How Big Will My Puppy Get?

Whether we are shopping for a pet door, a dog bed, or just wondering, we have lots of questions about our dog's size. How big will my furry friend get as they become fully grown? When do puppies stop growing? How big will my adult dog get? Are puppy weight calculators even accurate?

These questions aren't easily answered by a quick Google search, especially if you have a mixed breed puppy (you typically know what you're going to get with a purebred puppy). Measurements like your puppy's weight and paw size can help you predict their adult-size. However, dog breeds are not all made equal-- small breeds, medium breeds, large breeds, and giant breeds all mature at different paces.

There's a lot of variation that can impact how big your little puppy with get. While predicting a puppy's adult weight and height is not an exact science, there are a few ways to predict future growth and estimated full size with reasonable confidence.

In this guide, you'll find:

• How to Tell How Big Your Puppy Will Get
• How Long Do Dogs Take To Be Full-Grown?
• What Factors Does Puppy Size Depend On?
• Predicting Puppy Size By Breed
• Mikey's Growth Results
• How Much Will My Dog Weigh If They’re a Mutt?

How to Tell How Big Your Puppy Will Get

Predicting the size of your puppy requires a few basic steps:

1. 1. Weigh your new puppy
   2. Once you have established their current weight, go to puppychart.com
   3. Select your puppy's breed from the list of dog breeds (approximate is ok)
   4. Select your dog’s birthday to reflect weeks of age or months of age (approximate is ok)
   5. Enter the date and weight from the last time you weighed your dog
   6. See the puppy weight chart and projected adult size

The free website PuppyChart.com is a neat way to predict your puppy's adult weight by comparing their current size with historical data of other dogs from the same breed. This means that dogs from larger breeds will be ranked against their own breed while small dogs like terriers will be ranked against other terriers.

While the tool isn't an exact indication of what your puppy's adult size will be, it's a fun way to at least get in the ballpark! Factors such as differing height and weight gain are not reflected in the weight calculator (or adult height), so it's important to keep in mind that it's not a comprehensive indication of your dog's specific growth rate, and could change for naturally larger dogs.

How Long Do Dogs Take To Be Full-Grown?

Puppies are officially considered adults when they are one year old, but dogs can continue growing past that mark. Depending on your dog’s breed, your puppy will stop growing when they are anywhere from six to 24 months old.

What Factors Does Puppy Size Depend On?

There isn’t a lot that be done to transform a lapdog into a German Shepherd, but there are a few factors beyond genetics that can affect how big your puppy will grow up to be:

Predicting Puppy Size By Breed

Generally, you can predict how big your dog will be based on their breed. But this may get hardened if they are a mutt. Luckily, if your dog is a mix between two breeds from the same weight range, you can usually depend on them falling in that weight range as well.

Here’s a chart for each dog breed’s weight range.

Mikey's Growth Results

Let's put the puppy growth calculator to the test! As curious pet parents, we've weighed our border collie puppy Mikey frequently since getting her in July so we can look into how quickly PuppyChart’s projection stabilizes.

When we first took Mikey home, she was only an 8.2lb ball of fluff and cuteness. At that number of weeks (57 days), PuppyChart predicted she would be only 29.3 lbs at maturity, which is a bit on the smaller end for her pooch breed. Remarkably, even though we weighed Mikey 26 more times her PuppyChart projection remained largely consistent, fluctuating between 28.9 and 33.6 lbs and usually in the 31-32 range as shown in red in the graph below.

Mikey’s still only a little over 5 months and still has some more growing to do, but so far it really looks like she’s headed to become about 32 lbs. The PuppyChart projection means that even at only 8 weeks, you can get a pretty good idea of how big your dog will grow. What a great way to see how big my dog would get. Now I know what size of dog door, bed, and crate to get for Mikey!

How Much Will My Dog Weigh If They’re a Mutt?

Well, that’s a bit harder. You could probably average the puppy growth chart projections based on each breed component to get an idea. Another fun thing you could do with rescues is to work backward to figure your dog’s actual birthday. If you rescued a dog that was only 20 lbs and later grew to be 65 lbs, you can work backward to extrapolate that your puppy was about 11 weeks when you got her!

Looking for an alternative weight calculator? The American Kennel Club has a breed weight chart for a huge list of small dogs and large dogs (from Chihuahuas and Beagles to Mastiffs and Great Danes). This chart is a nice quick way to see just how big dogs can get!

Did you do this test or another method? What do you think is the best dog-size calculator? Tell us your thoughts!

Predicting your puppy's size as an adult isn't just for fun as it can be necessary when buying things like dog beds, dog food, or pet doors. PetDoors.com has dozens of brands of pet doors for every breed and every installation type.