Senior dog health checklist: what to watch and write down
A senior dog health checklist: when dogs become senior by size, the six changes to watch month to month, and exactly what to bring to your next vet visit.
A senior dog health checklist is a record, not a diagnosis. Your job is not to work out what is wrong; it is to notice changes early, write them down with dates, and hand your vet a timeline instead of a vague worry. The six areas worth a monthly look are mobility, weight, drinking and urination, cognition, lumps, and teeth and gums.
Do that for ten minutes a month and you will catch slow changes that daily life hides, and your vet gets something more useful than “he’s been a bit off lately.”
When a dog is actually considered senior
There is no birthday that flips the switch. The 2019 AAHA canine life stage guidelines define senior as the last 25% of a dog’s estimated lifespan through end of life: senior is a position on a curve, not an age. Because lifespan tracks closely with size, that lands very differently for different dogs.
| Size | Often considered senior around |
|---|---|
| Small (up to 20 lb) | 11 |
| Medium (21-50 lb) | 10 |
| Large (51-90 lb) | 8 |
| Giant (over 90 lb) | 7 |
These are starting points for a conversation, not verdicts. A fit 9-year-old Labrador and a creaky one need different things. The dog age calculator gives you a rough human-years figure and life stage from age and size group.
The one change worth making the moment your dog crosses into senior: AAHA recommends moving from annual to twice-yearly exams. A year is a long time in an older dog’s life, and a lot can develop quietly in that gap. Ask your vet what interval suits your dog.
Why monthly, and why written down
Aging is slow, and you are the worst-placed person to notice it. You see your dog every day, so you adapt in tiny increments without registering any of them. The stairs thing started “a while ago.” The water bowl “seems” emptier. Memory rewrites itself to match the present.
A dated note defeats that, because two notes six months apart can be compared and your impressions cannot. It is also why “he’s slowed down a bit” is hard for a vet to work with, while “in March he took the stairs normally, by May he paused at the bottom, and since June he waits to be lifted” is something they can act on.
The six things to watch month to month
Record what you see. Resist the urge to explain it. “Stiff for ten minutes after getting up” is data; “his arthritis is getting worse” is a guess that can send you and your vet down the wrong path.
Mobility
Score specific tasks, not a general impression. Can he do stairs, and does he hesitate? How long does it take to rise from lying down? Is he still jumping onto the sofa or the car? Does he slip on hard floors? Is he lagging on a walk he used to lead?
Score the same tasks each month and you get a trend. A single bad day means little; a task that has quietly disappeared over three months matters.
The highest-value thing here costs nothing: take a ten-second video of your dog walking towards and away from the camera, and getting up from a lie-down. Vets often cannot reproduce a limp in a bright, strange exam room where your dog is running on adrenaline. Video solves that.
Weight and body condition
Weigh on the same scale, roughly the same day each month. Weight is one of the few objective numbers you have, and both directions matter: gradual loss and gradual gain each raise different questions for your vet.
Weight alone is not the whole picture, which is why vets use a body condition score, typically 1 to 9, based on whether you can feel the ribs and see a waist. Ask your vet to show you how to score your dog once, then do it monthly at home.
Drinking and urination
Increased thirst and urination are among the more common reasons a vet runs bloodwork, because several conditions of older dogs show up there first. You do not need to know which, and you should not guess.
You do need a number. “Drinking more” is unmeasurable; “refilling the same bowl twice a day when it used to be once” is a fact. Measure what goes into the bowl for two or three days before your vet visit, and note accidents in the house, night waking to go out, or straining.
Cognition
Older dogs can change mentally as well as physically. Worth noting: staring at walls or into corners, getting stuck behind furniture, standing at the hinge side of a door, pacing in the evening, waking at night, seeming to forget house training, or greeting you less. Note frequency and time of day, since evening and night patterns are common.
Raise these with your vet rather than filing them under “he’s just old.” Age is not a diagnosis, and your vet will want to rule out other causes.
