my puppy is retarded

Question
I have an 8 week old puppy. We got him last week and he is retarded. We got him and his brother together,and his brother is 4 times his size. He is super small and he seems to twitch or shake all the time. The family we got them from said that he was the runt and that he was smotherd twice by his much larger siblings laying on him. The family gave him CPR and brought him back to life but I think he has sufferd brain damage. I have looked online and could not find any thing about this subject. I want to know if is is always going to be small, if I need to do anything special for him, and what the likelyhood is of him living and how long. Also, is he trainable, or is that unlikely due to the brain damage? I just want somekind of info regarding my new puppy and how to take care of him.

Answer
Hi Jess,  Runts sometimes do catch up, it just depends on the individual dog.  The twitching & shaking could be nerve damage from being smothered which could be from brain damage, it is very hard to say.  As far as how much damage, time will only tell.  You need to see how he develops, and treat him just like a regular dog.  Doing everything like you would do with his brother, and hopefully, even if there is brain damage, he will learn a lot from just watching and following his brother.  Just like kids, dogs that have brain problems can still be trained and live productive lives.  Hope this helps,

Dawn