TRUE EVENTS
A woman emailed me summer 2008 asking if I would sell her my highest price puppy for %50 less then I was asking.
I emailed her that I had less expensive puppies.
She replied that she already bought a very expensive puppy from a breeder in Fall 2007, paying $4000.
She said the puppy had arrived sick and cost her another $2000 so total cost $6000.
She then went on to say that when she tried to contact the breeder, she found the website and all contact information online was GONE!
The woman made this statement to me about her puppy:
"My Chihuahua is triple the size promised by the breeder,
has a crooked jaw, long nose and is quite ugly"
Her email ddress looked familiar so I did an email search and found that she had emailed me Fall 2007, the same time period that she bought from the scammer! Here is the email the woman had sent to me fall 2007:
Date: 9/20/2007 10:45:22 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Do you have any itsy bitsy female puppies?
I really want one that will be 2 lbs or under as an adult.
The woman had phoned me in 2007 and requested that I promise her that Sherbert would be 2 -3 lbs and
no more then that
I refused to make such a promise so the woman left me to continue her search for the "promises".
I am sure it was not long before she found a Scammer to guarantee whatever she wanted to hear!
How difficult is it for a con artist to lie?
Are you curious how I did on my adult size estimation of Sherbert?
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Sherbert was sold to a family in Ohio. They flew here to California to pick her up .
They called me late 2008 to update me on her.
Sherbert is full grown and weighs under 3 lbs
She is pictured with her owner below.
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Sherbert to the left in the dress. Sherbert to the left. The sister ( R)ended up 3.5 lbs grown
When a "breeder" promises or guarantees an EXACT adult weight on a young puppy.
RED FLAG!!!
LET US GET DOWN TO SOME FACTS
There is a misconception widespread among consumers that plenty of breeders take advantage of. It is the myth that exact adult weight of a puppy CAN be predicted. Even if possible,does puppy weight predict length or height of the adult Chihuahua ?A large sized Chihuahua can be a skinny 2.5 lb dog similar to a miniature Italian Greyhound
PUPPY WEIGHT-
Thin babies can chart too low for accuracy in prediction of adult weight.
Obese babies with loads of baby fat chart higher then what their final adult weight will be.
FACT: Weight doesn't predict length or height of a Chihuahua.
FACT: An adult Chihuahua can be large with a body length of 13 inches and be a skinny 2 1/2 lbs
CHIHUAHUA BLOODLINES- DIFFERENT GROWTH PATTERNS..
Some lines have rapid growth of newborns up to 6 month of age and then the growth just stops cold. Such puppies are large, fat and chart 5 lbs but end up as 2 or 3 lb adults.
Some lines have tiny babies that grow SLOW over 1 1/2 years. Such Chihuahua puppies stay lightweight and small while very young but keep growing for a long period of time. Plenty of breeders have young Chihuahuas win championship while growth is not complete. Championship is won while the Chihuahua is within the weight standard for the breed. When full grown such Champions end up oversized and title isn't revoked.
There are those blue moon oddball puppies that go against the grain of the line and do their own thing. These are the few times that experienced Breeders who know what their lines well end up looking like fools.
MOTHERS MILK-
Some mothers have such rich milk that their puppies end up little butter balls and large for age. These young pups chart 5 lbs for baby fat alone
The rule of thumb is that the older they get the smaller they chart ! At 5 months most will have lost the babyfat and chart 2 or 3 lbs if that is the size of the line, parents, etc...
Some mothers have poor milk quality no matter what you feed them. You can give them goatsmilk daily, vitamins ,chicken and you name it and their milk is not good,so the puppies are teensy and chart low. Taking these puppies and switching them over to a mother with fattening milk will cause the poorly thriving babies to double their weight in a week or two. So much for accurate charting of puppies in the early weeks!!
PLACENTAS-
Some fetuses end up with small insufficient placentas and do not grow well so they are born extra small and even weakly, but they soon catch up in a matter of weeks to their littermates if they survive. On the opposite side are the few fetuses who end up with over sized placentas . Such puppies are huge at birth causing mom to need a c-section. The growth of these puppies slows rapidly after whelp and they end up similar in size to the other puppies in the litter by 4 to 6 weeks old. They also end up a similar adult size compared to litter mates.
RUNTS-
A single extra tiny puppy in a litter most always means an organ defect such as liver shunt, heart malformation, kidney disease or brain defect. I breed small Chihuahua puppies from small adults, not sickly runts.
SO HOW DOES A BREEDER PREDICT ACCURATE ADULT SIZE WITH SO MANY VARIABLES?
An experienced breeder knows their lines and how the majority of puppies from select breedings end up as adults. They know about mothers milk, about placentas and over growth and stunted growth while in uteri. They know about growth spurts and the flaws in charting and will give their own 2 cents, never going by the chart alone. .
I hope that the information presented on this page helps you fight back against dishonest breeders and scammers who bait you with the the following size terms Teacup, Micro, Pocket Puppy. The size variables above apply to all purebred Chihuahuas.
Scammers "guarantee" adult size just to make a sale and care little about the actual size the puppy will be as an adult. A caring Breeder loves the puppy more then the sale and wants the buyer and puppy to be perfect for each other.
Sherbert is renamed Vivian and is almost 2 years old above and under 3 lbs
Munchkinland Chihuahuas Consumer Awareness Page
