1-year-old Golden Retriever: A Journey into Adulthood

Your beautiful Golden Retriever pooch just turned a year older. But still, you find yourself sitting down, wondering what’s next for your energetic furry friend? What do you expect in this new phase of life that your Golden Retriever just began?

First off, congratulations! You’ve successfully watched your healthy and adorable little Golden Retriever puppy slowly mature into a vibrant and active adult.

And even though we might miss the adorability and cuteness that comes with a puppy Golden Retriever, the adult Golden Retriever does bring a lot of adorability and playful charm that would still make your heart melt (figuratively speaking).

This article will cover:

• What to expect from a 1-year-old Golden Retriever
• Is a Golden Retriever full-grown at 1-year-old?
• What does a 1-year-old Golden Retriever look like?
• 1-year-old Golden Retriever behaviors to expect and how to deal with some unexpected behaviors.
• Everything from health risks to grooming to feeding to exercising your Golden Retriever.
• How to train 1-year-old Golden Retriever

So do ensure you read till the very end, this would be quite an interesting read.

Is your Golden Retriever full grown at 1 year old?

I get asked this a lot! I truly can’t count how often I get asked this by dog owners (most especially the new dog owners). Is my 1-year-old Golden Retriever fully an adult? Has my beautiful Golden Retriever pooch stopped growing now that it is a year old?

Well, the answer to this question is ‘yes’ or we could say ‘almost’. The reason for the ‘almost’ is because even though your year old Golden Retriever is now technically being called an ‘adult’, it still has a few more months of growing up to do.

Generally, though, at a year old, your Golden Retriever is said to have reached its full height. The few extra months of growth might see a maximum increase of 1 inch, but your Golden Retriever would most likely look the same for the rest of its adult years.

However, when it comes to mental growth, your 1-year-old Golden Retriever dog would most likely still retain its puppy-like energy and excitement. Running and playing all over the place. This could last for a few more years, so do create a lot of time to run and play with your furry friend.

What does a 1-year-old Golden Retriever look like?

What your Golden Retriever dog looks like at a year old depends on a few factors. One of such factors would be the sex of the Golden Retriever. Ideally, there should be slight differences in both weight and height when comparing the Golden Retriever sexes.

Also when comparing show dogs to working dogs, we noticed that the show dogs were a few pounds heavier than the working dog.

But for an average male Golden Retriever of age 1 year, expect a height of between 23 inches to 24 inches and have a weight of about 65 to 75 pounds. While for an average female Golden Retriever of age 1 year, expect a height of between 21.5 inches of 22.5 inches and a weight of 55 to 65 pounds.

Another thing to look out for in your 1-year-old Golden Retriever would be its teeth. At a year old, your Golden should have completely developed all 42 of its canine permanent teeth. Do remember to take care of their teeth through regular brushing.

Other than an increase in the height and weight of the Golden Retriever and the development of its permanent teeth, a 1-year-old Golden Retriever doesn’t really differ from its adolescent stage, especially mentally. It still is very playful and active, running up the place and getting into some cute mischief.

Behavioral Pattern of a 1-year-old Golden Retriever

As we have already established, a 1-year-old Golden Retriever dog is usually very playful, exhibiting a lot of child-like attributes that were very much present during its puppy and adolescent stage of growing up.

One of the major behavioral challenges that might occur with your 1-year-old Golden Retriever would be nipping. Although nipping is quite normal for the Golden Retriever, it can sometimes be painful and considered annoying by humans.

Over time as the Golden Retriever matures, its permanent teeth grow, which makes the Golden Retriever become a lot more mouthy while playing, so do expect a lot of nipping from your Golden Retriever.

A good way to manage this would be through proper training, using voice commands or non-violent techniques to train your dog would be a great way to correct this habit. You could correct your Golden with a sharp ‘no’, or try to stop playing with your pooch immediately, ignoring it for a few minutes to simulate a “timeout” if it continues nipping at you.

All in all, your Golden Retriever dog needs to learn that it is never okay or allowed to nip at anybody.

Feeding Habits and Schedule of a 1-year-old Golden Retriever

As we already know, the Golden Retriever is naturally a large dog. And most large dogs naturally have large appetites, including your Golden Retriever. It is however recommended that you feed your 1-year-old Golden Retriever about 3 to 4 cups of kibble a day.

These 3-4 cups a day should be spread between 2 meal servings a day. You would want to avoid overfeeding your 1-year-old Golden Retriever as this could lead to obesity and the excess dog fat could be harmful to their joints and sockets. Most especially dogs prone to dysplasia.

You want to move your 1-year-old Golden Retriever to adult food at this stage (but I highly recommend you check with your licensed vet before deciding). If after checking with your vet, you decide to introduce your Golden Retriever to adult food do ensure the whole process of introduction is done gradually.

This is because, although it might seem easy, adult food is quite different and could lead to problems like indigestion, so don’t go all out feeding him 3 to 4 cups a day. You could start with just ¼ cup a day and then after a few days ¾ cup. If after some days you don’t notice indigestion signs in your dog, you could then make the full switch.

Just as much as you are advised to avoid overfeeding your 1-year-old Golden Retriever dog, you are equally advised to avoid underfeeding your dog. Always keep your dog fit, as both a fat and a skinny dog poses some serious health risks.

Exercising Your 1-year-old Golden Retriever

In addition to eating right, your 1-year-old Golden Retriever should be well exercised. And exercising your 1-year-old Golden Retriever should be quite easy, this is because, for a young adult Golden Retriever, their exercise options are pretty wide.

