How to Keep Pet Health Records: What to Include, How Often, and What to Bring to the Vet

At the vet, the same few questions tend to come up: when did it start, how often does it happen, has it changed, and what has your pet been given?

A pet health record should cover seven things: weight and body condition; appetite and everything your pet eats; changes in water intake, urination, stool or vomiting; each dose of medication as it is given, and who gave it; symptoms, with when they started, how often they happen and how they have changed; vet visits and what the vet said; and the dates of vaccines and preventives. Only weight needs a regular slot. Everything else is a dated line on the day something changes.

This is a guide to keeping records, written by Memofu's developer, not a veterinarian. It is not veterinary advice, and it will not tell you what a symptom means. If something about your pet worries you, call your vet.

What should a pet health record include?

Include what your vet will ask about and what only you can see at home: weight and body condition, appetite and diet, water and bathroom changes, medication, symptoms, vet visits, and vaccines and preventives.

That list follows veterinary guidance. The World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) nutrition guidelines ask owners to monitor their pet at home, including food intake and appetite, body condition and body weight, gastrointestinal signs such as stool consistency and vomiting, and overall appearance and activity. The Merck Veterinary Manual, describing how a vet looks into a urinary problem in a dog, lists the history the vet takes: changes in how much water the dog drinks and how often it urinates, what medications it has taken or is taking, its appetite and diet, changes in body weight, and previous illnesses or injuries.

Here is each item, how often to write it down, and why it comes up at the vet.

Most rows say "when it changes". A health record is not a diary. On most days there is nothing to add, and a system that asks for an entry every day is hard to keep going. Weight is the regular entry; everything else is one dated line on the day something is different.

Why write it down instead of relying on memory?

Because memory is least reliable in exactly the places a record is needed: a worried moment in the exam room, and changes that happen slowly.

A 2003 review of research on patients' memory, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, reported that 40–80% of the medical information healthcare practitioners give is forgotten immediately, and that almost half of what is remembered is incorrect. It also found that written information is remembered better than spoken advice. That research is about people remembering what their own doctor told them, not about pet owners, but the situation is similar: a lot of information, given while you are anxious.

A leaflet published in 2015 on the website of the Suginami veterinary association in Tokyo makes the same point about emergencies: an owner who is shaken may not be able to recall past illnesses or the medicines in use straight away, so it recommends keeping a health notebook ready.

Slow change is the other problem. A pet that eats a little less each week, or drinks a little more, looks normal on any single day. A dated line turns "she seems to drink more lately" into something your vet can use: when it started, and what it was like before.

A record also fixes the timeline. The same limp is a different conversation at three days and at three months, and a date written on the day is more reliable than one worked out later.

How often should you weigh your pet at home?

For a healthy adult dog or cat, at least once a month, on the same scale each time. Growing, senior and pregnant animals need more frequent checks, and a pet on a diet or under treatment should be weighed as your vet directs.

• Dogs and cats: Kamogawa Animal Medical Center, a veterinary clinic in Kyoto, asks owners to weigh even healthy dogs and cats at least once a month, and recommends once a week if you can weigh at home.
• Kittens: Hill's guide to weighing a cat at home, written by a veterinarian, suggests every two weeks for a growing kitten, then monthly from about six months of age, when most cats are close to adult size.
• Growing, senior and pregnant pets: the WSAVA guidelines say healthy pregnant, lactating, senior and growing animals need more frequent monitoring.

The WSAVA guidelines, written for vet teams, also recommend a consistent method and scale so that changes over time can be assessed. At home, using the same scale each time makes your own readings easier to compare.

What counts as a change worth mentioning? The guidelines focus on unexplained change rather than a single number. WSAVA lists "unexplained weight change" among the risk factors that may prompt a closer nutritional evaluation. The American Association of Feline Practitioners' 2021 senior care guidelines say unexplained trends in body weight or body condition are problems that must be investigated, and point out that a small cat may not change much in absolute terms while the proportional change could still be significant. So write down every weigh-in, look at the direction over several readings, and tell your vet about any trend you can't explain.

