{"id":6292,"date":"2021-12-09T18:01:05","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T23:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/?p=6292"},"modified":"2026-01-28T18:17:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:17:00","slug":"measuring-your-dogs-body-condition-a-video-demonstration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/measuring-your-dogs-body-condition-a-video-demonstration\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring Your Dog&#8217;s Body Condition: A Video Demonstration"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"responsive-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How to Measure Your Dog's Body Condition\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xbOWt9L2A74?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><p>Whether they&rsquo;re tiny or giant, silly or serious, floofy or sleek, we can&rsquo;t get enough of our dogs, and we love them the way they are. But there&rsquo;s one area of their life where more isn&rsquo;t better, and where you DO need to judge them&mdash;their weight and body condition.<\/p><p>59% of dogs in the U.S. are overweight or obese. For dogs, as for humans, being overweight comes with significant health consequences&mdash;it&rsquo;s linked to numerous ailments including arthritis, chronic kidney disease, bladder\/urinary tract disease, liver disease, diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure, and cancer.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Compounding the problem is the fact that many dog owners may not realize their dog is overweight. 36% of dog owners perceive their overweight dogs to be at a normal weight. The truth is, it doesn&rsquo;t take a lot of extra weight to start seeing the negative effects of excess weight. While we tend to think of&nbsp; &ldquo;a few pounds&rdquo; in human terms&mdash;no big deal&mdash;for a dog, those few pounds can be a health hazard (read more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/obesity-in-dogs-a-massive-health-threat-thats-hiding-in-plain-sight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">obesity<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/how-to-help-your-dog-lose-weight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">how to help your dog lose weight here<\/a>). Research shows that overweight dogs can live up to 2.5 fewer years than their leaner counterparts.<\/p><p>At the same time, it&rsquo;s important that your dog doesn&rsquo;t become too lean, which could mean they lose muscle mass and their <em><span >healthy<\/span><\/em> body fat. You can monitor your dog&rsquo;s <strong>weight<\/strong>, checking it regularly during vet visits and ensuring that it stays within the healthy parameters for your dog&rsquo;s breed, size, and age. But there&rsquo;s also a test you can do at home to keep an eye (and a hand) on how lean or fat your dog is.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-a-body-condition-score-or-bcs\"><span ><strong>What is a Body Condition Score (or BCS)?<\/strong> <\/span><\/h4><p>Getting an accurate picture of a dog&rsquo;s <strong>body condition<\/strong> is also important when it comes to weight management, because weight doesn&rsquo;t tell the whole story, and every dog is different. One 20-pound dog might be a rail thin senior, and another might be a chunky younger dog, and this is vital information when it comes to determining, and updating, portion sizes.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Veterinarians assess your dog&rsquo;s body condition by sight and touch using something called a <strong>Body Condition Score.<\/strong> Typically using a 1-5 or a 1 to 9 -point <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaha.org\/globalassets\/02-guidelines\/weight-management\/weightmgmt_bodyconditionscoring.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scale<\/a> that ranges from too-skinny (1) to obese (9), they will determine whether your dog needs to lose, maintain, or gain weight.<\/p><p>Here, with the help of some of our favorite office dogs, The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog co-founder Brett Podolsky demonstrates how you can determine your dog&rsquo;s Body Condition Score with a simple sight-and-touch test you can do at home.<\/p><p>Read more about the Body Condition Score <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/measure-dogs-body-condition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p><p>And for a pre-portioned fresh food plan that makes it easy to maintain your dog&rsquo;s weight, and adjust as their needs change, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog.<\/a><\/p><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We show you how to do the simple body condition test that can help tell you if your dog is too lean, too heavy, or just right. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[416],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6292"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45209,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292\/revisions\/45209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}