Measuring your dog’s body condition score
Watch Head Vet Sean show you how to check your dog’s body condition score. Featuring our office dogs Monty, Bambi and Socks.
Body Condition Scoring is a really useful way to assess whether your dog is a healthy weight for their breed and size. By getting hands-on and assessing three key areas on your dog, you can work out if they are underweight, overweight or in ideal condition. The three areas to examine and feel are:
Once you’ve assessed these three areas, you give them a score on a five-point scale:
BCS 1 = Severely underweight
BCS 2 = Underweight
BCS 3 = Ideal condition
BCS 4 = Overweight
BCS 5 = Obese
Here’s how to score your dog’s ribs, belly and waist to find out their Body Condition Score:
Ribs
Run your fingers over your dog’s rib cage, on either side of their chest in a head to tail direction.
You should be able to feel the ribs with a slight covering of muscle over them, but they shouldn’t be visible, feel like sharp ridges or be poking out. It’s important to really feel them with your fingertips rather than just looking, as many dogs’ coats will hide the ribs from view.
If your dog is underweight, their ribs will protrude and feel sharp or bumpy as you run your hands along them. If this is the case, it’ll mean a lower BCS.
If your dog is overweight the ribs will be difficult to feel as they will be covered in a layer of fat and muscle. The deeper the ribs are to feel under this layer, the more overweight your dog is and the higher the BCS.
Should I be able to feel a dog’s spine?
How much you are able to feel your dog’s spine is what’s important. Furthermore, some breeds of dogs are naturally skinnier than others, so their spines are going to be a little bonier than other breeds. The eight dog breeds that tend to be skinny include the Greyhound, the Kanni, the Ibizan hound, the Saluki, the Azawakh, the Pharaoh hound, the Sloughi, and the Whippet.
Is it bad if I can feel my dog’s spine?
Again, you should be able to feel the bones, but they shouldn’t be protruding. If you can’t feel the bones, or they seem to be buried under fat, you have an overweight dog. If the spine is very pronounced with little or no flesh on top of the individual vertebrae, you have an underweight dog.