How many teeth a dog has, and when each set comes in

How many teeth do dogs have?

42 as an adult, 28 as a puppy. The permanent set breaks down into 12 incisors, 4 canines, 16 premolars and 10 molars — four groups that add up to 42. The puppy set is smaller and structurally different rather than simply scaled down: it contains no molars at all.

The canines row shows “not published” in the jaw columns because the source gives that group as a total of 4 and never splits it between the jaws. Two per jaw is the only split that would balance the published jaw totals, but no source here states it, so the cells stay empty rather than carrying a number we worked out ourselves.

Upper jaw and lower jaw are not the same count

A dog carries 20 permanent teeth in the upper jaw and 22 in the lower, so the mouth is not symmetrical top to bottom. Molars are the only group published with an uneven split — 4 above, 6 below — and that difference of two is exactly the gap between the jaw totals.

Both totals were checked here rather than taken on trust, and both hold. Adding the four tooth types gives 42; adding the two jaws gives 42; the published headline is 42. Two independent routes to the same number, which is the strongest thing that can be said for a count nobody reading this is going to verify in a dog's mouth.

The third column is the same check run down the jaw columns, and it deliberately comes up short. The type rows place 18 teeth in the upper jaw and 20 in the lower, leaving 4 unplaced — exactly the 4 in the canines row that the source never split. Nothing is missing from the count; what is missing is a published statement of where those teeth sit.

Puppy teeth: 28, and not a molar among them

Most puppies have 28 deciduous teeth. That is 14 fewer than the adult set, and 10 of those 14 are the molars a puppy simply does not have — molars arrive only with the permanent teeth. Where the remaining 4 sit is not something either source publishes.

That last sentence is the reason there is no four-row puppy table on this page. The deciduous set is published as a total with one structural fact attached to it — no molars — and no incisor, canine and premolar breakdown. A table with four filled rows would look better and would be partly invented, so the count and the one published detail are all that appear.

The word “most” is also doing real work and is kept rather than tidied away. The source states the deciduous figure as what most dogs have, not as a constant, and it is the only acknowledgement of variation anywhere in this dataset. The adult figure of 42 carries no such qualifier.

When dog teeth come in, and when the count is final

Four dated stages, all whole-mouth. Baby teeth begin erupting at three to five weeks, the full set of 28 is usually in by three to five months, the permanent teeth start appearing at around four to five months, and all 42 are present by seven months. After seven months the number should stop changing.

The two middle rows overlap, and the overlap is left in. One source puts the full puppy set in place by three to five months; the other puts the first permanent teeth at around four to five months. Read together, a four-month-old puppy can be finishing one set and starting to lose it in the same fortnight. Picking whichever window looked tidier would have produced a cleaner table and a less accurate one.

There is no tooth-by-tooth schedule here on purpose. A per-tooth eruption table was built during research and came back internally inconsistent, so it was dropped rather than published at low confidence. Whole-mouth windows are what these sources actually support, and they answer the question an owner is asking anyway.

What these sources do not say

Four questions this page cannot answer, listed because a reference table that only shows its filled cells is misleading about how much is known. Each one was checked against the same references behind every number above, and each came back empty rather than uncertain.

Which individual tooth erupts when

No per-tooth eruption schedule is published here. A tooth-by-tooth table was checked during research and came back internally inconsistent, so it is not in this dataset and does not appear on the page. The whole-mouth windows in the timeline are what the sources support.

How the four canines split between the jaws

The canine row is published as a total of four with no upper and lower split, so both jaw fields are null. The published jaw totals of 20 and 22 leave two canines per jaw as the only split that balances, but no source in this dataset states it, so the table prints nothing in those cells.

How the 28 puppy teeth break down by type

The deciduous set is published as a total of 28 with one structural detail only: puppies have no molars. There is no published incisor, canine and premolar split in this dataset, so the puppy section carries the total and that single fact rather than a four-row table.

Whether the count varies by breed or size

Neither source ties the tooth count to breed, size or skull shape, and this dataset records no variation. Merck qualifies the puppy figure as what most dogs have, which is the only allowance for variation either source makes.

