German shepherd dog set to be nine
inches tall. A gardener is bringing up one of the smallest German shepherd dogs in the world.
Eight-week-old Kricket currently measures eight inches from floor to his shoulder.
His owners, gardener Mary Higgins, 53, and her husband, Andy, 58, of Gorefield near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, say he will grow just one more inch.
Kricket - who is less than a third of the size of a normal German shepherd suffers from a rare genetic disease and is thought to be one of a handful of dogs with the condition.
"Normally dogs born with this dwarfism are destroyed by the breeder," said Mr. Higgins, who is disabled and unemployed.
"We got Kricket from a breeder who didn't want to destroy him. We have 17 rescue dogs at our home and he just runs around with them.
"We estimate that he will grow to about nine inches and weigh about 8lbs. That will be less than a third the size of a normal German shepherd.
"He doesn't eat as much as the other dogs because he's so small, but apart from that he just runs around normally.
"We've spoken to a geneticist who tells us dogs with this condition also only live for an average of four to five years rather than the normal 12 to 13," he said.