How Big Will My Golden Retriever Be?

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How big will my Golden Retriever be is a very important question that everyone should ask before bringing home their new puppy?

After our last family dog, Maffy passed away over 20 years ago my parents have preferred smaller dogs.

Why? Because my mom is afraid that if something happens to the dog she won’t be able to carry a large dog to the car to take to the vet.

A larger dog also might be difficult to control when at home or out on a walk.

Our neighbors took home one of Raven’s Golden puppies. We explained that Dad was a big boy and their Golden Boy would likely be large as well.

Unfortunately, once the cute little puppy became a large adult my neighbor’s wife had difficulty walking him. **Remember Golden Retrievers are a high-energy breed**

Does size matter?

When it comes to your dog size often does matter.

How Big Will My Golden Retriever Be?

Let’s start off by showing you the Golden Retriever breed standards for size:

From the American (AKC) Golden Retriever breed standard:

The breed standard for the United Kennel Club (UKC) is the same as the AKC.

From the table above, if you have a male Golden then he should be somewhere between 65-75 pounds. If you have a female Golden then she should be somewhere between 55-65 pounds.

However, every dog is different. We’re a Golden Retriever family. Here’s a table that shows the Goldens we personally know (knew) and their weights:

The 18-month-old puppies probably had a little more room to grow. We’ve noticed that most of our Goldens don’t reach full size until around 2 years old.

That means Apache might have been 95-100 pounds at full size! I wouldn’t doubt this because when he left for guide dog college he still looked like he could fill out a bit. He was a tall boy!

Something I found interesting was how small Charlie was. At the beginning of this writing, I mentioned that the size and weight of your full-grown dog are largely dependent on the size and weight of your dog’s parents.

Not so with Charlie. His dam was a 65-pound female. Charlie’s sire was an 85-pound male. So, my expectation was that he’d be somewhere between 80 and 90 pounds.

At 55 pounds you would think he was the runt but all of the puppies from his litter were on the smaller side. In fact, we heard from the sire’s owner that even though he was a big boy the puppies he threw were all on the smaller side.

Let’s get back to our question.

I specifically recall our neighbors asking how big will my Golden Retriever be when he’s fully grown.

Raven was the dam and she was 65 pounds.

The sire was on the larger side at 80 pounds.

My guestimation was their golden puppy would grow to be 75-85 pounds.

Guess what? The last I heard their not-so-little puppy grew to be 82 pounds at just under 2 years old.

That’s above the AKC Golden Retriever standard weight.

FAQ’s

At What Age Is A Golden Retriever Full Grown?

In our experience, Golden Retrievers are full-grown at around 2 years old. We’ve noticed from about 1 to 2 years of age they don’t grow too much in height but they tend to fill out more and put on more weight.

Of course, as your dog enters her senior years she will have less energy and exercise less. When the energy level drops you want to be sure you decrease the amount of food you feed because your dog will be burning fewer calories.

We’ve noticed that older Goldens tend to gain more weight because while energy and exercise drop we tend to feed the same amount of food causing weight gain.

How Big Is A 6-Month-Old Golden Retriever?

Our Golden Retrievers have experienced rapid growth from around 3 months to 6 months old.

Based on our experience your dog will be about 70% of her full size when she is 6 months old. My guess would be your Golden Retriever will be between 39 pounds and 53 pounds. Here’s what I’d expect for males vs female based on the AKC standard:

• Weight of a 6-month-old male Golden Retriever = 46 – 53 pounds
• Weight of a 6-month-old female Golden Retriever = 39 – 46 pounds

In our real-world example. One of our female Golden Retrievers weighed 41 pounds when she was 6 months old. Her full-grown weight was 59 pounds. That means at 6 months old she reached approximately 70% of her full-grown weight.

Of course, there are a lot of variables when trying to guess the weight of your dog at 6 months old including the size of their parents, how much you’re feeding your Golden, type of food, growth spurts, etc.

Are Male Golden Retrievers Bigger Than Females?

I already answered this question but I really want to drive the point home that males are larger than females. Here are the numbers again:

• Male = 65 – 75 pounds
• Female = 55 – 65 pounds

Okay, why do I find it important to reiterate the importance of size difference between males and females?

Mainly because there’s a big difference. Especially if you look at my chart of personal experiences with Golden Retrievers. The largest male Golden was 90 pounds and the smallest was 45 pounds.

Both are outside the breed standard but believe me walking a dog that pulls on a leash is very different when it’s a 90-pound behemoth vs a medium-sized 45-pound dog.

While we all have our preference for male vs female dogs I believe one of the big differentiators is size.

And like I said at the beginning: “Size matters!”

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a medium to large size dog then a Golden Retriever might be the dog for you.

As we discussed here there is a lot of variation in size. The breed standard for a Goldens weight is between 55 and 75 pounds. However, you can see from our experience that the range can be much bigger with our Goldens ranging from 45 – 90 pounds.

Hopefully, this article helps you figure out how big your Golden Retriever puppy will be.

If you have a Golden Retriever of any age please tell us about him or her in the comment section below.

Maybe we can include some of your Goldens in our size and weight chart above.

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