Size & Growth factors of the Taylormade Mini Golden

Updated 8/25/22

Hi all, we have had a lot of questions and concerns about how big our Taylormade Miniature Golden Retrievers get. This is actually a great question when considering adding a dog to your family and home. I love when I find out a family is researching their next puppy because it tells me that they will be conscientious dogs owners and, of course as a breeder who wants the best for our puppies, I get giddy over that! I hope this helps as you are researching for your next puppy.

Size in a Miniature Golden Retriever, or Mini Golden as we also call them, is generally 25-45 lbs but larger or smaller due to the diversity in the genetic makeup of our dogs. Size can be genetic and size can also be lifestyle. Both are reasons why we cannot guarantee size in our dogs. Disclaimer: When purchasing a Mini Golden all parties must understand their Mini Golden could grow to a full size Golden Retriever. Hold on though… there are still a lot of Benefits to having a Mini Golden Retriever that is not so mini. Let me explain; because the Miniature Golden is a hybrid, mixing the breeds dilutes the gene pool and increases the virility of the dog. And having more diversity in the gene pool is valuable in improving temperament in the dogs, in my opinion they are more well-rounded than the purebred counterparts.

Inbreeding problems in purebred dogs

Research shows “As such, every dog population—or in the context of purebred dogs, every dog breed—contains an abundance of rare recessive mutations that were either present in a founder individual or arose spontaneously in the dog population sometime afterwards. These rare mutations are hardly ever problematic for outbred individuals because they almost always inherit at least one working copy; however, they can cause real problems for inbred individuals—animals that arise from the mating of closely related parents.”1.

Since we at Taylormade are using outside breeds for our breeding program we are working to keep the wonderful traits of the Golden Retriever with less health problems. We also run DNA tests and have testing with PennHip and OFA through our vet.

Factors that inflence Growth

Lifestyle

I am going to talk about lifestyle because this is something our puppy familes can control with their puppies.

I want to tell of a Miniature Pinscher we had. My friend and I got two purebred puppies from a breeder in Idaho. My puppy was the smallest, his name was Halo and my friend got a a slightly larger puppy from the litter named Buddy. Buddy liked to eat so my friend left a bowl of food filled at all times and gave dog chews for fun, and treats for training. I gave Halo only the measured recommended amount of food and gave dog vegetables as chews for fun and small amounts of wholesome treats for training as well. We had our puppies for a month and then took them to a vet clinic for their follow-up vaccines. Buddy weighed significantly more than Halo at the vet visit, the vet even told us Buddy was experiencing childhood obesity! Buddy was only slightly bigger than Halo when we first got the puppies, but lifestyle made that gap in size much bigger.

At 4 months old my friend had Buddy neutered. I decided not to neuter Halo. By the time they were full grown adults, Halo weighed 7 lbs, just under the average size of a Miniature Pinscher which is 8-10 lbs. and Buddy weighed 17 lbs which is almost double the average size. These were two purebred puppies from the same litter and I describe this because it shows how lifestyle can drastically chance results. I know I have some pictures of these two together somewhere so I’ll post as soon as I find them!

More from my personal experience, When I was 17 years old I had the wonderful opportunity to to raise and train a service dog for the Kansas Specialty Dog Service (KSDS) her name was Brie and the most gorgeous Purebred Golden Retriever I had ever seen. She was insured at $15,000 and that was before she had even finished training for service, by the time she finished training she was invaluable!

KSDS did extensive training for everyone raising their dogs and were very particular about feeding and making sure the puppy was growing properly. All of us raising the puppies did monthly reports on feeding, we would add anything that the dog ate that was outside of what the feeding guidelines and even snail-mailed in photos of the dog’s poop 💩 yes that was before camera phones and email existed.

At Taylormade we also provide feeding guidelines for our puppies and create a feeding profile before your puppy goes home that you can update regularly to keep your puppy healthy. I have included a link at the bottom of the article.

