Puppy weights

An official veterinary thesis was written in 1991, by O. Chapusot, for the ECOLE NATIONALE VETERINAIRE D’ALFORT, in France. It dealt with the Barbet past ( 1930 ) and present. This means that the 2  lines were dealt with.

Among other items covered in the thesis was the weight of puppies.

It is, of course, very important to have documented weight curves and whenever possible, share them. Not much has been done to that effect other than what we manage to get ahold of once in a while. Most everything is kept hushhush for some unknown reasons.

In a club bulletin a few years ago,  a breeder  had published the weight curve of his litter. I believe that was the only time I have ever seen anything having to do with the subject since the weights given by Dr Vincenti of the Mas de la Chapelle kennel in the 30’s. This thesis used these weights and compared them to the Modern Barbet ( yes, it exists regardless of some sites claiming there is only one breed).

Finally today, through 2  completely different litters, I was able to pull out the document and check the veracity of the information.

Here you have a photo of 2 pups. One is from what I would like to call an “old” line and the other from a “modern” one. The composition of the litters relies mostly on what kennel names you want to work with or stay away from for various reasons.


The black pup is 8 weeks old and the brown one, 9. There is a 2-kilo difference between these 2 females. That is documented below in the chart.


When planning a litter, it is  vital to take all aspects of the stud or female ( I don’t use word bitch, because I don’t like it). This means the lineage, the size, the weight, the coat type, the morphology ( defects of the one or the other), not just 0% inbreeding as often is the case ( mixing oranges and apples) and how you can come out with something even better. I said absolutely nothing about breeding for color.

An “old” line female’s adult size would be 50-ish to great maximum 55cms. (some of the Griffon types with Chien de Crau are around 55)

A “modern” line female will size up to 61+ cms, with many around 58/59cms. They mostly have Poodle in the pedigree (some PWD) + Canaille de Verbaux (kennel) which, when selected only on curls ( tight/ frizzy) and known for very long legs with “lots of air between the legs” give us the dogs we very often see today.

Below is the weight curve of a litter in 2002. Tiboubou is Booly Wooly’s father. His weight at 2 months was 7 kilos. Son Booly Wooly’s was the same. Tiboubou is 64 cms. Booly Wooly is 59.5 and weighs 23kilos, about the same as his father. It was important to be able to follow up on this information years later to crosscheck it.


It will be extremely interesting to follow the growth of these 2 little girls and see if they fit the pattern. I think they will, what do you think? The male was about 7kilos.

If you are wondering why the breed club in France does nothing about the Barbet any more, wonder no more: there is “only” one type, because there is too much animosity among breeders to admit to 2 and secondly, they have very little information on the breed’s evolution historically and in the last 30 years.

Here is a link to another weight chart: http://barbety.pl/en/2013/08/26/monitoring-weights/