Lumps and bumps
Once a month, run both hands slowly over the whole dog: legs, armpits, groin, belly, neck, jaw, tail. You are not assessing anything. You are inventorying.
For anything you find, record the date, the location, the rough size, and a photo with a coin next to it for scale. Nobody can tell what a lump is from the outside, so every new lump is a booking, not a judgment call. The photo and the date are what let your vet see whether it has changed.
Teeth and gums
Lift the lip and look at the back teeth, where problems start and where you never look. Note bad breath, red gum lines, brown buildup, a broken tooth, dropping food, chewing on one side, or pawing at the face. Dental pain is easy to miss because dogs eat right through it.
What to bring to the vet visit
Turn up with paper, not impressions. A good senior visit runs on three things:
- A dated list of what changed since last time, in plain observations.
- The numbers: current weight and the trend, body condition score, and measured water intake for the last few days.
- A current medication list exactly as printed on the labels, including supplements and joint chews, plus anything you give occasionally. Vets need the real list, not the intended one.
Add the videos, the lump photos, and your top three questions, written down and ranked before you go. Visits are short, and the question you actually care about is the one you forget in the room. Ask your most important one first.
If you would rather keep all of this in one place than across a notes app and a paper diary, SeniorDogOS is a single offline file that logs medications, vet visits, monthly mobility scores and daily comfort notes, and holds the weight trend as a line rather than a memory. It stays on your device, and you can hand the screen to your vet.
What should not wait for the monthly check
A monthly rhythm is for slow change. Some things are not slow. Call your vet promptly, or an emergency service out of hours, for things like collapse, an unproductive attempt to vomit with a swollen or hard belly, breathing difficulty, a seizure, sudden inability to use the back legs, sudden obvious pain, or refusing food and water for a day.
You do not need to be sure. That is not your job, and “I would rather have wasted a call” is a completely reasonable position with an old dog.
Start with this month’s baseline
The first entry is what makes every later one useful, so do it now rather than starting a perfect system next month. Weigh your dog, run your hands over him, look at the back teeth, film ten seconds of walking, and write today’s date next to what you saw. Then set a recurring ten-minute reminder for the first weekend of each month, and book the six-month exam if you are not on that schedule already.
This guide is general information and not veterinary advice. Your vet is the only one who can examine your dog and tell you what any of it means, so bring your notes and talk through your dog’s own situation.
Frequently asked questions
At what age is a dog considered a senior?
It depends on size rather than a fixed birthday. As a rough guide, small dogs are often called senior around 11, medium around 10, large around 8, and giant breeds around 7. The 2019 AAHA canine life stage guidelines define senior as the last 25% of a dog's estimated lifespan, which is why a Great Dane can be senior at 7 while a small terrier is still middle-aged at 11.
How often should a senior dog see the vet?
AAHA recommends that healthy senior dogs be examined every six months rather than once a year, because six months is a meaningful chunk of an older dog's remaining life. Those visits typically include a physical exam plus screening such as bloodwork and urinalysis, and an assessment of weight, pain and mobility. Your own vet will set the right interval for your dog's health status.
What should I track for my senior dog?
The six areas most owners find worth a monthly note are mobility, weight, water intake and urination, cognition, lumps, and teeth and gums. Record what you observe with a date, not what you think it means. A dated timeline of changes is far more useful to a vet than trying to remember when something started.
Should I worry about a new lump on my older dog?
You cannot tell anything from the outside of a lump, and neither can anyone online, so a new lump is a reason to book a vet appointment rather than to watch and wait. What you can usefully do is record the date you found it, where it is, roughly how big it is, and take a photo next to a coin for scale. Your vet decides whether it needs testing.
How do I know if my senior dog is in pain?
Dogs rarely cry out. Pain in older dogs more often shows up as changes in behavior: hesitating at stairs, taking longer to get up, panting at rest, restlessness, licking one spot, or being less interested in things they used to enjoy. Note what changed and when, then bring that list to your vet, who can examine your dog and tell you what is behind it.
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