Signs of Teething
Chewing, chewing and more chewing! Teething puppies will want to chew anything and everything – and so it is up to us to teach where to safely and appropriately direct this natural and inevitable behaviour. You might sometimes notice a small amount of blood on items your puppy has been chewing, or you may even occasionally find one of your puppy’s baby teeth on the ground after it has fallen out, although they are most often swallowed!
How long does teething last?
Whilst in children, signs of teething are usually only observed during the eruption of the baby teeth, it is very common to experience behaviour patterns related to teething in growing puppies right up until they have their full set of permanent teeth. The time taken to reach this point varies between breeds, but the permanent teeth are usually fully erupted by approximately 7 months of age. Generally speaking, I find that teeth in large breed dogs erupt sooner than those in small breed dogs.
At What Age Do Puppies Get Their Permanent Teeth?
“The permanent teeth start to erupt as soon as the baby teeth start to fall out,” Dr. Bannon says.
Dr. Alexander Reiter, head of the Dentistry and Oral Surgery Service at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, says that the permanent teeth can start to appear at 2 months:
2-5 months: incisors
5-6 months: canine teeth
4-6 months: premolars
4-7 months: molars (these only come in as part of the permanent set)
By the time a dog is 7 or 8 months old, they should have all of their permanent teeth—a total of 42 adult teeth in all.
Teething is a months-long process. It starts when puppies are around 2 weeks old and their first baby teeth start to come in and usually ends at around 8 months of age, when all the adult teeth are fully erupted.
During this time, puppies will need to chew on appropriate items to relieve the discomfort associated with teething.
The chewing during a puppy’s teething period is also a way for them to explore their environment and relieve boredom.
Puppy Teething Timeline: When Do Puppies Get Teeth
So, you’ve brought your little fluff ball home and everything is perfect. They are adorable, healthy, bright-eyed and ready to be your best friend. Right now, they love to mouth on you and explore everything around them gum-first. At some point, that adorable habit of gentle mouthing will become a full-fledged craze, leading you to lock up shoes, couches, and electric cables in an effort to keep the gnawing at bay.
Puppies are known for their destructive chewing, and with good reason, but surviving this stage of your partnership can be a trial for even experienced trainers. Whether you are preparing to bring another pup home at some point or you are in the middle of battling the sharp-toothed puppy year, here is some information to get you through the worst of it:
Dogs go through developmental stages as they grow, the same as humans. When they are young, a large part of their life is devoted to exploring and learning to interact with their surroundings. Just like with babies, puppies learn best by sticking everything in their mouths. Also, just like babies, the behaviors puppies learn during this period are the habits that are most likely to stay with them for life. By sticking things in their mouths, puppies learn a lot about an object: what it tastes like, what it does when interacted with, if they are encouraged to chew an item they will learn that it is something to be rough with, and they will remember to prefer that texture. By chewing, puppies are learning.
Most puppies have their first experiences with bite etiquette when with their siblings in a litter. They learn that chewing other living creatures (their brothers and sisters) often results in high pitched squealing and sometimes bites or pushes when they are too rough. As a very young puppy, typically from birth to ten to twelve weeks, they are learning how to interact with others and how to moderate their bite and playfulness. Many puppies separated from their litter too soon or who were not well-socialized from a young age will learn to bite humans and other animals without restraint. Sometimes, new human families encourage this behavior by allowing the puppy to bite their fingers when they are young because it is considered cute, but don’t realize puppies will continue to bite long after their teeth get sharp and their bite gets too hard. This is just another reason to remember not to adopt a puppy who is too young as they won’t have learned to moderate their bite, and to keep in mind that all dogs grow up with behaviors they learned in the playpen.
Another consideration to take into account for this time period is that puppies also lose their baby teeth around four months of age. Chewing is often a reaction to the pain of new teeth coming in, and an unconscious effort to encourage old teeth to loosen. While puppies won’t just chew at four months of age, the worst of it is likely to happen then.
Puppy chewing is often only associated with the very young, typically when they are less than six months of age. Those who have had a few dogs around know, though, that dogs’ bodies can look very mature when they don’t quite have all the mature inhibitions of their adult counterparts. While a dog may look grown on the outside, they will keep their puppy behaviors and lack of impulse control for up to a year and a half, depending on the breed. The stages of puppy chewing can be determined by the development of their teeth: