Puppy weight tracker

How to use the puppy weight tracker

1. Enter your puppy's birth date. Every weigh-in is turned into an exact age from it.
2. Choose what to compare against: the latest weigh-in (the tracker estimates the adult weight for you), a breed, or an adult weight you already expect.
3. Add each weigh-in with its date. Entering a second weight on the same date replaces the first.
4. Check the chart and the log after each weigh-in, and export a CSV before vet visits.

Your log is saved in this browser only, so it is private but also easy to lose: export it from time to time. The growth curves come from our analysis of the open data behind a 2017 PLOS ONE study by Salt and colleagues: 318,751 weigh-ins of 92,907 healthy purebred dogs, each compared with its own adult weight. The puppy growth chart explains them in more detail.

How often should you weigh a puppy?

WALTHAM, whose puppy growth charts come out of the same research, recommends:

The tracker shows this window as "Next weigh-in" after each entry. Weighing more often does no harm, but a single reading can be thrown off by a meal, a drink or the scale, so look at the trend rather than one number.

Reading your puppy's growth chart

The orange line is the typical (median) weight for a puppy heading for the adult weight you chose, the darker band the middle half of puppies and the pale band eight in ten. Each dot is one of your weigh-ins. A puppy can sit anywhere in the bands and be perfectly healthy.

The shape is what counts. WALTHAM's advice is that a puppy following a centile line, or the space between two lines, is growing healthily, and that the important thing is not to cross two lines. The tracker labels each weigh-in with its band and warns you if your puppy has moved two or more bands since the first one. When comparing against the latest weigh-in, the newest dot always sits on the median by design, so watch how the earlier dots line up behind it.

How much weight should a puppy gain per week?

Typical weekly gain on the median curve, by expected adult weight. Small dogs gain ounces a week; giants gain pounds.

The fastest gains come around 3 to 4 months, then the curve flattens. If you don't know what adult weight to expect, the puppy weight calculator estimates it from a single weigh-in.

When to call the vet about your puppy's weight

• Your puppy weighs less than at the previous weigh-in, and it isn't a scale error.
• It has stopped gaining for more than one weigh-in while still young.
• It has crossed two or more bands on the chart, up or down.
• It looks thin (ribs and hip bones easy to see) or round (no waist, ribs hard to feel). Our body condition score checker walks you through the hands-on check.
• Weight changes come with poor appetite, vomiting, diarrhea or low energy.

AAHA's nutrition guidelines name growth as a life stage that needs extra attention and list an unexplained weight change as a reason for a fuller nutritional check. A CSV export of your log makes that conversation with your vet much easier.