Most puppy weight charts online are copies of each other, and none of them say where their numbers came from. The tables below come from our own growth model. That model is published in full and calibrated against breed charts. It is validated to a mean absolute error of 6.9%, the average gap between what it predicts and what a dog actually weighs.
We picked the breeds from the AKC’s most popular breeds of 2025. They cover the range from a 4 lb Chihuahua to a 143 lb Great Dane.
Smaller breeds: expected weight, males
| Age | Chihuahua | Yorkshire Terrier | Cavalier | French Bulldog | Dachshund | Beagle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 wk | 1.5 | 1.5 | 4 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 6 |
| 10 wk | 1.5 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 7.5 |
| 12 wk | 2 | 2.5 | 6 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 9 |
| 16 wk | 2.5 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 11 | 12 |
| 20 wk | 3 | 3.5 | 9.5 | 13.5 | 13.5 | 14.5 |
| 24 wk | 3.5 | 4 | 11 | 16 | 16 | 17 |
| 28 wk | 3.5 | 4.5 | 12 | 18 | 18 | 19.5 |
| 32 wk | 4 | 4.5 | 13 | 19.5 | 19.5 | 21 |
| 40 wk | 4 | 5 | 14.5 | 21.5 | 21.5 | 23 |
| 52 wk | 4.5 | 5.5 | 15.5 | 23 | 23 | 25 |
All figures in pounds. Dachshund here is the standard, not the miniature.
Larger breeds: expected weight, males
| Age | Poodle (Std) | Aus. Shepherd | Labrador | Golden Retriever | German Shepherd | Rottweiler | Great Dane |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 wk | 10.5 | 10.5 | 13 | 13.5 | 14.5 | 17.5 | 23.5 |
| 10 wk | 13 | 13 | 16.5 | 17 | 18.5 | 22.5 | 30 |
| 12 wk | 16 | 16 | 20 | 20.5 | 22.5 | 27.5 | 37 |
| 16 wk | 21.5 | 21.5 | 28 | 28.5 | 31.5 | 38.5 | 52.5 |
| 20 wk | 27.5 | 27.5 | 35 | 36.5 | 40 | 49.5 | 68 |
| 24 wk | 32.5 | 32.5 | 42 | 43.5 | 48 | 59.5 | 82.5 |
| 28 wk | 36.5 | 36.5 | 48 | 49.5 | 54.5 | 68 | 95 |
| 32 wk | 40 | 40 | 52.5 | 54.5 | 60 | 75 | 105.5 |
| 40 wk | 45 | 45 | 59.5 | 61.5 | 68 | 85.5 | 121 |
| 52 wk | 49 | 49 | 64.5 | 67 | 74.5 | 94 | 133.5 |
The Standard Poodle and Australian Shepherd columns are identical. Both breeds have the same adult midpoint in our dataset, 51.5 lb. That is not a mistake. It is how the model works: the curve depends on adult weight alone. Two breeds heading for the same adult size share a trajectory, whatever they look like.
For females, scale down
| Breed | Male midpoint | Female midpoint | Female as % of male |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chihuahua | 4.5 | 4.5 | 100% |
| Yorkshire Terrier | 5.5 | 5.5 | 100% |
| Cavalier | 16 | 15 | 94% |
| French Bulldog | 24 | 22 | 92% |
| Dachshund | 24 | 24 | 100% |
| Beagle | 26 | 23 | 88% |
| Poodle (Std) | 51.5 | 41.5 | 81% |
| Australian Shepherd | 51.5 | 42.5 | 83% |
| Labrador | 68.5 | 58 | 85% |
| Golden Retriever | 71 | 61 | 86% |
| German Shepherd | 79 | 64.5 | 82% |
| Rottweiler | 100 | 83 | 83% |
| Great Dane | 143 | 124.5 | 87% |
Multiply the male figure by the percentage in the last column. Across these breeds the female midpoint averages 89% of the male.
Two honest caveats. Where the ratio reads 100%, our source data records no separate female range for that breed. That is a gap in the data, not evidence that the sexes are the same. And the direction is not in doubt. Andersson and colleagues (2023) worked from 114,568 dogs across 72 breeds. They found a significant sex difference in 75% of breeds “with male dogs being more heavy in all breeds.”
The breed standards mostly do not give a weight
Something we did not expect, checking our dataset against the official AKC breed standards. Of the top 25 breeds, only 15 state a numeric weight at all. The German Shepherd, Poodle, Beagle, Rottweiler, Australian Shepherd, Doberman, Miniature Schnauzer, Boxer, Bernese Mountain Dog, Great Dane and Havanese standards specify height only. The Cane Corso standard says weight should be “proportionate to height” and gives no figure.
