A friend and I went to look at a litter from a breeder he's interested in. Lab puppies, if it matters, from a breeding and line my friend wants and has hunted with before. Either another buyer backed out, or the litter was bigger than expected (11 puppies I think,) or there were too many females or not enough males, and my friend got bumped up on the waiting list.
There was one female available. She was physically the smallest of the litter, maybe half the size of the biggest pup and 3/4 of most of the rest of the litter. She seemed to be a well adjusted dog. While she wasn't the boldest of the litter that Hicntry advocates for a breeding program, she wasn't timid or shy. At dinner time when the bigger pups crowded her out, she crawled over/under them into the food bowl to eat. Funny, actually. She seemed to look people in the eye and wasn't fearful of anything.
He calls his Dad while he's looking at them, all excited, and his dad gets on his case about buying the "runt" of the litter, "they always have health problems, the breeder should have drowned it, wait til you're at the front of the line, etc..." Now, his Dad has raised a litter, maybe two, of puppies in his life, and aside from keeping a lab as a pet and duck dog isn't exactly an expert.
Now, I've heard from more than one person (including two veterinarians before) that in many cases, there is one or two pups, where you need to let nature take its course. They are referring to ones that require constant attention to bring them through their infancy alive, that the mother rejects. They are often physically malformed or otherwise notably different. That's what this particular Vet referred to as the "Runt."
I've also heard people that refer to the smallest pup as the runt, with no connotation to the term other than size.
I guess we'll never know if this was one where the breeder worked to bring it to viability, or was simply just small. He did mention one pup that "didn't make it" but that could be still born or the mother rolled on it during birth or an outright rejection. The breeder said he "liked her spunk." He didn't say that the Dam wanted to reject the puppy. We didn't think to ask. I tend to think not, given the dogs general attitude, but I'm on my first dog, so what do I know?
So, how do those of you that breed define "runt?"