Brooke here.

The weekend will be devoted to ivy removal and upholstering some cushions in a fairly nifty window seat I have yet to mention, but today is a brief post about Zu.  We have been slightly concerned about his health. At five and a half months, he tops the scale at 43 pounds, which is dangerously underweight for a Rottie.  The vet says he’s perfectly healthy but he should weigh a minimum of 10 pounds more to be in the very bottom tier of normal development.

Then we guessed he’s at least part Doberman.

Doberman might explain some of the unknown elements in our Craigslist Special.  His mom was on site when we picked him up and she was mostly Rottweiler, but Zu’s body keeps getting longer and his ears do this weird standy-uppy thing when he’s surprised.  By this point in his development, he should be bulking up and getting more bear-like, but he’s putting on inches instead of mass and he is closer to a baby deer than a bear.

It’s still not a sure thing he’s part doberman as even if he were half a dobie, he’s still undersized.  He’s large enough to have moved beyond the probability of the the Daddy-Min-Pin genome, but Papa might have been a German Pinscher.  Or maybe he’s is part Doberman and had stunted growth (we’ve wormed the snot out of him several times so it wasn’t parasites), or there’s a massive growth spurt lurking around the corner from Tuesday.  Regardless, he’s a sweet little boy and whatever he is, he’s easily been sixty-eight kajillion times easier to train than Cutter John… if you get past the PUPPY ENERGY!!! he’s got the great Rottie laid-back personality without the stubbornness.  He’s a really good little puppy who needs to gain at least 25 more pounds to be a really fantastic large (watch)dog.