dogs are like horses, would Bess build more muscle/tone because of the type of exercise she gets? Millie is only walked alongside a child's pushchair so there is no running and playing involved.

 

[Tia]

30 minutes exercise per day - tell that to my puppies! As you know, my dogs all have outdoor access 24 hours a day. They can do whatever they like, whenever they like. If they want to run around, they do, if they want to sleep, they do. I can tell you this right off the bat, none of my puppies have ever been restricted to only 30 minutes of exercise per day ... so I really wouldn't worry about that. These are working dogs - that's what they do, that's what they are bred to do.

One thing I will say though is this; both Poppy, Lily, Snowdrop and Daisy appeared to be large puppies. They remained large puppies till they reached about 6 months and then they started to seem small puppies. All 4 of those dogs were/are small adult dogs. Snowdrop is a tiddler!

Clover is enormous but then she is a giant breed dog so should be. Barley doesn't look like she will be quite as large as Clover but then her parents were smaller.

I bet you that Bess will all of a sudden stop growing upwards and will start to fill out instead. Bess is RAVING sheepdog, you just happened to speak to an ignoramous!

And yes her ears will start to separate once her head broadens, so don't worry about the mono-ear she is exhibiting right now - they all look like that at this age.