Their bones and joints are quite strong so we don’t necessarily have to worry about over-stressing them as much as we do for puppies and seniors.

Still, we don’t have to go over-exercising your 1-year-old Golden Retriever (especially those susceptible to Exercise Induced Collapse). For a young adult, the recommended daily exercise time frame should be 1 to 2 hours (max).

The amount and type of exercise you decide to give your 1-year-old Golden Retriever also varies as hunting or working dogs might need more exercise than conformation Goldens. Also, do ensure enough rest is provided in between exercises for your young adult Golden Retriever.

As we have already established, the young adult Golden Retriever is very playful, with lots and lots of energy to spare. So do ensure you work and exercise that excess energy from them. This is quite important as that much energy in a young Golden Retriever could easily become very destructive.

Suitable exercises for your 1-year-old Golden Retriever

As we have already established, a minimum and maximum of 1 to 2 hours of exercise would be required for your 1-year-old Golden Retriever daily, these should be spread out into separate and smaller sections.

Also, just as much as a young adult Golden Retriever requires physical exercises, mental exercises are also very important. This is to keep their minds sharp and intelligent. Start by slowly introducing your dogs to new exercises or exercise durations. Some of the exercises suitable for the 1-year-old Golden Retriever would be;

Going for a Walk or Run

Walks and runs are quite standard for the Golden Retriever, their sporting nature and athletic build favor them a lot when it comes to these exercises. While walking your year-old Golden Retriever, do ensure you start small, and then slowly introduce them to longer distances and durations.

Always avoid walking your dog in really hot or cold parts of the day and extreme temperatures are terrible for your Golden Retriever as they could lead to heat exhaustion. Avoid sharp or slippery surfaces too, you don’t want your pooch’s paw getting bruised.

When it comes to running your dog, always ensure you avoid hard surfaces as they could have terrible impacts on the joints of your Golden Retriever, grass floors are more suitable when it comes to running your dog.

Running your dog can be quite a tasking and vigorous exercise (even for the Golden Retriever), so before starting any of such exercises, do ensure you do a full-body check-up of your Golden Retriever and consult with your vet before starting any of such exercise programs.

Swimming

Swimming is next on our list of recommended exercises for your year-old Golden Retriever. Naturally, Golden Retrievers love the water, so swimming shouldn’t be a hard task.

Ideally, a 15 to 30 minutes swimming session is perfect for your Golden Retriever, anything more could be overkill and frankly is not recommended. Also, never ever leave your dog alone and unsupervised while swimming, and if possible get a doggie life jacket for your pooch just to be safe.

Hide and Seek

Hide and seek is a great physical and mental exercise for your Golden Retriever. It forces your pooch to use all of its senses while playing thereby developing these senses some more.

Just make sure you keep a close eye on them while playing so they don’t go all panicky when seeking for you. The best part of this sort of exercise is the excitement on the young adult Golden Retriever when it eventually finds you.

Other great exercises would be playing fetch and of course training. Speaking of training.

Training Your 1-year-old Golden Retriever

The importance of training your dog cannot be over-emphasized, and for a year old Golden Retriever, training is very crucial. This is because at such an age, your Golden Retriever should be bursting with excess energy, and an over-energetic dog could behave very badly.

A 1-year-old Golden Retriever should be a lot more intelligent and mentally smart, so luckily, you shouldn’t run into much trouble when training it or attempting to.

When training your pooch, it is quite important that you keep these two things in mind; always be positive and remember that you are on the same team. Training your dog is lifelong, so don’t just expect to commit your Golden Retriever to 8 weeks of training expect them to be on their best behavior.

Start off with basic commands like ‘sit’ and ‘Fetch’. With quite some practice, your pooch should be well trained enough to take on other advanced training. In all of these, do ensure you use positive reinforcement when training your dog. Reward your dog with treats, a toy, and a smile when it behaves well and a gentle tap or a firm ‘no’ when it behaves badly.

Grooming Your 1-year-Old Golden Retriever

For a 1-year-old Golden Retriever, do expect to spend quite some time grooming and trimming its coat as it shed moderately and requires routine grooming. Your Golden Retriever shouldn’t stress you while grooming as it should already be used for most grooming practices like shampooing, ear and teeth cleaning, bathing, nail trimming, and a lot more.

In all you do, please never shave your Golden Retriever’s coat, you’ve done so much in maintaining its luxurious coat, keep up the good work.

Final Thoughts

Taking care of your Golden Retriever requires a lot of effort, but it is all worth it in the end. Watching your energetic pooch run and play over the yard, full of energy is enough reward as it is. Hopefully, with all the information shared in this article, you should know exactly what to expect from your 1-year-old Golden Retriever.

Here’s the rest of this series in case you missed it:

• The 5 Stages of Golden Retriever Puppy Growth
• 6-Week-Old Golden Retriever: Developmental Milestones to Expect and Mistakes to Avoid
• 8-Week-Old Golden Retriever: Growth, Developmental and Behavioral Expectations
• 3-Month-Old Golden Retriever: Training, Feeding, Sleeping
• 4-Month-Old Golden Retriever: Training, Feeding, and Behaviors
• 5-Month-Old Golden Retriever: Behaviors, Feeding, and Training
• 6-Month-Old Golden Retriever: What to Expect from Canine Adolescence
• 7-Month-Old Golden Retriever: Full-Blown Adolescence And You
• 8-Month-Old Golden Retriever: Behavior, Training, and Development
• 2-Year-Old Golden Retriever: Full-Grown, Adulthood, Playful
• Senior Golden Retriever: Signs of Aging and How to Care for Your Old Dog