Chihuahua puppy size

[Powertothepetal]

What is ‘normal’?

Met a lovely little chihuahua puppy today, I kid you not, it was almost the size of my hand. Almost.
I have never in my life seen such a tiny dog.

The owner said it was 12 weeks, I know Chihuahuas are tiny anyway but that surely can’t be right can it?!

There are always loads of puppies for sale on P4H at 8 weeks, they must be the size of my palm (not including fingers?!?!)

I don’t think my dog recognised it as a puppy at first, she went a bit giddy like she does on spotting a squirrel at first but was super kind and gentle to it.
I’m not convinced she even recognised it as ‘dog’ when saying hello to it.
🤔

Chis are small, but there's definitely a tendency for dodgy breeders to go for the "teacup" option, posing them next to cola cans and the such like, and most likely breeding from parents who are smaller than the breed standard. Only breeding for size, not health :(

Breed standard for an adult is 1.8-2.7kg, which is smaller than my rabbits.

Google tells me a 12 week old Chihuahua should only weigh around 3lbs, which isn't very much at all.

But like PP said many breeders will breed runts together to get a "teacup" dog even though doing so generally means a lifetime of health problems

So was this little puppy a teacup one then?
I honestly couldn’t get over the size, my little cat as a kitten (and she was a very small adult cat) was bigger at 8 weeks.

It’s head shape was odd too, I know chihuahuas have round skulls anyway but it’s head was massive, like it was too big for its little body.

Very much like this little puppy pictured.

I rather fancied myself a little dog next, maybe a chihuahua but seeing the size of this one, if that is ‘usual’ has really made me reconsider.
Delicate would be an understatement!

I have a chi cross (crossed with Jack Russell and Yorkshire Terrier) and she was approx 1kg at 8 weeks and 2kg at 12weeks. Obviously she's going to be bigger than a pure Chi, but even so she was still tiny. I can imagine a Chi being as small as you saw.

It would well be a teacup, but Chi's are very small dogs anyway, even as fully grown adults.

You are right that they're very delicate as a breed too.

Teacup is not a term liked by responsible breeders. Anyway, I have two Long Hair chihuahuas and one is 4kg and one is 2kg so there are 'larger' chi's out there. Extremely small ones tend to be the runt of the litter, cost more and come with health problems!

Hello, hydrocephalus. Could probably drive a bus through its fontanelle. I didn't know that about the breed standard. I quite like the big ones with the normal-ish heads.

My SIL has a teeny one and had recently got another two teacup ones. I’m scared of them they are so small, their legs are like pencils they look like they are going to snap, their little domed skulls and building eyes just don’t look right, I’m scared to pat them in case I break them.

My rabbits are 3 kg and my cats 5kg so having a dog smaller than them seems odd. I guess I’m not a fan of really small delicate dogs, I like dogs you can have a boy of a tussle with, I like terriers, they’re robust.

Not a chihuahua but I got a Yorkshire terrier that I think was under 1lb at 8 weeks old the vet was discussed and said she should never have been sold we nearly lost her many times spending days at a time in the vets claimed over a thousand on the insurance before the free 4 weeks where up and she had to be syringe fed by me every 3 hours these tiny dogs are so far from healthy and she didn’t even live till 11 the most amazing dog but so many health problems that she suffered a lot