When do puppies stop growing?

With such huge variations in dog breeds, it’s not surprising that there are also significant differences with their growth.

If you have a toy breed, such as Chihuahua or Shih Tzu, you’ll probably find that they have done nearly all their growing by six months. Medium to larger dogs take a bit longer, with Cockapoos becoming fully grown at around nine months, and dogs such as Labradors taking around a year to stop growing. And if your puppy is one of the giant breeds, like a Bernese Mountain dog, then they will continue to grow for anything up to two years! After they have reached this stage, your dog won’t grow any taller, but may still continue to fill out a little as their muscle and fat will still change.

Don’t panic if your puppy seems enormous early on – just like children, they will all have growth spurts interspersed with periods of time where their growth slows a little – and the extremely rapid growth rate of puppies will stop!

Although your puppy will continue growing for some time depending on its breed, most dogs (with the exception of toy and giant breeds) will weigh approximately two-thirds of their eventual adult weight by the time they are about six months old. Dogs are considered to be adults at one year old, despite the fact that some may still be growing.

How big will my puppy get?

There are many factors that influence your puppy's adult size, with breed being the most obvious one. If you have a purebred dog, you will be able to easily find out the likely size of your puppy by reading about the breed, and of course, your breeder will be able to give you lots of information.

When visiting your puppy before you buy them, always see the parents. This is essential when choosing a puppy anyway, but will also give you a good indication of your puppy’s adult size. Adult males are generally larger than females, but even within specific breeds there can be quite a bit of variation.

If your puppy is a crossbreed, it’s certainly a little harder to know how big they will grow. There’s no guarantee that your puppy will end up as an average of the two parents, and your puppy’s adult size may be quite different to what you expected!

It’s a relatively short time that your puppy will be small – enjoy the journey of watching your new family member grow into a healthy adult dog.