Picking Toys/Predicting Adult Weight

Q: I was told by the breeder not to have my puppy chew on anything plastic and rubber. The problem with this is most of the chew toys are plastic or rubber. For instance the kong toy where you can insert food inside is rubber and the nylabone chew bone is plastic. These toys re good for playing and teething what can I replace them with? My other question is if the mother weighs between 4-5 pounds and the father weighs between 3/12-4 pounds what will be the general approximate weight of my Maltese puppy when it is fully grown?

A: Puppy toys are like kids toys, there are both well designed and poorly designed one. I agree with your observation that there are some good rubber and plastic toys for puppies. My advice is to stay away from thin walled toys or those that have loosely attached elements (many cat toys are examples). For the most part Nylabone and Kong toys are well designed. Generally you could expect your puppy to be near the average weight of the parents, however if you look at most people families it is clear that children of the same parents often have strikenly different physical characteristics especially height and weight. The same is true for dogs.