New-born pups might be adorably cute and tiny, but we all know they won’t stay that way for long! Let’s dive into a simple puppy growth chart to help new owners out!
All pups are different, and there’s no truly accurate way to predict precisely how tall or how heavy your dog is eventually going to be. However, based on their breeding, their parents’ size, and their gender, we can make a very good guess at it.
In this article, we help you figure out how to guess the final size of your puppy so that you can prepare your home for the not-so-distant future of adult doghood!
How big will my puppy get? Why is size so important?
There are many reasons to figure out the potential size your puppy could grow into - especially if you’re still in the process of preparing for their arrival at your home or are looking at different pups and choosing your favorite!
For starters, puppies grow up super quickly. One moment they’re tiny, teacup-sized pups; the next, they’re fully grown Retrievers bounding around the home. You need to know if your house can handle their size, if their crate will last long, or if they might be too small to get on with your other dogs!
Size is important, and you need to be able to tell the heaviest dog breed from the most petite pooches when you’re deciding which puppy to welcome into the family.
Luckily, there are several major determining factors that we can use as a sort of dog size chart to have a rough idea of how large your dog could get.
The most important factors are the following:
- Breed
- Parents
- Gender
- Neutering/Spaying
Let’s look at these specific factors in more detail to see why they are so defining.
Breed
The breed is the most important factor. This is your pup’s genetics, and due to a dog’s genes, there’s only ever a certain size or height they could ever reach!
You don’t need an intricate puppy weight calculator to tell you that a Jack Russel will be much, much smaller than a Golden Retriever when fully grown. That much we already know, and you can easily refine your puppy choice based on the breed.
However, not all owners are actually aware of their puppy’s exact breed, particularly if they are a cross or if you have no idea what the parents are. In this case, a more detailed puppy weight calculator (which we’ll get to below) will help!
Parents
Again, genetics really helps when you’re asking, ‘how heavy should my dog be when they grow up?’. If you know both of the pup’s parents, then you can get a great idea of their potential adult size from how large their mother and father are.
While breeding is the most critical deciding factor, individual Jack Russels or Golden Retrievers can vary significantly in size. An enormous Golden Retriever might be too large for your home, but a small Golden Retriever may be the perfect fit - taking a look at the parents can help you to decide if that pup really will be the right fit!
If both mom and dad are large dogs within their breed, chances are their pup will be pretty big, too.
Gender
Taking a look at the gender of your pup will also help you determine their growing potential!
While male and female dogs are often tricky to tell apart, there is still a visible separation when it comes to height and weight. Just like humans, female dogs are, on the whole, lighter and shorter than their male counterparts which tend to be stockier and taller.
Neutering/Spaying
If you know when your pup was either neutered or spayed, then you can also roughly estimate how much more they will continue to grow.
When do dogs stop growing?
Well, neutering and spaying dogs early on will slow down their growing process sooner than a dog that is neutered or spayed a few weeks or months later. The process alters the chemical and hormonal balance of a dog, thereby disrupting its growth patterns.
Puppy weight calculator (sizes by breed)
Of course, you might want a more accurate estimate of your pup’s potential size when they are fully grown, or you might not know their breeding or parents (particularly if they are a rescue puppy.)
In which case, you need a puppy weight calculator, which can provide a rough estimate of their fully grown size (again, these are estimates!) The simplest calculator takes into account a dog’s weight and age (in weeks.) The following formula works well if you don’t know the dog’s exact breeding:
Puppy weight divided by puppy age in weeks multiplied by 52.
52 (the number of weeks in a year) is a rough estimate of the time it takes to become a fully grown dog.
At 6 months, you can also get a rough estimate of your dog’s eventual height (although by this stage, you’ll likely already have them at home, and there’s no going back!) Follow this formula if you’re in this category:
Puppy height at 6 months multiplied by 100 and then divided by 75.
The science behind this formula is that most puppies are 75 percent of their final height by age 6 months.
Estimations by breed size
Of course, a dog weight calculator isn’t necessarily accurate. If you know the breed or at least have a rough idea of the cross (which most owners will), you can make more accurate size assumptions based on their breed size.
Dog breeds generally fall into five distinct size categories based on their weight as fully grown adults. Different sized dogs take different amounts of time to reach maturity, so we can use a particular dog’s weight at a certain age to make a more accurate size guess.
So, when is a dog full grown? It depends largely on their breed - smaller breeds take less time to mature to their adult size than larger breeds.
The five classifications are as follows:
- Toy Dogs (less than 12 pounds)
- Small Dogs (between 12 and 15 pounds)
- Medium Dogs (25 to 50 pounds)
- Large Dogs (50 to 100 pounds)
- Giant Dogs (any breed over 100 pounds)
If your pet poodle was bred as a Toy Poodle, it’s safe to assume that your pup will likely weigh more than 12 pounds, and you’re going to need a bed ramp for dogs for them to get around the home. If you’ve got yourself a giant dog (such as a Newfoundland), you can expect them to reach 150 pounds or more when they reach their adult weight!
You can complete a few calculations for more accurate weight measurements based on their age for each breed size. It’s pretty simple math!
Toy Dogs - weight at 6 weeks old multiplied by 4.
Small Dogs - weight at 6 weeks old multiplied by 4.
Medium Dogs - weight at 14 weeks old multiplied by 2, plus half of their weight at 14 weeks old.
Large Dogs - weight at 20 weeks old divided by their age in weeks, then multiplied by 52.
Giant Dogs - weight at 6 months old, multiplied by 2.
The final answer on puppy sizing
It’s impossible to accurately predict the final height and weight that your puppy will eventually reach; after all, this is really just guesswork!
Using our formulas above, though, you can get a rough estimate of the final size to help you make plans for their adult life - such as purchasing the right blanket or crate size - ahead of time.
Remember, though, that every dog is different. While different breeds have a rough adult size guide, your dog could be super small or much larger than usual, so prepare to be a flexible owner as they grow up. Science and nature can be a funny thing and nothing is ever 100% accurate!
If you’re looking to raise a puppy, why not bookmark our puppy dog sizing guide for future use?
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