When teeth are a question for your veterinarian

Losing a tooth once the adult set is in is not normal for a dog, and it points to a problem that needs veterinary attention. That is the one clinical statement on this page, and it is a routing rule rather than an assessment: it tells you the appointment is warranted, not what is wrong. Working out why a tooth was lost needs a mouth examined by someone qualified to examine it.

The same applies to every other reason teeth come up. A retained puppy tooth, a broken tooth, a lost tooth, breath that has changed, dental disease — each of them is a reason to phone a veterinary practice. None of them are things to grade at home against a chart, and this page deliberately does not offer a way to try.

What a count is good for is noticing that a question exists. If a dog is past seven months and the number of teeth in its mouth is changing, the table above says that is not the normal course of events. What to do about it is a conversation with a vet, not a page.

Where these figures come from

Dataset version 2026.09. Every number above is published by one of the two veterinary references below and stored with its source, its retrieval date and a confidence rating. Nothing on this page is estimated, averaged across sources, or carried over from a figure on another page of this site.

• Merck Veterinary Manual, Dental Development of Dogs (dog owners edition) — retrieved 2026-09-07.
• PetMD, How Many Teeth Do Dogs Have, and Can They Lose Them? — retrieved 2026-09-07.

The headline count of 42 appears in both, which is why it carries high confidence; the breakdown by tooth type and by jaw comes from one of the two and is recorded at medium. Our own contribution is the arithmetic: the sums in the reconciliation above are computed when the page renders, so a column that stops adding up shows as a discrepancy instead of being quietly corrected. Where the rest of our data comes from and how we write and correct these pages.

Where this fits with the rest of the site

Seven months is a boundary this page shares with others. It sits inside the puppy stage on the dog life stages chart, which dates the end of growth by size class — a small dog is finished at about a year, a giant breed is still growing at eighteen months, while the teeth are done at seven months for both. The dog age calculator converts the same birthday into human years.

At the other end of life, dental disease is one of the things that changes with age rather than with the count. Our senior dog guide covers what shifts when a dog gets older, and what age a dog counts as senior gives the threshold by size.

Chews and bones are what most owners actually put in front of those teeth, and that is a food safety question rather than a dental one. Our can dogs eat guides cover what is safe to hand over, and the treat calculator counts dental chews against the same daily allowance as everything else. For the breed records behind the rest of these charts, start with the weight chart by breed.

Common questions

How many teeth do dogs have?

An adult dog has 42 permanent teeth: 12 incisors, 4 canines, 16 premolars and 10 molars, which is 20 in the upper jaw and 22 in the lower. A puppy has a smaller set of 28. The adult figure is published by both references behind this page, and the four groups add up to 42 exactly.

How many teeth do puppies have?

Most puppies have 28 deciduous teeth, and none of them are molars. That is 14 fewer than the adult set of 42, and 10 of those 14 missing teeth are the molars that only ever arrive with the permanent set. The published figure is qualified as what most dogs have rather than stated as a fixed constant.

At what age do dogs get all their adult teeth?

By seven months. The permanent teeth usually begin to appear at around four to five months of age, and all of them are present by the time the dog reaches seven months. After that the count is final: nothing further is due to come through, and the number of teeth in the mouth should stop changing.

When do puppies start teething?

The deciduous teeth begin to erupt at three to five weeks of age, which is the earliest date anywhere in this dataset, and the full set of 28 is usually in place by three to five months. The permanent teeth then start appearing at around four to five months, so the two windows overlap.

Is it normal for a dog to lose a tooth?

Not once the adult set is in. Losing a permanent tooth is not normal for a dog and points to a problem that needs veterinary attention, so it is a reason to book an appointment rather than something to watch and wait on. Before seven months the mouth is still changing, because that is the window in which the permanent teeth arrive.

Do all dog breeds have the same number of teeth?

Neither source behind this page ties the count to breed, size or skull shape, so no per-breed variation is published here and none is invented. The only allowance for variation in the whole dataset is the wording of the puppy figure, which is given as what most dogs have rather than as a fixed number.