This makes me happy that it's becoming so prevalent. Years ago when I was growing up we had 3 labs and the 2 girls each had litters (the younger came from the older's litters and we decided to keep her when my dad fell in love). So I think the last litter we had, maybe 15 years ago, there was a complication and basically one puppy got all the in utero nourishment and the others didn't develop. It was sad, though the one puppy that lived was enormous and well developed.

Enough so that when doing check ups, our vet and her husband, who had some involvement in the show dog and field dog arena, told us they wanted him. Eventually it turned out he didn't have a field dog's disposition and somehow he wound up with a guy who worked at Walter Reed- And so he became Deuce the therapy dog for wounded soldiers and it was good. They even wrote some articles about him (and other dogs there). I remember getting a link to the NY Times piece that indicated he had inherited his mother's preternatural treat radar.