I have a friend who works at a hospital as an echo-tech (she does echocardiography/color dopplers all day long). She says the doctors there often talk about how they are certain the steroids in the meat and milk are causing humans to grow larger than they should and causing earlier puberty as well. I have no doubt some of this spills over into dog food and kibble. Due to experience I also feel certain that feeding an *organic* BARF diet causes a definite decrease in size as compared to regular BARF or kibble diets. I doubt many countries in the world load their animals used for meat and milk with as many steroids and antibiotics as the U.S. does so there just may be a difference between the U.S. and most other countries regarding amount of growth in both humans and animals.
As Leanne said studies have indeed shown that dogs neutered before their growth plates close do grow a bit larger, but the difference was definitely small--less than an inch. However after 26 years in this breed and seeing all those pets neutered young, there is also no doubt in my mind that they do get leggier (longer legs) than their *whole* counterparts which tends to exaggerate the *larger* look. I have also noted less bone but I'm not really sure it is truly less or just appears less due to the longer length of the bones. I now state in my Pet Contract that pets should be neutered/spayed by 4 months or after 12 months. If they can't get all the health benefits from very early neutering/spaying because their vet won't neuter/spay that early, I prefer they wait until the growth plates close. Actually I would prefer they all wait until 12 months but I doubt I could get most of them to wait that long! Many of them are waiting now--it will be interesting to see if it makes any noticeable difference. Laura Lang Roycroft Cavaliers ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
