APGAR Pet Score Calculator

About this calculator

The original APGAR score was created by anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar in 1952 to give a fast, standardized snapshot of a human newborn's condition immediately after birth, scoring five signs — heart rate, breathing effort, muscle tone, reflex response, and color — from 0 to 2 each. Veterinarians have since adapted the same five-category framework for newborn puppies and kittens, particularly after cesarean delivery, replacing the human criteria with species-appropriate equivalents such as heart rate thresholds specific to neonatal dogs and cats, respiratory effort, mobility and muscle tone, reflex irritability, and mucous membrane color.

The adapted score, summed to a total between 0 and 10, is used in veterinary clinics and breeding practices to quickly triage which neonates need immediate resuscitation support, such as clearing airways or warming, versus which are stable, and to track a litter's progress across repeated checks in the critical first minutes after whelping or queening.

Enter each of the five adapted signs for a puppy or kitten and this calculator totals them into the overall APGAR pet score.