Dr. Conor Brady explains the Thompson Stool Score, a 0-10 scale for measuring pet stool consistency. A score of 10 is firm and easily lifted; 0-1 is completely liquid; 5 is like chocolate blancmange. The numeric scale gives pet owners and vets a shared language to track digestive changes precisely.
The Thompson stool score, very, very simple. A number 10 is a perfect poo, which is if you grab a pen and hold it in the middle between two fingers, it means you can go like this. Okay, you can pick it up with two fingers for a starter, and there's a little solidity to it, a little bit of give, but essentially it's easy to manage, really easy to pick up. A 0 or a 1 is no form whatsoever. It is literally a liquid. So because that's kind of brownie and super, super, super liquid, so it's soup. It's way down there. Halfway at a 5 out of 10 would be chocolate blancmange. Now you might think I'm just being a little bit graphic for the sake of it, just to be humorous and what have you. I'm not. This is a fantastic way of communicating with your vet once you teach your vet what you mean, because otherwise vets get people coming in saying, oh, it's got a little bit of diarrhea and nobody knows what anybody's talking about. But if you come in and say, I started the new diet and they had a 2 and now they're a 6, then everybody immediately knows exactly where they are. You know, they've raised 4 points on this scale, which means they're heading towards a 9 or a 10, which is where you want to be really. But it's just a really simple tool to facilitate communication between you and your vets.
