The question you typed into Google
My dog is fat.
Right. Let's check.
You already suspect the answer or you would not have typed it. The useful part is not the verdict — it is the number underneath it, and you can get that in ninety seconds with your hands.
Before the tests, one thing, because it changes how you read the result. Almost nobody gets here by overfeeding on purpose. They get here with a scoop, which is a container, not a measurement — and the published research puts a scooped portion anywhere from 48% under to 152% over the intended amount. Feed that twice a day for a year and the arithmetic does the rest without anyone deciding anything.
So: no lecture here. The cups were lying to you, with both studies and their DOIs, including which one was funded by a pet food manufacturer.
The check — do it with the dog standing
This is a self-assessment: you examine your own dog and we tell you which published scores your observations line up with. We never score the animal ourselves — we cannot feel your dog's ribs, and a site that claims to grade a body condition from a distance is doing something it is not entitled to do.
Answer all three. The rib test is the one that matters most.
What you are actually measuring
Three tests, and they are not equal
The scale underneath all of this is the 9-point body condition score, which is the scale veterinary bodies standardise on — WSAVA's guidelines note that 5, 6, 7 and 9-point scales all exist and then commit to the 9-point one, and AAHA recommends the same for medical records. It runs 1 (emaciated) to 9, and WSAVA groups it as under ideal 1–3, ideal 4–5, over ideal 6–9. The chart itself is theirs, and it is published free on their site.
What is ours is the shape of the check above — turning a clinician's descriptors into three things an owner can do at home, and being honest about which of the three carries the weight.
01
The ribs decide it
Fat cover over the ribcage is the only one of the three that keeps separating scores from one end of the scale to the other. Every step from "no palpable fat" through "minimal fat covering", "slight excess", "heavy fat cover" and finally not palpable at all is a different score. If you only do one test, do this one — and use flat palms, not fingertips, because poking finds ribs that smoothing does not.
02
The waist is a good tiebreak
Seen from directly above a standing dog, the indent behind the ribs is described as discernible but not prominent at exactly one score, and absent from the next one up. That makes it a genuinely useful separator right at the boundary most dogs sit on — but it is also the test a thick winter coat ruins, so go by what your hands find, not your eyes.
03
The belly proves the least
This is the one most articles lead with, and in dogs it is the weakest of the three. The abdominal tuck is still described as apparent at 6 and as something that may be present at 7 — so a dog with a visible tuck can comfortably be overweight, and "but he still has a waist from the side" rules out nothing in the range where nearly every borderline dog actually sits.
Why we asked
The score is how the maths finds a target weight
A weight-loss ration is not computed from what a dog weighs now — it is computed from what it should weigh. The body condition score is what bridges the two: each point above ideal corresponds to a stated percentage over ideal body weight, so a score plus a scale reading gives a target, and a target gives a number of grams.
That is not a small step. It is the weakest link in the whole chain, and we say so on the methodology page along with the two published mappings that disagree with each other. One real check we can offer: a golden retriever whose vet independently put his lean weight at 38.5 kg came out of this arithmetic at 38.18 kg, from the score alone. One dog is an anecdote, and we are not going to dress it up as more than that.
The limits, stated up front
It is not a diagnosis
It is your assessment of your own dog, recorded. Weight that will not shift despite correct portions, or weight lost without trying, are both reasons to see a vet rather than to feed differently — hypothyroidism and Cushing's both present this way, and no calculator can see them.
It gets vaguer at the top
AAHA states plainly that a body condition score "is limited in its assessment of patients with a high BF% (>45%)" and points to morphometric measurement for animals at 8 or 9 of 9. If your answers land up there, a vet's tape measure genuinely beats this page.
Coat and build interfere
A deep-chested or heavily coated dog can answer the three tests inconsistently. That is why the check above reports a disagreement instead of averaging it away, and why it tells you to fall back on the ribs.
Puppies and pregnancy are out
The scale is for adult animals, and the calculator refuses outright for growing, pregnant or lactating dogs rather than producing a number it cannot stand behind. A refusal is the part of a tool nobody fakes.