How to Weigh and Track Your Pet at Home
A monthly weight, written down, is the cheapest diagnostic test available to you. Trends catch illness weeks before it becomes visible.
Weight is the single most useful number an owner can collect at home, and almost nobody collects it. A gradual loss or gain is invisible to the eye that sees the animal every day, and by the time it becomes obvious it has usually been happening for months.
It takes about two minutes a month, needs nothing you do not already own, and it is the closest thing a pet owner has to an early warning system.
How to weigh at home
Small dogs and cats
Use a bathroom scale and subtraction. Weigh yourself, note it. Pick up the animal, weigh again, subtract. Do it three times and take the middle figure, since digital bathroom scales vary.
For cats that object to being held, weigh the carrier empty, then the carrier with the cat in it. Many cats sit still in a carrier and are impossible to hold on a scale.
Larger dogs
Most are too heavy to lift and too mobile to stand still. Use the clinic. Almost every practice will let you walk in and use the scale without an appointment, and it takes two minutes.
That visit has a second benefit: a dog that comes to the clinic for nothing unpleasant learns the building is not only where injections happen.
How often
- Puppies and kittens: weekly. Growth should be steady, and a lack of gain is an early warning
- Healthy adults: monthly
- Seniors, from about seven: monthly, without fail. This is where it earns its keep
- Animals on a weight programme or with a chronic condition: as your vet advises, often fortnightly
- Newborns: daily for the first two weeks
Weigh at the same time of day, ideally before a meal, so you are comparing like with like.
Write it down
A number you do not record is a number you will misremember. Keep a note on your phone or a printed sheet with the date, the weight and anything else worth remembering that month.
What you are looking for is the trend, not any single figure. Small fluctuations are normal; a consistent direction over three readings is information.
A monthly weight written down is the cheapest and most useful test you will ever run at home. A cat can lose a tenth of its body weight and look much the same to the person who sees it every day. The scale does not have that problem, and neither does a notebook.
Our free printable pet health record has a weight log, and the multi-pet tracker keeps several animals apart, which matters because in a multi-pet household nobody notices which animal is losing.
What changes mean
Weight loss
Always worth investigating in an adult that is not on a diet. Common causes include dental pain, worms, kidney disease, diabetes, hyperthyroidism in cats, and cancer.
Ten percent of body weight is a useful threshold. For a four-kilo cat that is four hundred grams, which is invisible to look at and significant medically.
Weight loss with a good appetite is particularly worth acting on. It points at hyperthyroidism, diabetes or malabsorption rather than at simply eating less.
Weight gain
Usually feeding, and worth correcting because of what it loads: joints, heart, anaesthetic risk and diabetes risk. Occasionally hormonal, which is why gain despite honest portion control deserves a conversation rather than a stricter diet.
Pair it with a condition score
The scale gives a number; your hands give context. Once a fortnight:
- Ribs easy to feel with a thin covering, without pressing
- A waist visible from above
- A tuck from the side, the belly rising toward the hind legs
A muscular dog and an overweight dog can weigh the same. Together, the number and the feel tell you what neither tells you alone.
Why your vet wants this
A single weight at a consultation is a snapshot. Six monthly readings are a picture, and that picture frequently narrows the possibilities immediately.
"He has lost four hundred grams since March" changes an appointment from a puzzle into a direction. Very few owners can say that, and the ones who can get better medicine for it.
This is the rare piece of health monitoring that costs nothing and catches things early, which matters because early is where the cheap treatments live: hyperthyroidism found on a routine weight check is managed with tablets, and found late it is a heart problem with a thyroid problem attached.
Consultations and diagnostics are covered on Skeepy Pet HMO plans at any vet clinic in Nigeria, so acting on a trend you have spotted does not depend on how certain you are that it matters.
One monthly payment instead of surprise vet bills.
With a Skeepy Pet HMO plan, consultations, vaccines and treatment are paid at any clinic in Nigeria. Plans from ₦15,000 a month.
General information, not a diagnosis. If your pet is unwell, see a vet.