So for most large breeds there is no authoritative weight to look up. That is part of why weight charts vary so much between sites. The figures in our tables come from measured population data rather than breed standards, and the methodology page documents where each entry came from.
How to use a table like this without misusing it
The single most important thing: these are expectations for a breed-typical adult, not targets to hit.
Two-thirds of the value of weighing a puppy is in the line it traces, not the number. The WALTHAM growth chart guide is explicit: “any centile line (or space between two centile lines) can be considered a healthy weight for an individual puppy.” What warrants investigation is “any sustained drop or rise through two or more centile spaces.” A puppy on the 9th centile that stays on the 9th centile is a small, healthy dog.
That threshold is evidence-based. Salt and colleagues (2020) found centile crossing “uncommon in healthy dogs,” with fewer than 5% crossing more than two lines. Meanwhile 68% of dogs that became obese by three years had crossed two or more lines upward.
It also helps to know how much of the variation is simply inherited. Strandberg and colleagues (2023) put the heritability of bodyweight at around 51%, averaged across 19 breeds. Heritability is the share of the differences between dogs that traces back to their genes. So roughly half of why your puppy differs from its littermate was settled before it was born.
When each breed reaches half its adult weight
The halfway point is the most useful landmark on a growth curve. It is where the curve is steepest, and where an estimate from current weight tells you most.
| Breed | Half adult weight at | Breed | Half adult weight at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chihuahua | 14 wk | Poodle (Std) | 19 wk |
| Yorkshire Terrier | 14.5 wk | Australian Shepherd | 19 wk |
| Cavalier | 16.5 wk | Labrador | 19.5 wk |
| French Bulldog | 17.5 wk | Golden Retriever | 19.5 wk |
| Dachshund | 17.5 wk | German Shepherd | 20 wk |
| Beagle | 17.5 wk | Rottweiler | 20 wk |
| Great Dane | 21 wk |
The spread is only about seven weeks from the smallest breed to the largest. That surprises people who expect giant breeds to be dramatically slower. What really differs is the tail. A Chihuahua is essentially finished by nine months, while a Great Dane is still adding weight well past its first birthday. We break down when each size of dog actually finishes growing, and why “fully grown” covers three milestones that fall months apart. Larger breeds are a smaller fraction of their adult weight at every single age. At 12 weeks a Chihuahua is around 44% of the way there, a Great Dane around 26%.
One disclosure about this band. Our model’s own documentation says the medium size band “fits ~5 points low.” The published charts for that band lean on brachycephalic breeds (the flat-faced ones, like the French Bulldog), and those mature earlier than a herding breed of the same weight. So for the Beagle, Dachshund and French Bulldog columns, a puppy running slightly ahead of our figures is closer to expected than the table implies.
What a weight chart cannot do
It cannot tell you whether your puppy is the right shape. Weight and body condition are different questions. A puppy can sit exactly on the expected figure and still carry too much fat. See how to tell if your puppy is overweight for the hands-on method.
It cannot be used as a feeding target. This is the misuse we would most like to head off. Adult size is principally genetic. As Larsen’s review (2010) puts it, “encouraging slower growth with proper feeding practices will not result in a smaller adult body size.” Overfeeding instead produces “a larger but less dense skeletal structure supporting a load that is heavier than ideal.” You cannot feed a puppy up into the next column. You can only damage its joints trying. The Labrador colony study puts numbers on what overfeeding a large-breed puppy costs its joints, along with the honest caveat that growth rate and body mass have never been separated. Our guide to how much to feed a growing puppy covers the amounts.
It does not extend to giant breeds with confidence. The best-validated veterinary growth standards, Salt and colleagues (2017), “do not apply dogs with an adult weight >40 kg” (about 88 lb). Our Great Dane and Rottweiler columns run past that. They come from our own model rather than the WALTHAM standards, and our model’s residuals, the gaps between what it predicts and what dogs really weigh, are largest at the extremes. Treat those two columns as the loosest in the table.
And it is not a diagnosis. If your puppy is well below the figures and you are worried, my puppy is smaller than average walks through what is normal variation and what is worth a vet visit.
The short version
- Find your breed’s column and your puppy’s age.
- Scale for sex using the percentage table.
- Expect your puppy to sit somewhere near, not on, that figure.
- Weigh weekly and watch the line it traces, not the gap to the average.
- Check body condition by hand at the same time.
If your breed is not in these tables, the puppy size calculator runs the same model across every breed in our dataset and reports its confidence for each.