How to weigh a wriggling cat or a large dog at home, and a printable log, are in our gotcha day and weight tracking primer.

How do you check your pet's body condition at home?

Feel the ribs, look at the waist from above and the belly from the side, and give a score on a scale you name.

A body condition score (BCS) describes how much fat a pet carries. The WSAVA guidelines use a 9-point scale, on which the goal for most pets is 4 to 5. WSAVA's dog chart describes a score of 5 as ribs you can feel without excess fat covering, a waist you can see behind the ribs from above, and a belly tucked up when seen from the side. Its cat chart describes the ideal score of 5 as well-proportioned, with ribs you can feel under a slight fat covering and a waist behind the ribs that is visible but not pronounced. The guidelines note that several scales are in use, with 5, 6, 7 or 9 points. The owner's guide to pet food from Japan's Ministry of the Environment, for example, uses 5 points, with 3 as ideal.

It is worth recording for the same reason as weight. The WSAVA guidelines include body condition in what owners should monitor at home, and the AAFP senior care guidelines say that teaching owners to monitor body weight and body condition at home can improve early detection of negative trends.

• Ask your vet to score your pet at the next visit, and to show you how they feel for the ribs. Your own scores will then be comparable with theirs.
• Always write the scale next to the score. Charts with 5 points and with 9 points are both in use, so a 3 is ideal on one and under ideal on the other.

What should you bring to a vet appointment?

Bring the record itself, plus a few lists that are hard to put together from memory in the exam room.

1. The record. Weight history and dated notes. For a symptom, write three lines before you go: when it started, how much or how often, and how it has changed. Our guide to describing your pet's symptoms to the vet shows how to write them and what to say on the phone. Japan Animal Medical Center's first-visit guide for dog owners says the clinic will ask when symptoms started, how often and at what times, and that a written note is fine.
2. A list of every medication. Cornell University Hospital for Animals asks owners coming to its dermatology service to write down and bring the names of all medications their pet uses now or has used within the last 30 days: pills, capsules, shots, shampoos, ointments and drops. It is a good habit for any appointment. Add supplements and preventives.
3. A food list. The main food, treats, chews and supplements by brand and product name, and whatever you use to give pills. Banquet Animal Hospital in Tokyo suggests bringing the packaging of the food and treats your pet usually eats, or a note of them. The AAHA guidelines note that owners can be asked to fill in a diet history at home to make it more accurate.
4. Records from other clinics. Japan Animal Medical Center says recent results from tests at your regular clinic help with the exam and may make repeating a test unnecessary. If you don't have them, ask that clinic to send them.
5. A sample, if the clinic wants one. The same clinic notes that stool, urine or vomit, if you can bring it, lets the vet check things such as its colour and smell. Ask when you book whether to bring a fresh sample and how to keep it.
6. A short video of the cough, the limp or the episode, with the time you filmed it. Banquet Animal Hospital notes that many pets stop coughing, limping or having a seizure once they reach the clinic, because they are nervous, and suggests filming what happens at home for about 10 seconds on your phone to show the vet.
7. Your questions, written down, and a way to note the answers before you leave: what to give and when, what to watch for, and when to call back.

Take the record to routine checkups too, not only when something is wrong. The Merck Veterinary Manual recommends a full checkup at least once a year for adult dogs, and twice a year or more for senior dogs over 7–8 years old. For cats, Cornell's Feline Health Center says your vet may suggest seeing a healthy senior cat more often than a younger one.

Bringing a new puppy or kitten in for the first time? The puppy first vet visit checklist covers what to bring and what to ask.

Why should a medication entry say who gave the dose?

Because in a home where more than one person gives medicine, the useful question is not "what is the schedule?" but "has this dose already been given, and by whom?" Only an entry with a time and a name can answer it.

