Dogs stop growing at different ages depending on how big they will end up, and “stopped growing” means two different things that finish at two different times. Height is usually done first. Weight keeps moving afterwards, and telling the last of the growth apart from ordinary weight gain is harder than most charts admit. This page gives the ages from the published growth research, and is honest about where its own numbers stop being able to answer the question.
When do dogs stop growing?
Very small dogs reach maturity between 8 and 12 months of age, while larger breeds can require up to 24 months to reach adult bodyweight, according to Salt and colleagues, whose growth standards were built from the bodyweight records of more than six million young dogs. That is the answer for skeletal growth, and it is the reason large-breed puppy food exists as a separate category: a dog still building frame at eighteen months has different requirements from one that finished at nine.
Bodyweight is a slower and messier signal than height. The table below gives the age at which the median growth curve for each size class reaches 90% and 95% of adult bodyweight, calculated from the same dataset.
| Size class | Adult weight | 90% of adult weight | 95% of adult weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toy | under 5 kg (11 lb) | 11 mo (male), 12 mo (female) | 14 mo (male), 17 mo (female) |
| Small | 5–11 kg (11–24 lb) | 10 months | 13 mo (male), 14 mo (female) |
| Medium | 11–23 kg (24–51 lb) | 9 mo (male), 10 mo (female) | 13 mo (male), 14 mo (female) |
| Large | 23–41 kg (51–90 lb) | 9 mo (male), 10 mo (female) | 13 months |
| Giant | over 41 kg (90 lb) | 11 months | 14 months |
Height stops before weight does
A dog reaches its adult shoulder height before it reaches its adult weight, and the gap between the two is months, not weeks. Once the long bones have finished, the dog carries on broadening: chest, neck and hindquarters fill out, and muscle continues to develop with exercise well into the second year. An owner measuring height would conclude the dog finished growing long before an owner watching the scale would.
This matters for reading any growth chart, including the ones on this site. A puppy that has stopped gaining height but is still gaining weight has not stalled and is not necessarily overeating. It is doing the normal second half of growing up.
What these growth curves cannot separate
The curves behind this site measure bodyweight as a proportion of weight at 24 months. That definition has a consequence worth stating plainly: the curve cannot tell growth apart from weight gain. If a dog finishes growing at twelve months and then puts on fat, the curve records the same upward line either way.
The effect is visible in the table above. Large breeds reach 95% of adult weight at about 13 months while toy breeds take until 14 to 17 months, which reads as though small dogs grow for longer. They do not. The likelier explanation is that small dogs keep gaining weight after growth has finished — and the source records support that reading, because body condition was unrecorded for 93% of the dogs in the dataset, so an unknown number of them were overweight without it being noted. For the same reason, the figures here stop at 95%: the last few percent of the curve are the part most likely to be fat rather than growth.
How to tell that your own dog has finished
The trend across several weighings answers this better than any table can. Weigh the dog on the same scale every two to four weeks and write the figure down. Growth has finished when the line has been flat across two or three consecutive weighings, whatever age that happens at. A single reading tells you almost nothing, because a full bladder and a large meal together can move a small dog by several percent.
Once the line is flat, the question changes from growth to condition. Weight gained after growth stops is muscle or fat, and the way to tell which is to feel the ribs rather than read the scale — the body condition score is a nine-point scale for exactly this. To see where a dog sits against others of its adult size while it is still growing, the puppy weight calculator works from its current age and weight, and the puppy growth chart by age gives the month-by-month ranges for all five size classes.
Breed weight charts
Breed weight charts give the month the curve levels off for one breed, alongside its month-by-month weight ranges. Five breeds, one from each size class, show the spread; the rest are on the breed weight charts page.
Frequently asked questions
When do dogs stop growing?
Most dogs stop growing in height between 8 and 12 months for very small breeds, while larger breeds can take up to 24 months to reach adult bodyweight (Salt et al., 2017). Weight settles later than height in every size class: a dog can be at its full shoulder height for months while still filling out across the chest and back.
At what age is a dog fully grown?
It depends on which measurement you mean. Height is usually finished first. Bodyweight reaches 90% of its adult figure between 9 and 12 months depending on size class, and 95% between 13 and 17 months. The last few percent are the hardest to interpret, because at that stage weight gained may be muscle or fat rather than growth.
Do large dogs really take longer to stop growing?
For height and skeletal development, yes — this is well established and is why large-breed puppy diets exist. For bodyweight the picture is less tidy. In the growth curves behind this site, large breeds reach 95% of adult weight at about 13 months while toy breeds take until 14 to 17 months. That is not evidence that toy dogs grow for longer; it more likely reflects small dogs continuing to gain weight after they have finished growing.
How can I tell my own dog has stopped growing?
Weigh the dog on the same scale every two to four weeks and look at the trend rather than any single reading. Growth has finished when the line has been flat for two or three consecutive weighings. If weight is still climbing after that point, body condition rather than the calendar is the thing to check.
Does neutering affect when a dog stops growing?
This page does not answer that. The growth data behind this site does not record neuter status at the time of each weighing, so nothing here can distinguish neutered from entire dogs. It is a question for your vet, who can weigh it against the other reasons for the timing of the procedure.
Where these figures come from
The maturity ages quoted at the top of this page are Salt and colleagues’ own wording. The month-by-month figures in the table are calculated from the growth centile curves published alongside that study, which were built from bodyweight records collected at US primary-care veterinary practices between 1994 and 2013. The derived table, the filtering steps and the known gaps are published in full, including the body condition limitation described above. Nothing on this page is a figure this site has estimated.