It is important for any owner to know the age of their animal - for breeding work, to prescribe the right treatment, and just out of curiosity. If you find a dog on the street, or the documents, which indicate the date of birth of the animal, are lost, you will have to determine the age by external signs.
Instructions
Step 1
Pay attention to the teeth of the animal, because it is by them that you will determine the age.
Step 2
With puppies, the easiest thing is, because by the teeth their age can be determined literally up to weeks. At birth, puppies do not have teeth at all, they begin to erupt on the 20-25th day, and the incisors and canines on the lower jaw appear several days later than the upper ones. When the puppy is one month old, he already has all the front teeth.
Step 3
When a puppy is very small, there are three shamrock-shaped projections on the crowns of its incisors. Later, the "shamrocks" on milk teeth begin to disappear. On the toes (that is, the front incisors) of the lower jaw, they disappear in two and a half months, on the middle teeth of the lower jaw - at the age of three to three and a half months, and on the edges (posterior incisors) of the lower jaw - by four months. These times may vary slightly depending on the nutritional quality of the puppy and the lactating bitch.
Step 4
Between four and five months of age, the puppies begin to change their baby teeth. All teeth on both the upper and lower jaw change almost simultaneously. The change of incisors usually occurs within a month, and by five to six months canines appear, and the mandibular ones are 10-12 days later than the maxillary ones. When assessing the age of a puppy, do not forget that large dogs are ahead of small ones in development. Also, from poor nutrition in a puppy, the change of teeth may be delayed.
Step 5
So, at the age of about a year, the dog has a full set of teeth. The teeth are white, shiny, and have not yet begun to wear off. However, by the age of eighteen months, the hooks of the lower jaw begin to wear off. By the age of two, they are already worn out, and the middle ones are beginning to wear off. By the age of two and a half, the middle incisors are also worn out, the teeth begin to fade.
Step 6
From the age of three, the hooks of the upper jaw also begin to wear off. You can see that the surface of the erased teeth is quadrangular.
Step 7
At the age of four, the middle incisors begin to wear off on the upper jaw, and at the age of five, the canines are erased and become blunt. At the age of six, the edges on the upper jaw of the dog no longer have protrusions. Canines turn yellow, covered with tartar at the base.
Step 8
At the age of seven, the hooks on the lower jaw take on an oval shape again. At the same time, the canines become completely blunt. At the age of eight to nine, the middle incisors on the lower jaw become oval, and at nine to ten years, the hooks on the upper jaw. The canines of an animal at this age are yellow.
Step 9
From ten to twelve years of age, the dog's teeth begin to fall out. However, this can also vary depending on the diet and conditions in which the animal was kept.
