Hill's™ UK & IE: Dog Body Condition Score (BCS): How to find out your Dog's BCS

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Dogs come in all shapes and sizes and there is an ideal body shape and weight for different breeds. This ensures that your pet is at a healthy weight. Vets use a technique called Body Condition Score, to confirm this. It's something that can be done easily at home, so we decided to provide you with a step-by-step guide, so you can try it yourself.

We've also provided the video transcript below.

Dog Body Condition Score: Find your dog’s ideal body shape with Hill’s Pet Nutrition

Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, but there is an ideal body shape and weight for different breeds. This ensures that your pet is at a healthy weight. Vets use a technique called Body Condition Score, to confirm this. It's something that can be done easily at home, so we decided to provide you with a step-by-step video guide, so you can try it yourself.
Just in case you can’t listen to the sound, we've also provided the video transcripts below.
Script: Dog Body Condition Score: Find your dog’s ideal body shape with Hill’s Pet Nutrition
Dogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some breeds are tall and leggy while others are short and stocky. And of course dogs are very much individuals, so don’t always fit their breed weight exactly.
My name is Su and I am a veterinary surgeon with Hill’s Pet Nutrition. Today I am going to show you how to body condition score your dog. It’s an easy technique that vets use in their clinics and you can do at home. It doesn’t require any scales or any special equipment. It’s called body condition scoring.
Body condition scoring uses a 5 point scale. The ideal score is 3. Dogs that score more than 3 are overweight. A score lower than 3 means a dog is underweight.
So I am now going to score Ruby. Ruby’s an eight year old chocolate Labrador. First of all I am going to make a visual assessment.
I’m looking at her outline. I can see that the line of her tummy tucks upwards.
I can also see from this angle that she has a waist. It’s easier though to see this from above.
Ruby is a short haired dog so all of this is easy to see. If your dog has long hair, you might need to confirm what you think you see by using your hands to feel for the waist and tummy tuck.
Next, I am going to feel down Ruby’s back – like this. I can just feel her spine and no more. I don’t have to try too hard to find it at all. I can feel that it is reasonably covered and I can just feel some of the bumps of the bones of the spine. This continues to her tail base where there is a smooth contour as the spine joins the tail and no thickening.
And now, I ‘m going to just feel over the ribs. I can do this by standing above Ruby and running both hands over them. I can feel each rib with a slight fat covering. I can’t see the ribs but I’m not struggling to find them by touch.
So my assessment of Ruby is that she has scored a 3 and she is at her ideal body condition. That’s really going to help her live a healthy, happy life.

Find more information about feeding your dog to its perfect weight and body condition at http://www.hillspet.co.uk

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