Sources & data

Every estimate on PuppySize traces back to the references below. Designer and hybrid breeds are not AKC-recognized; their ranges reflect veterinary and registry consensus, not official standards, and are inherently less precise than purebreds.

• Salt C, Morris PJ, German AJ, Wilson D, Lund EM, Cole TJ, et al. (2017). Growth standard charts for monitoring bodyweight in dogs of different sizes. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0182064
  The peer-reviewed study (a retrospective analysis of over 6 million young dogs) that established the size-class growth-curve method and released the underlying data. Open under CC BY 4.0.
• Open dataset: Salt et al. 2017 supporting data (University of Liverpool DataCat)
  The actual bodyweight-and-age records. We filtered these to ~89,000 healthy dogs aged 2–24 months and computed our own per-size-class growth percentiles (median and range) from them. Used under CC BY 4.0.
• WALTHAM Petcare Science Institute
  The research institute that produced this data. Its own clinical puppy growth charts are a separate product; our curves are derived directly from the open dataset above.
• American Kennel Club (AKC): Official Breed Standards
  Adult weight/height ranges for recognized purebreds (e.g. Dachshund, Chihuahua).
• Goldendoodle Association of North America (GANA)
  Variant size definitions for Goldendoodles (Petite, Miniature, Medium, Standard).
• PetMD, Daily Paws, Hill's Pet
  Veterinary-reviewed consensus ranges for designer and hybrid breeds not covered by an official standard. Each breed page deep-links the specific page used.

See also how we turn this data into an estimate.

Contains data from Salt C, et al. (2017), Growth standard charts for monitoring bodyweight in dogs of different sizes, PLoS ONE 12(9): e0182064, and the associated University of Liverpool dataset (doi:10.17638/datacat.liverpool.ac.uk/377), used under CC BY 4.0.