Animals, like us humans, also age and do so faster than us. What are the most noticeable signs of the passage of time? How can I know how old a dog is if I don't know exactly when he was born? This question is very common in adopted animals.
On our site we want to help you so that you can answer this question yourself, without having to go to a veterinarian. There are very notorious signs that allow us to know how to know the age of a dog and here we will tell you about them.
A dog year equals 7 human years?
For years, many people tried to find out the age of the dog in human years, however, it is not a reliable source to determine the degree of old age of the dog and it is also not useful to know its age if we don't know it.
What happens if we want to celebrate his birthday but we don't know what number to put on the cake? It is usually very difficult for us to know the exact age and, sometimes, we make a mistake thinking that, because it has gray hair, the dog is over 6 years old. Not all races age in the same way, but there is one detail that can never lie to us. Do you know what we're talking about?
How to know the age of a puppy
We will begin by highlighting that they are the teeth will reveal the age of our dog. However, in the case of puppies it is even more important to know their age, even more than in adults, since depending on it we will know if they should drink milk or if they already eat solid food. The best thing is to open your mouth, but there are other data that will help us:
- From 7 to 15 days of life: At this stage, puppies have no teeth. They are guided by tactile stimuli since their eyes and ears are still closed. At this stage they have several reflex or involuntary responses, pure stimulation. We will have the sucking reflex that, when bringing something close to their lips, they will take it and press as if it were a breast to obtain their food. In the case of the perineal reflex, the mother would be in charge of activating it by licking, but we can gently tap on the anus to see that it closes and opens without problems, and the excavation reflex where they push any surface looking for the warmth of their mother and her moms.
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From 15 to 21 days of life: Upper incisors (there are 6) and fangs (there are 2) of milk appear. In small breeds they usually take longer. At this stage they open their eyes and ears. The reflections disappear and they already walk, looking for mischief and their food. They will still drink milk but the teeth that had not yet appeared begin to appear. 15 and 21 days). Then the rest evolve and after months of life they will change for the definitive ones that are 42 pieces.
- From 21 to 30 days of life: the lower incisors and jaw canines appear.
- From one month of life up to 3 months: here the wear of milk teeth or scraping occurs. Remember that milk teeth are finer and squarer than permanent teeth, which will be somewhat more rounded until they are scratched or worn.
- At 4 months: we will observe the eruption of the permanent central incisors, and they will be present in both jaws.
- Up to 8 months: permanent change of all incisors and fangs.
- Until one year old: all the permanent incisors have erupted. They will be very white and with rounded edges or "fleur de lis" as they are known. The definitive fangs are also found.
How to know the age of an adult dog
- From a year and a half to two and a half years old: We can see a wear or scuffing of the lower central incisors, which will start to display a more square shape.
- From 3 to four and a half years old: We will notice that the 6 lower incisors will become square, mainly due to wear.
- From 5 to 6 years of life: the wear of the upper incisors due to scratching will be evident, ours is in the previous years to old age.
- From 6 years of age: a greater wear of all the teeth will be observed, there is more tartar and the fangs too they become more square than pointed. They can also lose pieces, but it will depend on our dog's diet and the lifestyle they lead. From this moment the dog prepares to enter its old age stage, which begins at 7 years of life.
If despite reading this article you still don't know how to identify the age of your dog, be it an adult or a puppy, don't hesitate to go to your vettrusted.