Write down each dose as it goes in, not the prescription: which dose it was (Tuesday evening, not just Tuesday), the time it was actually given, and who gave it. If a dose was held back on purpose, note it as skipped, so it doesn't look like one nobody got to. The same entries answer "what is your pet taking?" at the vet.

Homes that share care have one particular failure: two people each giving the same dose, neither knowing about the other. Our guide to preventing double doses when a family shares a pet's medication covers a household routine and what to do if it happens. The short version: if you think a dose may have been given twice, call your vet now.

What records should be ready for a new vet or an emergency?

A short summary: vaccination records, current medications, medical history, test results, recent weights, allergies, your regular clinic's details and a current photo, kept somewhere you can open from your phone.

The CDC's advice on pet safety in emergencies says to include records of vaccination for rabies and other diseases, prescription medications and medical history in your pet's medical records. Japan's Ministry of the Environment, in its disaster guideline for pet owners, lists records of vaccination, previous illnesses, ongoing medication, test results and health condition, your vet's contact details, and photos of your pet among the information to prepare for an emergency, and notes that keeping the photos on your phone as well as in print is helpful.

The Suginami leaflet adds that a notebook recording weight, preventive care, past treatment and current medicines helps a clinic seeing your pet for the first time understand its condition. The same summary helps when you move to a new clinic, leave your pet with a sitter or a boarding facility, or end up at an after-hours clinic that has never seen your pet. If you are changing clinics, how to transfer vet records walks through requesting copies and what to keep yourself.

Keep it somewhere you can take with you. A history that lives only in one clinic's system, or in an app you can't export from, is hard to hand over at the moment you need it.

What to do this weekend

You don't need to fill in the past. Start with what you can check today.

1. Weigh your pet and write down the date, the weight and which scale you used.
2. Check body condition: ribs, waist and belly. Note the scale you used, and ask your vet to score it at the next visit.
3. Write the medication list: every medicine, preventive and supplement, by the name on the label.
4. Write the food list: main food, treats, chews, supplements, and what you use for pills.
5. Copy the last vaccine and preventive dates from your clinic's paperwork. If a certificate is missing, here is who can reissue a lost dog vaccination certificate.
6. Put your clinic's number and the nearest after-hours clinic's number at the top.
7. Choose one place for all of it, and tell everyone who helps with care where it is.

Where Memofu fits

Memofu is a private pet app for families, and its health log keeps these records next to your pet's photos. Here is what it does today:

• Weight with a trend chart, so the monthly weigh-in becomes a line you can read.
• A medication log. Set the dose times and Memofu notifies the owners and co-owners when each dose is due. An owner or co-owner marks it given with one tap, and everyone in the circle sees who gave it and when.
• A daily care log for meals, potty breaks and dog walks. An owner or co-owner can also log an entry in their own words (up to 40 characters), such as "Drank more than usual". Everyone in the circle sees who logged each one, and if someone has just logged the same thing, it asks before logging it again.
• Vet visits with what the vet said, photos of prescriptions or results, and the next appointment, with a reminder as it gets close.
• Care reminders for vaccines, flea, tick and heartworm prevention, grooming and vet appointments, repeating weekly, monthly or yearly. The owners and co-owners are notified on the day, and the record shows who marked each one done.
• A read-only health link for a new vet, a boarding facility or a sitter. It opens in any browser, stops working after a day, a week or a month, and shows the profile, allergies and care notes, current medications, vaccines and preventives, recent weights and past visits. It never includes photos or your family's names.

There is no dedicated field for body condition, water or stool; an entry in your own words covers those.

Every health record, including its full history, is free, and so is the health link. A vet-ready PDF summary is available on Premium. Full export is free on every plan, forever, including after cancelling, and there are no ads, no sale of your data and no public feed. You can see the details on our features page and what is paid on our pricing page.

Paper works too. What matters is that the record is in one place and has dates in it.

