Free tool·Plate 01·Stool form & firmness
Your dog’s poop is health data.
Most owners never learn to read it. This is the 1–7 scale we use inside the club — match what you saw today and get a plain-English read in about ten seconds, including the point where it stops being a “keep an eye on it” and becomes a call to your vet.
- Free — no email
- Independent — no brand pays us
- Built to defer to your vet
Which one is closest?
Tap oneEstablished format The 1–7 layout follows the faecal-scoring format long used in veterinary practice and pet-nutrition research. The plain-English readings are ours.
How to read it
Four rules that make the score actually useful.
A score on its own is trivia. A score you can compare is information.
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Score at the same time each day
Usually the first poop of the morning. Comparing a morning stool to an evening one after a long walk tells you very little.
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A pattern beats a single day
One score 5 after a new treat is normal life. Five loose days in a row is a signal. Don’t redesign your dog’s diet over one bad morning.
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Change one thing at a time
New food and a new supplement and a new walk route in the same week means you learn nothing from the result.
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Bring the scores to your vet
“He’s been a bit loose lately” is a shrug. “Seven days at score 5–6, starting two days after we switched food” is a consultation that goes somewhere.
Safety first — always on this page
When to call your vet.
Contact your veterinarian promptly if you notice any of these
- Score 6–7 lasting more than about 24–48 hours — or any watery stool in a puppy, a senior, a small-breed or an already-unwell dog, where you should call sooner.
- Blood — fresh red streaks, or black, tar-like stool.
- Loose stool together with vomiting, refusing food or water, lethargy, a painful or bloated belly, or signs of dehydration such as tacky gums or skin that is slow to spring back.
- Straining with little or nothing produced, or repeated unproductive retching.
- Anything that simply worries you. This list is not exhaustive, and your vet is always the right call when you are unsure.
Editorial standards
How we make these tools.
You have no reason to trust a dog-health page you have never heard of. So here is exactly how this one is built, and what it will never do.
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01
We take no money from products
We sell no supplements, food or tests, and earn nothing when you buy — no affiliate links, no sponsorships. When our review team recommends a product it’s because it’s genuinely good, never because someone paid us. That’s the only job we have.
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02
We say “supports,” not “cures”
Nothing here diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents disease — because a web page cannot. We describe what you are seeing and what it may reflect, and we stop there.
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03
Every tool has a vet threshold
We build each one so the honest answer is sometimes “this needs a professional.” Those thresholds are printed on the page, never hidden behind a sign-up.
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04
We never borrow authority we don’t have
Our editorial team researches each tool against veterinary and nutrition sources and tells you how solid the evidence is. We do not claim a veterinarian wrote or reviewed something unless one actually did — and on this page, none has.
What this chart is
- A shared vocabulary for something you already look at every day
- A way to spot a pattern over a week instead of panicking over one morning
- Something concrete to show your vet
- Completely free, with nothing to sign up for
What it isn’t
- A diagnosis — the same score can have many different causes
- A reason to change your dog’s food today
- A replacement for your vet, or for an actual examination
- A pitch for a product we happen to sell
Your next step
One score is a snapshot. Seven days is a picture.
Inside The Healthy Dog Club you get the printable chart, the 7-day baseline your vet will actually thank you for, and owners working through the same thing — plus the full Healthy Poop Protocol when you want the how, not just the what.
Join The Healthy Dog Club — free →Free while we’re in beta. No card, no catch, nothing to sell you.