Is a pulse sensor reliable for tracking my dog's burned calories?

If you check your dog's pu;se at the jugular vein in the groove of the ventral neck(there is one either side), the result is correct. Count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 and you have heartbeats per minute (Pulse frequency)

I do not recommend using a treadmill for exercise. It is easy for a dog to step off of the path and Bruno could seriously harm himself. Any new exercise needs to slowly worked up to, I would not expect Bruno to be able to start running for an hour straight! Going for walks is a great form of exercise, but if he needs more and you are not able to run with him, you can train him to fetch or have a friend or dogwalker take him out for additional exercise. There is only one blood test that relates to the heart that I am aware of. It is called proBNP and helps vets differentiate primary heart disease from primary lung disease, this is often used in cases of dogs in Congestive Heart Failure. It would not be an appropriate screening test for Bruno. Other ways of monitoring for heart disease would include listening for a murmur, checking pulse and blood pressure, ECG, thoracic x-rays, and echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart).

No i would not advise this, so i would not trust the results. Blood pressure monitoring has its difficulties in pets even when taken in a veterinary clinic. I am not sure why you are checking a blood pressure in such a young dog but this is not a routine procedure unless indicated by a pets presentation.

You may be feeding Bruno more calories than he can feasibly burn. I would suggest either working with your vet to figure out how many calories your pet should consume daily, or you can use this website link to figure it out yourself. https://vet.osu.edu/vmc/companion/our-services/nutrition-support-service/basic-calorie-calculator Also, at this age Bruno is possibly still growing, so his weight may be in flux until he has reached 2 years of age. You should however be feeding him adult food twice daily. And to answer your other question, yes walking does help keep a pets heart and body healthy. Best wishes in your weight management goals for Bruno moving forward. Take care.

Measuring activity such as scratching, eating/drinking and general activity are also good ideas. Changes in sleeping patterns and patterns of movement would also be beneficial. Good luck on your device Julia!!! Please feel free to post any additional questions.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Physical activity would definitely help. However, a lot of it comes back to the diet that is fed. It is not necessarily about the amount of cups but it is more about the caloric content in each cup. You can follow the recommended amount of food in the bag (though they tend to recommend a higher amount than needed) or preferably have your veterinarian calculate the needed intake based on the most current weight. I recommend you try the Science Diet metabolic weight management diet which works great for weight loss. Good luck and have a good night!

Hello. I think there may really be a need for your "smart" dog food bowl. Ideally, it would be connected to a program where the owner can input breed, age, neuter status, weight, activity level, type of food, kcal per cup of food & I am sure something I am leaving out to calculate the total calories required to maintain a sensible weight in that pet. The less the owner has to do, the better. I do not think it is necessary nor advisable to weigh water as you do not want to make judgements about water intake. Your program should be able to adjust for a wet vs dry diet, as wet diets are by nature, less nutritionally dense because of the water already added. Good luck & thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.