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.
