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How Do You Determine A Dogs Age?


moosepup
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Please excuse me if this is a dumb question but... how do you determine a dogs age? I spend quite a bit of time looking at rescue sites and I wonder how they determine some of the dog's ages, especially those that have just been found wondering or dumped. Is it just a guess or is there a way to get pretty close?

I think if they found my Zoe wondering around (dog forbid) noone would think she was nearly 11!

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Not sure exactly, but have seen a couple of dogs adopted as being around 18 months and they were wayyy older than that!

One had a heart murmer(in a breed that it is not at all common) was completely grey and arthritic! He was more like 8 to 10 than 18 months.

I have also recently seen a 14 week old "pup" with a full set of adult teeth - canine were not 100% through but pretty close!

I have always taken the ages on roaming rescues as a guesstimate.

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Hmm that was my concern. Eventually I would like to get another dog closer to Moose's age to keep him company and I'd like for it to be a rescue but I wouldn't want to get a 10 year old dog advertised as 1 year old!

Edited by moosepup
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Age is just a guess as is the breed in many cases. If they think that they look like a cross of two breeds they are listed as a cross of the most popular of those breeds. Half the time they have no idea what they are. When I worked for a shelter the boss asked me to look at a dog that the pound had brought in because it had a tatto number in it's ear. She had seen the dog and agreed with the pound staff that it might be a deerhound ot an elkhound :) . I went and had a look and it was in fact a pure bred foxhound :D . Now the only thing these three breeds have in common is that they are in the hound group. We did eventually find the owners who thought their dog was a beagle cross. :)

If they can't even work out an obvious pure bred dog breed they have no hope of working out ages acurately.

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Estimating age of rescue dogs (as with breed) is a guess, but it is an educated guess, and can be quite accurate. The development of the teeth and also the development of the skeleton occur along consistent timelines with clear milestones, and up to about 5 months, age can be estimated to an accuracy of about a week. Up to 12 months, its not too hard to get age accurate to about a month, then after that it can get blurry.

Considering a rescued dogs condition (especially the condition of its teeth), the amount of grey on its face, the clarity of its eyes all help, though these have to be weighed up against what we know of its background - ie, a young dog can have old looking teeth if its had a diet involving a lot of tinned food, or enjoys catching sticks in mid air. Illness can also prematurely age a dog. Conversely, a well cared for dog can have young looking teeth even when old. My 16 year old weimeraner has gorgeous choppers - shame about the rest of her. Grey on face can be misleading too as some colours and breeds seem to grey up younger than others. I have a black and tan dog who at 11 is just starting to go grey, whereas my all-tan dog went grey at about 5 years old.

In my experience, vets use the same methods of estimating age as rescuers do, and are often no more accurate.

Its not impossible to be reasonably accurate in aging rescued dogs - though I agree there are some pretty old looking rescue dogs around listed as pretty young. I have found it cuts the other way too.

Edited by KKDD
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You use a thermometer to check their "date".

My old girl Lady was a rescue from rspca 11 years ago she did have bad teeth which would of made it hard to correctly tell her age, card on pen said she was 8, but I was prepared to take her at that age anyway so didn't worry me, but when I took her to my vet he said that in his opinion she was between 5 and 6, and was probably right as if she was 8 then she probably wouldn't still be around today. Told Rspca vet that at an open day and he said yeah that sounds about right, but have known other people that got dogs from shelters and were older than what they were supposed to be , but I suppose if you really like the dog then age won't matter.post-31607-1262650492_thumb.jpg

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Of course, or you may prefer the other method - you count their rings. That's why all dogs in shelters are 1.

Yeh, great, ta. And that is spot on, and now I know why it always sounds like the shelters are just ar*ing at a guess.

:)

Edited by dyzney
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Why don't you buy a pure bred and then you will know it's age, sire and dam. You will also know what it is going to end up looking like. :)

Just a thought.

Cheers

Because I'd like to give a dog that hasn't had a loving home (like my purebred has) a second chance at life. They deserve one as much as a purebred no? :thumbsup:

Knowing Moose's sire, dam, actual birthdate etc etc doesn't have any bearing on the type of dog he is. Besides, any dog I get from rescue, be it pure or not will more than likely be aged over a year. I'm pretty sure at that age they look a lot like they're going to look for the next 10 years. Sigh... this has nothing to do with my question anyway.

Edited by moosepup
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When I saw Tilly's profile on the pound website it said 1-2 years and we were looking for a dog that was about that age. The pound couldn't take her out of the cage the first day we met her, so it wasn't all that easy to tell how old she was. On the day we picked her up we saw her out of her cage for the first time and one of the first things my dad and I said to each other was that she was just a puppy. At that time the girl at the pound said she was about 8-9 months old, and we were asked to pick her birth date to go on the form. When Tilly was desexed by our vet about a 10 days later, after operating on her the vet said that she would have been no older than 8 months and that she'd never gone into heat before.

When we first got her, a guy working at our house said that her coat was 'puppy fur'...i'd never heard this, but Tilly's coat changed colour and texture.

Her first day here:

DSC06502.jpg

Can't remember exactly when this was taken...maybe a few months after but you can see how much her coat changed:

IMG_0675.jpg

Physically she changed quite a bit...to me she looks very much like a pup in the older photos that I have her in comparison to how she looks now.

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