One last time: this is a guide to keeping records, not veterinary advice. If something worries you, call your vet. The record is there to make that call a better one.

Sources

• WSAVA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines, World Small Animal Veterinary Association (Freeman L et al., Journal of Small Animal Practice, 2011). What owners should monitor at home; more frequent monitoring for growing, senior and pregnant animals; a consistent method and scale, recommended to vet teams; unexplained weight change as a risk factor; BCS scales of 5, 6, 7 or 9 points and a goal of 4 to 5 of 9 for most pets.
• Body Condition Score: dogs, WSAVA. What a score of 5 looks and feels like in a dog.
• Body Condition Score: cats, WSAVA. What the ideal score of 5 looks and feels like in a cat.
• 飼い主のためのペットフード・ガイドライン (Pet food guidelines for owners), Ministry of the Environment, Japan, second edition, October 2009, in Japanese. A 5-point body condition score with 3 as ideal.
• 2021 AAHA Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats, Martha G. Cline et al., Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association. Screening at every visit, including body weight and body condition; a nutritional history that covers treats, supplements and foods used to give medication; diet histories completed at home.
• 2021 AAFP Feline Senior Care Guidelines, Michael Ray et al., Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. Unexplained trends in weight and body condition; proportional change in small cats; monitoring at home.
• Detecting Disorders of the Kidneys and Urinary Tract in Dogs, Sherry Lynn Sanderson, Merck Veterinary Manual, last updated September 2024. The history a vet takes: water, urination, medications, appetite and diet, body weight.
• Routine Health Care of Dogs, Natalie Antinoff, Merck Veterinary Manual, reviewed July 2025. How often adult and senior dogs should have a checkup.
• The Special Needs of the Senior Cat, Cornell Feline Health Center, updated December 2016. More frequent evaluations for senior cats.
• Dermatology, Cornell University Hospital for Animals. Bringing the names of every medication used now or in the last 30 days to a dermatology appointment.
• どのくらいの頻度で体重測定していますか？ (How often do you weigh your pet?), Kamogawa Animal Medical Center, Kyoto, December 1, 2017, in Japanese. At least once a month even for healthy dogs and cats, and weekly at home if you can.
• How To Weigh Your Cat At Home, Emma Milne, Hill's Pet Nutrition. Every two weeks for a growing kitten, monthly from about six months.
• 初診の方へ～初めての動物病院へ行くときの持ち物～犬編 (What to bring to a first visit: dogs), Japan Animal Medical Center, March 23, 2017, in Japanese. Current medicines, recent test results, stool, urine and vomit samples, and a note of when symptoms started, how often and at what times.
• 初めての動物病院マニュアル (A guide to your first vet visit), Banquet Animal Hospital, Mishuku Animal Medical Center, Tokyo, May 21, 2026, in Japanese. Food and treat packaging or a note; a short phone video, because symptoms often stop at the clinic.
• Is My Pet Having Seizures?, Veterinary Medicine at Illinois, University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, May 20, 2025. Recording a video when a pet acts strangely.
• Patients' memory for medical information, Roy P. C. Kessels, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2003. How much medical information patients forget, and why written information helps. Research on human patients.
• 救急の備え ～いざという時に慌てないために～ (Being ready for an emergency), Suginami Veterinary Medical Association, Tokyo, leaflet edited by the Suginami branch of the Tokyo Veterinary Medical Association and published by the Suginami Public Health Center, November 2015, in Japanese. Owners forgetting history and medicines in an emergency; a health notebook helps a clinic seeing the pet for the first time.
• Be Prepared: Pet Safety in Emergencies, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 9, 2024. What belongs in your pet's medical records.
• Are You and Your Pets Safe in Case of Disaster? Disaster Preparedness Guideline for Humans and Pets (For General Pet Owners), Ministry of the Environment, Japan, English edition, October 2018. The information and photos of your pet to prepare for an emergency.