How to determine the age of the dog in the teeth in five minutes

You need to know everything about your pet. After all, it depends on you the health of your friend. But what if you sheltered the dog from the street or just took her out of the shelter? Since the majority of people can determine the age of the dog only according to the documents, this important information can forever remain under cover of secrecy. Contrary to popular belief, there are many ways that will help you find out how old your pet is. In this article we will tell you how to determine the age of a dog without having any documents.

Common methods for determining the age of dogs

Specialists in cases when the animal has got into the shelter, and information about its origin is not, determine the age of the dog in the teeth. In order to get an idea of how much your little shaggy friend tramples on the ground, it is enough to know only certain patterns of the appearance and change of milk teeth.

Dog Age Chart

Most dogs live for twelve to fifteen years, but there are individuals at the age of twenty. The most real record holder was a Japanese dog named Puske - she lived for twenty-six years and eight months. According to the Russian system of calculation (one canine year is equated to seven human), her age was estimated at 182 years. But the Japanese experts work on a slightly different scheme - officially the dog was "painted" one hundred and twenty-five years. Interesting fact: until the very last days Puske felt just fine, the only problems with the dog's health happened when she got under the car a few years before her death.

Specialists distinguish several age groups in dogs:

• Puppies (less than eight weeks old);
• Young dogs (under the age of eighteen months);
• Adult dogs (over one and a half years old).

Features of the dog's dentition

To know how to determine the age of a dog in the teeth, you must have a basic understanding of the location of the teeth. The dogs have forty-two teeth: twelve incisors, four canines, a pair of false teeth on the lower jaw and twenty-four molars on both jaws. However, in our days, anomalies are increasingly encountered, when the number of teeth can vary in large or, conversely, the smaller side. The dog's tooth formula is expressed by the following figures:

• For the upper jaw: 6 - 2 - 8 - 4;
• For the lower jaw: 6 - 2 - 8 - 6.
  

Note: the first digit indicates the number of incisors, the second - the canine teeth, the third - the molars, the so-called premolars (milk predecessors), and the fourth figure is the number of molars - permanent teeth.

Basic principles

The principle of determining the age of a puppy or a dog is based on the basic laws of eruption of the milk teeth, their erasure, and then the appearance of permanent teeth and their erasure. Of course, there are no teeth in newborn puppies. In older individuals, teeth are erased in different ways, it all depends on the nutrition and health of the animal. In determining the age of the dog, the incisors play the most noticeable role - each such tooth (more precisely, its crown) is represented by three points (margins, teeth, points). It is important to remember that in most cases, both lateral incisors wear out over time, so that they simply disappear.

Determining the age of the puppy in the teeth

As mentioned earlier, puppies are born toothless. The first milk teeth and fangs appear on them on the twentieth or even twenty-fifth day of life. Root teeth erupt in a small animal right between the first and second month of life.

Constant teeth young dog, like a man, acquires gradually. First, the incisors change, and then the so-called false teeth. When the dog is eleven months old, no milk tooth is guaranteed. When the dog turns one year old, she sparkles directly with a Hollywood smile for all forty-two. It is this period that we will consider as a turning point - since the age of the dog can be determined from this moment only by the intensity of the erosion of the tubercles on the incisors, and also by the grinding of the canines.

Can I determine the age of the dog by other principles?

Of course yes! But the trouble with all these methods is that they are all too well approximated.

So, for a dog of twelve years is characteristic:

• Gray hair on the face. The older the dog, the more gray. And this gray can appear in six or seven years. From six to twelve - wow the spread of the indicators, is not it?
• Deeply set, dim eyes.
• Unrefined pupils. There may be problems with eyesight.
• Soft back, lowered abdomen.
• Corns on the elbows and hock.
• Dull, tousled hair.

Now you know how to determine the age of the dog. As you can see, there are no difficulties in this process, even a person without special training can easily cope with this. The only thing you should always consider is the fact that up to a year many indicators can vary greatly.