Puppy Teething and Chewing, Month by Month

A puppy's 28 baby teeth are all in by six weeks, start falling out at twelve weeks, and are replaced by 42 adult teeth between five and seven months. You'll find one or two of the old ones in the rug. Most get swallowed and nobody notices.

That calendar sits on every puppy page you'll open. What almost none of them do is join it to the chew in your hand. Here's what changes in the mouth at each stage — and what belongs in it while that happens.

Why one page says twelve weeks and the next says six months

Ask when a puppy can have a real chew and you'll get both numbers on the same screen, from sites that sound equally sure. So which is it? Both are right — they're answering about different teeth.

Twelve weeks is when the baby teeth start leaving. VCA Animal Hospitals dates the shed and the swap to around twelve weeks, with the adult set normally complete by six months. One camp is timing the start of teething — the other is timing the end.

The two gates guard different things. Twelve weeks is about a mouth that can hold a chew and work it. Six months is about a mouth that can crush one. Pick the wrong gate and you buy the wrong chew — too hard too early, or a stick she can't hold.

The mouth, month by month

Breed and size move these dates, and your puppy hasn't read the chart. Researchers who followed 61 Yorkshire terrier puppies found the order holds — incisors, canines, premolars, molars last at about 26 weeks. The smallest dogs in that study ran later than the bigger ones. Watch the mouth, not the birthday.

Your puppy has no baby molars

Here's the row every teething timeline leaves out. The baby set is 28 teeth. The adult set is 42. The extra fourteen never had a baby version at all.

They're the first premolars and the molars, and Today's Veterinary Practice gives the reason flatly: dogs have no deciduous precursors to either. Those fourteen erupt once, late, and nothing drops out to make room.

So the back of a teething puppy's mouth isn't loose. It's missing. She's working with front teeth and the small premolars behind them, on gums already sore from the teeth on the move.

That's the real reason a teething puppy needs a different chew. Not the tender gums. The missing hardware.

Before twelve weeks, nothing that has to be worked down

A puppy this age owns a full set of baby teeth and no reason to use them on anything hard. Chewing at eight weeks is exploration, not work — soft toys, a wet washcloth out of the freezer, your sleeve if you leave it within reach.

Hold the long-lasting chews until the mouth is into the shed. If you can't tell where yours is, your vet can look at the next vaccination visit and tell you in ten seconds.

Twelve weeks to six months, the stage a chew has to fit

This is the stretch that earned puppies their reputation. Baby teeth loosen, adult teeth arrive underneath, and every object in your house gets tested. VCA won't even call it pain: chewing, it says, seems to relieve what is assumed to be teething discomfort. Nobody has asked a puppy.

Size the chew to the stage of the mouth. Not to the number on the scale, and not to the adult weight her breed will reach. Which length that works out to is a question of its own, answered in what size bully stick a puppy needs.

Short and thin is the shape that fits this stage. 4-inch bully sticks are single-ingredient beef pizzle at a length you can hold one end of while she works the other. Our chews sized for small dogs stay useful long after she outgrows the puppy part.

For a mouth too small even for four inches, bully stick bites come as short pieces. One piece is a finished portion, not a stick you ration across days.

One thing worth knowing before you buy either. The VCA page above names bully sticks among the chews it cautions owners about — and we sell them. You should hear that from us, not find it later. The case either way sits in are bully sticks safe for puppies, with the give-and-skip lists in what to give a teething puppy.

Six months to eighteen, when teething ends and chewing doesn't

The adult set is in and the chewing carries on, which is the part that catches you out. That same VCA page has excessive chewing subsiding at around eighteen months, not six. You have another year of it.

What changes is what the mouth can take. The back teeth are finally in and the jaw has grown — so length and thickness can step up with her weight. How many a week that buys her is a separate sum, worked out in how often a puppy can have a bully stick.

One thing to check at six months. You can spot it yourself. If a baby tooth is still sitting beside the adult tooth that replaced it, book the vet rather than wait. VCA names the canines as the usual site, and small and short-nosed breeds as the usual patients. The rest is in retained puppy teeth in small breeds.

What ends a chew session at every stage

The stub. When what's left could vanish into her mouth in one go, the chew is finished. Trade it for a small treat so handing things over always pays, then bin it. On a bully stick that lands near three inches — sooner if her mouth is small.

The piece that goes down whole. Digestible or not, a chunk that fits down her throat is a shape problem. The VCA page that names bully sticks also names what can go wrong across it: gastrointestinal blockages and intestinal punctures, which often need surgery. That is what the stub rule is for.

Blood on the chew. A trace is ordinary while teeth are moving. VCA calls the amount minuscule — mild red staining, nothing beyond. Steady bleeding is different, and so is a puppy who won't touch the thing she loved yesterday. Either one is a call to your vet, not a longer session.

And stay in the room while she works one. VCA is blunt that no toy is 100% safe — and that covers anything you hand her.

Puppy teething FAQ

How long does puppy teething last?

About four months from end to end. The baby teeth start dropping at around twelve weeks and the last adult teeth are usually in by five to seven months. The noisy middle is the stretch when both sets are in the mouth at once, from twelve weeks to roughly six months. Chewing itself outlasts teething by about a year.

Do puppies lose their molars?

No, because they never had any. A puppy's 28 baby teeth are incisors, canines and premolars only. The molars at the back of the adult mouth erupt once, near the end of teething, and no baby tooth drops out to make room for them. That's why the back of a young puppy's mouth is missing rather than loose.

Do puppies swallow their baby teeth?

Most of them, yes, and it does no harm. VCA says a puppy will harmlessly swallow the shed teeth while eating, which is why most are never found. A little blood is ordinary too — minuscule, and you may only see a faint stain on the chew. Blood that keeps coming is worth a vet call.

A bully stick is dried beef and nothing else, which makes the sizing the part you actually have to get right. Match the chew to the stage of the mouth, take the stub every time, and let the calendar catch up with her.