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Adopting a puppy is one of the most lifechanging things you can do. It doesn’t have to be a puppy, it can be a cat too, it depends on what kind of person you are. But it is, without a doubt, one of the most significant events in your life. it’s the moment you decide to be responsible for someone other than yourself. In many ways, it’s like becoming a parent, but with less responsibility. As a parent of a human child, you’re responsible for making sure the child grows into a productive, and successful member of society.
As a parent of a furbaby, you’re responsible for making sure they’re fed, walked, and otherwise content. And that can, surprisingly, take up a lot of time. Not in the conventional sense, but I mean that you’ll think you’re still in your first week of raising a furbaby ad then suddenly, bam! You’re twelve months in and your little baby is no longer so little. A Twitter user by the name Dre D’usse started a trend where he showed his puppy at two months old vs seven months old. The internet absolutely exploded.
Source: Twitter
PetMD outlined very important things when it comes to raising a puppy!
Most dogs’ growth plates close at around 9 to 11 months of age, the doctors say. By that point you should have a good sense of your dog’s ultimate height and length, with giant breeds growing until they are a little over a year old, O’Bell says. Smaller dogs reach full growth a bit sooner, between six and eight months, Rooney says.
“Many medium and large breed dogs retain a ‘juvenile’ appearance for their first one to two years of life, but technically they aren’t still growing,” O’Bell says. So, although your dog’s demeanor and behavior can still appear juvenile, and sometimes their features retain that “puppy” look (with a coat of soft hair, rounded facial features and ears and a narrower chest), your dog should no longer be growing after it turns two.
If you know the breed of your dog or, better yet, the parents of your pup, you can estimate how large your dog will be from that, Rooney says. Otherwise, it can be tough. One of the best predictors of ultimate stature are your dog’s siblings, O’Bell says. If you can check out a previous litter of the same sire and dam, you will get a glimpse of your dog’s future size. “For purebreds, there are some general ranges available, so your dog’s ultimate size shouldn’t be a huge surprise,” she adds.
Unfortunately, while pet parents are quick to comment on the size of a puppy’s paws and ears, they don’t tell us much about how big a dog will be. “We often comment about how big a puppy’s paws or ears are, but these are not reliable indicators,” O’Bell says. Rooney agrees that, while a puppy can have ears or paws that seem too large or small for their frame at the time, they don’t indicate how big that puppy will become.
What about you? Do you have a puppy that suddenly grew up in a matter of months? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
