The five details every vet asks about
Symptom conversations at clinics follow a predictable skeleton: onset (when did this start), frequency (how often), duration (how long does an episode last), severity (how bad within an episode), and trajectory (better, worse, or flat). Memory serves these questions terribly — everything before last weekend blurs — which is why a few dated notes beat the most attentive recollection. If you capture nothing else, capture onset and trajectory.
A log entry that takes thirty seconds
One line per observation, four fields (or print the symptom diary template):
- Jul 2, evening — coughing fit after stairs, ~20 seconds, dry sound — third time this week
- Jul 3, morning — breakfast eaten fully, water normal, no cough overnight
- Jul 4, midday — cough after fetch, ~10 seconds — filmed it
Date, what happened, roughly how long or how much, and anything contextual. Skip days where nothing changed, or write normal day — a documented normal is itself information, because it brackets when the abnormal started.
When video is worth a thousand notes
Some symptoms are practically defined by not performing at the clinic: intermittent limps, coughing fits, sneezing spells, odd head postures, tremors, breathing patterns during sleep. Film these when they happen — ten steady seconds with decent light. For breathing concerns specifically, a resting or sleeping breathing video is diagnostically useful in a way no description can match. Photos serve the static things: the spot that changes size, the gum color, the swelling that comes and goes.
Species footnotes: what dogs and cats hide differently
Dogs
Dogs advertise digestion and movement problems but normalize slow-building ones — track water intake, stamina on walks, and weight, the three that drift silently.
Cats
Cats convert illness into absence: more hiding, less grooming, quieter hours. Litter box data — frequency, size of clumps, misses — is the most objective cat health feed you have.
Severity words that carry information
Vague words waste the vet's first diagnostic pass. Trade them up: not vomiting a lot but vomited four times between Friday and Sunday, food then foam; not limping sometimes but limps for the first minute after naps, then walks off; not not eating right but ate half of breakfast, skipped dinner, took treats fine. Numbers, dates, and comparatives survive translation into medicine; adjectives do not.
When to stop logging and call now
Tracking is for patterns, not emergencies. Stop observing and contact a vet immediately for: labored or open-mouth breathing, repeated vomiting or unproductive retching, a bloated or hard abdomen, collapse or extreme lethargy, straining without producing urine, suspected poisoning, seizures, pale gums, or an unresponsive pet. The rule underneath the list: fast-moving or breathing-related problems earn phone calls, not journal entries.