With KSDS we were not to give any unapproved treats chews or people food, this was drilled into me at a young age and I still carefully feed my own dogs and do a body score profile on them monthly and adjust their food as needed. I included a link below that shows body score. You can also have your vet do a body score on your dog or puppy to help determine the correct amount to feed. What I learned was that overfeeding a growing puppy can cause overgrowth and this can be problematic for the hips and joints down the road. It can also create a larger and taller dog. More about this below;

Feeding

Let’s talk about feeding. Puppies often love to eat and they will eat and eat if allowed. If they eat too much, it will expand in their belly causing the belly to stretch. This can cause more over-eating and more growth during the high growing season in the puppy’s life. When treats and chews are added this only adds more calories and growth. So I recommend feeding healthy treats that actually have needed nutrients without fillers and feeding only the recommended measured amount of food. A small puppy has a small stomach with a big appetite. I recommend adding a good probiotic and food enzyme to the diet to make sure your puppy is breaking down the proteins so they get the needed nutrients. Also, fresh carrots, apples, sweet potatoes, or cucumbers are great if your puppy wants something extra, just be CAREFUL too much can cause diarrhea. I give 1/8-1/4 of what I would eat myself to our puppies. These foods are low in calories and have Wholesome nutrients. Over eating and a poor diet can cause many health problems as well. This is why we have carefully selected dog foods that we include in our health guarantee. These foods don’t contain wheat, soy, or corn as these ingredients cause weight gain, inflammation and poor health over time.

According to Veterinary Practice news studies show overfeeding is particularly devastating for smaller dogs “That finding has important implications for small dogs, since they typically receive smaller volumes of food,” Coe says. “Even a small amount of over-measuring for a small dog can be a considerable increase in their daily caloric intake, putting them at risk of weight gain from too much food.”

Remember Overfeeding can be dangerous for more than just overgrowth also to the health of your dog;

“Dogs..with excess fat are at greater risk for developing diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and many forms of cancer”

Spay and Neuter

There is a lot of information coming out about spay and neuter, and specifically Golden Retrievers, that leads me to recommend waiting until your puppy is a year to spay or neuter. Studies are showing that neutering in the first year can delay the closure of long-bone growth plates. This can cause the dog to grow larger and also cause join problems. In female dogs there is evidence that their sex organs provide protection against cancer. With that said, I recommend a tubal ligation for female Golden’s. My vet said that the female will still lightly bleed during a heat cycle which could be every 7-14 months and owners may not want that, so I recommend weighing the the advantages and disadvantages as you decide what is the best for your dog. I personally don’t spay and neuter my dogs, but I breed our dogs so I don’t count right? Well, I have never had a case of cancer with my own dogs in 30 years of having dogs.

I hope that clear track record never changes, but cancer is on the rise so one day I might face it. I do wonder if the choice not to spay or neuter has helped our dogs? I have always followed the pillars of health; love, sunlight, wholesome food, and exercise and those things go a long way!

Genetics

While most of our dogs are small/medium 20-45 lbs 13.5-15.5” inches tall. Our dogs Do have full sized Golden Retriever in their genes and so they can grow to the size of a full Golden Retriever - 55-70 lbs. 21-24” and we have had our dogs grow to full Golden size. I personally know purebred Golden Retriever’s that are 90-120 lbs. We do breed smaller dogs together so the odds are better for a smaller dog.
You might ask yourself, why a Taylormade Miniature Golden if there is a possibility of a Full sized Golden Retriever? Having a mixed breed helps dilute the gene pool and increase the health and virility of the dog.
When I was getting quotes from Pet health insurance, I found even the health insurance companies recognized that mixed breeds were generally healthier and premiums were less for my mixed Mini Golden’s than my Purebred Golden’s. I love my Purebred Golden Retrievers, but I do see my Mini Golden’s are healthier and they do generally shed less than my Purebred Golden’s. After many years of line breeding and inbreeding, Pure bred dogs can start to develop health problems

Food monitoring, proper nutrition, and delayed spaying/neutering all contribute to size, BUT genetics also play a roll in size and we are working to reduce the size through generations of breeding down .

Please feel free to review our puppy contract

**These are my own opinions from my experience and knowledge raising dogs and Mini Golden’s for over 30 years.
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