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No birthdays

882 Views 17 Replies 18 Participants Last post by  aero4ever
So, I'm sure some people on this forum have dogs that are rescued with no clue of what their birthday or even their age is. What do you do? Does it bother you, or do you just not pay attention to it? When people ask the dogs age, do you go into detail about how you don't know, or is their some simple answer you give? Neither of my dogs have known birthdays, and one could be 1 to 3 years old when we adopted her, which is a pretty big range for a dog. Or do you just pick a day and celebrate it?
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I picked a day. For Cupid, it was February 14 (of course.) :)
I have two pets that I don't know when their birthdays are. So I just made their "gotcha" days their birthdays. For Abby (the cat), it's February 15 and for new addition, Mayzie, it's March 28. As for telling people how old they are, I just say something like, "Well, she was a rescue but we think she's around 8."
When we went to the vet, the man put 'September 5' down as Jake's date of birth, which lines up perfectly with how old he was when we adopted him. So that's his official birthday. For Buck, we counted the number of weeks back from how old he was when we got him. I think we decided on May 3rd :)
We just make their birthdays the day they came into our lives. Smalls has a guesstimate birthday, that is probably pretty close to her actual birthday, but since I adopted her November 21st, that's her "birth"day. Jack McCoy is at least 5, but maybe older, and his birthday is the day we got him, March 2nd. Jonas was a rescue, but AKC registered, so we have his actually birthday, November 24th, but we still celebrate the day we got him, July 3rd.
I adopted Georgia on MY birthday, so we'll celebrate together. When people ask her age, generally I tell them I don't know because she was a rescue. We think she's at least three since she has some white on her muzzle.

The daycare had spaces for birthday and age on their forms and I just left them blank.
I usually just make up a birthday. If the dog is over a year old, I make their "gotcha" day their birthday. If they're puppies, I estimate what month they were born and just pick a random day that I will remember easily.
I make up a birthday. We narrow down the month by about how old the dog is (which is in and of itself guesstimated) and then I just pick a day.

For instance, I don't know that Chloe was born on March 10, but I do know she would have been born around the beginning of March so i just picked a day. We knew when we brought Blackie home in June that he was roughly six months old, so we chose his birthday to be Jan 18.

If the animals are an adult, we tend to use their "gotcha day" as their birthday.
I've always known around how old they are based on vet estimates and whatnot, so I pick a day based on that. I picked June 10 for Scarlett and March 15 for Shiner. I didn't want to go with the gotcha day for either of them because I knew their age more precisely than that...I got Scarlett in November and the vet said she was exactly 5 months based on teeth, same with Shiner, the vet said 9 months....we did use the gotcha day for my previous dog because his age was more iffy...we were told he was 2, but that's give or take a few months.
I usually just make up a birthday. If the dog is over a year old, I make their "gotcha" day their birthday. If they're puppies, I estimate what month they were born and just pick a random day that I will remember easily.
That is what I do as well. I don't know Eddie's exact birth date. I know he was probably born sometime in October and I just picked October 31st.

I've done the same with my cats. My cat, Gus's, "birthday" is tomorrow. I know he was probably born sometime in early April, so I just gave him the date of April 1st.
Just kinda figure what the vet says how old your pup is, then figure out on the calendar when their b-day would be .... Im sure your pup will not mind what date you pick out for them!!! but, make a big deal out of it .... WE DO!!

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We celebrate gotcha days at our house too.
Saoirse is my rescue girl and so i don't know for sure on her B-day...but, going by maturity level when i got her, i'm figuring she was right around 9 mo and that was on the 4th of Dec. 2 yrs ago...so i put her B-day at the 4th of Mar. (3 mo after her adoption date).....
I don't know Max's exact age. The rescue said that we was somewhere between 2 and 3 (probably) but closer to three. That doesn't tell me enough especially since they were guessing anyway. So last year we celebrated his gotcha day or as I jokingly call it, his rebirthday. It was a lot of fun.
The Vet usually can tell how old a dog is ....not his actual birthday though ----so why not use the date that you adopted him?:)
I was going to ask this exact question. This is my first rescue dog and do not know when she was born. The shelter thought she was about 10 months, so that was going to be easy. When I brought her to the vet, he said more like 18 months. We got her March 10th. If I go by her being 18 mos. then her b-day would be in September. As silly as it may be...this is hard for me.

Oh...and the vet said he could take xrays to see what is up with her growth plates and might be able to me more acurate with her age. If I just had extra money right now I might consider it.

Tricia
When I got Spike, we were told he was around 1.5 years. Sine that was last August, and Sierra turns 2 next month, I think that I'm going to make their birthday on the same day, April 22nd!!
Two of my dogs are rescues and I had a pretty good idea of their age so counted back the months and put the day as the one they were adopted.
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