TBT: Ru at Three Months

Photo by Graham Hughes

Ru still had a full set of baby teeth when we got him, and they didn't fall out until at least a couple of weeks later. This means he was probably under three months old at the time. When Brisbane was under three months old, he was a tiny ball of fluff and biting. He still had floppy ears. The three month old puppies I play with at work tend to be squishy babies.

When Brisbane was a baby puppy, I had no idea what to expect as he grew. I would find growth charts and try to estimate his adult size, with the earliest guesses being around sixty pounds.

Photo by Graham Hughes

With Ru I didn't bother to do any of the math, and just assumed he would top out around ten pounds like most randomly bred chihuahuas. Tiny dogs grow up very quickly, and most reach their adult size well before their first birthdays. They also live extremely long lives and often make it nearly two decades before expiring. This is a huge contrast to the giant breeds that take at least a couple of years to finish growing and filling out, and become senior dogs just a few short years later.

All this is to say that I naively assumed that my three month old toy breed puppy was less than half his adult size. My four pound babydog eventually attained a mighty 6.5 pounds as an adult. He outgrew exactly one collar, two harnesses, and a sweater that he wore as a puppy. I have an entire drawer full of stuff that baby Brisbane outgrew.

These are the first very nice pictures of little Ru, taken by a good friend in his yard. Ru is wearing my favorite Hot Dogs All Dressed collar, brown suede with sparkly blue stars. I want to look back on his baby pictures and marvel at how tiny and precious he was, but the truth is that he was only slightly less tiny and precious than he is right now at four years. That's the point of chihuahuas, I think.