How to keep pet health records: what to log, and how to brief your vet

Why records help your vet

A consultation is short, and pets rarely do the worrying thing in the surgery. Your vet has to rely on your account of what happened at home, often weeks after it started. Memory is poor at exactly the details that matter: how many times, how long, and whether it's getting better or worse.

Written records fix that. They help your vet:

• Spot a pattern, such as coughing that only happens at night or after exercise.
• Judge a trend: three episodes this month against eight last month is a very different conversation from "it still happens".
• Check medicines: which doses were given, missed or given late, and what changed when a dose changed.
• Avoid repeats: vaccine dates, past test results and earlier treatments are to hand, which matters if you move or see a new vet.

What to record for each pet

You don't need to log everything. These are the records that come up again and again:

Weight is the one people skip, but a slow change of a few hundred grams is easy to miss by eye and can be an early sign worth mentioning. Weigh at the same time of day on the same scales so readings compare.

Keeping a symptom diary

A symptom diary is the most useful record for anything that comes and goes: seizures, vomiting, coughing, limping, itching, days off food or changes in behaviour. For each episode, note:

1. When it started. The date and the time, as closely as you can.
2. How long it lasted. Time it if you can. Seconds and minutes feel much longer when you're worried.
3. What you saw. Plain words are fine: "legs paddling, didn't respond to her name, drooling".
4. What came before. Food, exercise, a new treat, a missed dose, fireworks, a stay in kennels.
5. How they were afterwards. Back to normal straight away, or wobbly and sleepy for an hour?

Film it if you safely can. A 20-second phone video of a seizure, a cough or a limp shows your vet exactly what you saw. Keep your distance from a pet having a seizure, and never put your hand near their mouth.

A worked example

That fits on one page, and it changes the appointment. The vet can see the episodes are short and fairly evenly spaced, that one followed a missed dose, and that weight has gone up by about 5%. Without the notes, the same visit might start with "he's had a few more".

Preparing for a vet visit

A few minutes the evening before makes the appointment go further:

• Sum up since the last visit: how many episodes, how long, and whether they are more or less frequent.
• Pick one or two videos to show, rather than scrolling through your camera roll in the consulting room.
• List current medicines with doses, and any doses missed or changed.
• Write your questions down, most important first. It's easy to forget them once the examination starts.
• Bring paperwork the vet hasn't seen: results from another clinic, a vaccination card, insurance forms.

If you see more than one vet, or a specialist, a printed one-page summary means each of them starts from the same facts.

Keeping records on a phone

Paper notes get lost, and the videos end up somewhere else. PawKeep keeps each pet's records together:

• Symptom diary. Tap Happening now to time a seizure, cough or limp as it happens, then add a video. Or log one from earlier. Episodes cover seizures, vomiting, diarrhoea, coughing, limping, itching, not eating, allergy flares, injuries, behaviour and more.
• Patterns over 12 weeks show how often and how long, and whether it's getting better or worse.
• Care records: vaccines, medicines with doses marked given, skipped or late, flea, tick and worming treatments, weights, vet visits and documents. Photograph vet paperwork and keep a copy.
• The vet brief puts symptom patterns, videos to show and your questions on one page, and makes a printable report you can print or save as a PDF.
• Reminders for vaccines, doses and preventives appear while PawKeep is open in your browser.

PawKeep is free for your first pet, with every record type, export and backup. PawKeep Pro ($3.99 once, no subscription) adds unlimited pets. Everything stays on your device, with no account, and it works offline.

Tips

• Log it while it's fresh. A note made within the hour is far more accurate than one made the next day.
• Use the same words each time. "Coughing fit" and "hacking" logged as different things hide a pattern.
• Keep the boring entries. A week with no episodes is useful information too.
• Back up. Records kept on one phone are lost with the phone. Export a copy now and then.

Common mistakes

• Guessing durations. Time episodes; a 40-second seizure can feel like five minutes.
• Only noting the bad days. Without the quiet days, a trend can look worse than it is.
• Forgetting missed doses. A missed or late dose is often the first thing a vet will ask about.
• Changing medicines on the strength of your notes. Share the records and let your vet decide.
• Waiting for the diary in an emergency. Long seizures, breathing trouble or collapse need a vet now.