While some of us get our sweet dogs at just eight weeks old with their exact date of birth available, when we adopt, we may be left wondering if our new dog is 3 or 7. Learn how to tell how old a dog is in dog years with our simple visual guide.
A Dog’s Age and Lifespan: How Long Do Dogs Live?
Our dogs become like children to us, with an unbreakable bond over their sweet life.
Unfortunately, our dogs don’t live as long as us – most tend to live 10 to 13 years, while certain breeds may live 20 long years, or a measly 3 or 4.
Here are all the phases experienced over any dog lifespan.
- The Puppy Stage. This growth stage usually lasts around 12 months but can be as short as 9 months for small breeds and as long as 2 or 3 years for larger ones.
- The Adult Stage. The adult dog stage is the prime of any dog’s life – it’s fully grown and not yet in declining health. Generally, it lasts from right after puppyhood until the age of 6 to 8 years old.
- The Senior Stage. This is the point after adulthood that a dog’s health slowly and naturally declines, eventually leading to death.
Dog Age Calculator: How Old is My Dog?
If you know how old your doggo is in human years, you can easily use some math for a simple calculator to switch those dog years to human years.
- If you own a small dog, multiply your dog’s age in human years by 6 to get its age in dog years.
- If you own a large dog, multiply your dog’s age in human years by 8 to get its age in dog years.
So a 6-year-old German Shepherd would be: 6 x 8 = 48 years old.
Determining a Dog’s Age By Physical Indicators
Some of us end up with dogs from unknown pasts, like adopted or rescue pups, and we have no idea how old they are with no records to prove one way or another.
At every stage of a dog’s life, some physical indicators can help you to get a better estimate of how old your dog might be. The estimates aren’t perfect by any means, but they can be reasonably accurate when used correctly.
#1: The Teeth Tell All
The teeth are one obvious way to tell the old dogs from the young pups.
A dog will have no teeth until their baby milk teeth come in at eight weeks. Around the 3.5 month mark, they get their adult teeth in and lose the babies, meaning if your puppy is toothless, they’re a young babe themselves!
Once a puppy develops its adult teeth, they’ll be white and beautifully clean for around a year before they start to dull. After the 1-year mark, a dog will have noticeable ridges and bumps over the tops of their four front incisor teeth.
At the age of three, a dog’s teeth start to show some wear and tear, tartar build-up, and dullness. Between 3 and 5 years old, the tartar increases, thickens, and darkens. Anytime after age five, a dog’s teeth tend to look well-worn, and the bumps on the incisors wear to a smooth finish.
#2: The Eyes See All
The eyes are the window to the canine soul, and you can tell how old that soul is by the state of those peepers.
Young doggos will have bright clear eyes as a pup, and many puppies even have lighter-colored eyes for a time. Brand-new puppies with light blue or grey eyes haven’t yet developed enough melanin in their bodies – over time, their eyes will darken.
A puppy’s eye color fully matures after 12 weeks, so if your pup has bright blue eyes, they’re very young.
As dogs age, we see some eye changes come along with it. Some older dogs develop cloudiness or thickening that may only be noticeable to you. If you notice either of these traits, your dog is likely a senior already.
#3: The Ears Hear All
Dogs tend to lose much of their hearing as they get older and enter the senior stage of life. If your dog still has sharp hearing, he’s likely not a senior yet, though, in some dogs, the decline is slower than in others.
#4: Dogs Get Grays Too
Like humans, dogs get gray hairs as they age, though they seem a lot less bothered by it than their human counterparts.
If you notice some gray hair in your dog’s coat, the pup is likely 7 to 10 years old and beyond. You’ll likely see the grays start to develop around the muzzle and chin areas. Gray hair can be genetic and stress-related, so you may see some younger dogs develop grays a little earlier if they’ve had a tough life.
Once your doggo has grays on his chest, face, legs, ears, and paws, he’s likely a full-blown senior citizen.
