TL;DR: A normal resting heart rate for an adult dog is 60 to 120 beats per minute (bpm). Size shifts it less than most charts claim, so the number that matters is your own dog's resting baseline, counted on a calm day. A resting rate well above that baseline, a slow rate with weakness, or any rate with fainting or labored breathing is a reason to call your vet.
Heart rate is one of the three vital signs you can check at home with nothing but your hand and a clock, alongside breathing and temperature. It takes a minute, and once you know your dog's normal, a change stands out.
This guide gives you the veterinary ranges, what two large studies found about dog size (it is not what the usual charts say), a home routine, a table for reading the number, and the signs that turn a curious count into a vet visit.
What is a normal resting heart rate for a dog?
The Merck Veterinary Manual says a dog's heart beats 60 to 120 times per minute at rest. Its table of normal values for dogs gives 70 to 120 bpm, with a note that small dogs have faster heart rates than larger dogs. VCA Animal Hospitals uses the same 70 to 120 bpm, "with a regular rhythm."
Those are figures for a calm dog. A day in a dog's life covers a much wider span. When researchers at Ohio State fitted 60 apparently healthy dogs with a 24-hour ambulatory ECG, the median lowest rate was 42 bpm, the median average was 73 bpm, and the median highest was 190 bpm. So a relaxed dog dozing on the couch can sit below 60, and a dog sprinting after a ball can briefly pass 180. Neither is a problem on its own.
What you are looking for is the resting number: your dog lying down, settled, not just back from a walk, a doorbell, or a car ride.
Does size change a dog's heart rate?
Yes, but by less than you would think. You will see charts online, including an older version of this page, that put large dogs at 60 to 100 bpm and small dogs at 100 to 140, as if the two barely overlapped. The research we read does not back gaps that large.
- The big dataset. A Royal Veterinary College team analyzed heart rates from 10,849 dogs, including 5,000 healthy dogs seen at first-opinion clinics. Heart rate did fall as body weight rose, but the average difference between an 11 lb (5 kg) dog and a 121 lb (55 kg) dog was only about 10.5 bpm. Chihuahuas ran higher than their weight predicted. The authors concluded that weight, age, and breed explain only a small share of the variation between dogs.
- The 24-hour recordings. In the Ohio State study, dogs ranged from 4 to 176 lb (2 to 80 kg), and minimum, average, and maximum heart rates did not correlate with body weight at all.
Our takeaway: treat 60 to 120 bpm as the normal range for any adult dog, expect a toy breed to sit a little higher than a giant breed, and don't panic because your Labrador reads 95 and a chart says 60 to 90. The differences between individual dogs are much larger than the average size effect, which is exactly why a personal baseline beats any table.
Puppies: the veterinary references we checked for this guide don't give a puppy range, so we won't print one. Ask your vet to note your puppy's resting heart rate at an early visit and use that as your starting point.
How to check your dog's heart rate at home
You need a calm dog, a quiet room, and a phone timer.
- Pick the moment. Choose a time your dog has been lying down for at least 15 minutes. Not after a walk, a meal, or a visitor.
- Find the beat. VCA suggests placing your hands on both sides of your dog's chest to feel the heartbeat. The strongest spot is usually the left side, just behind the elbow. The AKC also describes the femoral artery, on the inside of the hind leg at the top, where you can feel the pulse with two fingers.
- Count for 15 seconds, then multiply by four. If your dog is still and you have the patience, count for a full 30 seconds and multiply by two for a steadier number.
- Notice the rhythm, not just the count. Does it rise and fall gently with breathing? That is normal (more below).
- Write it down with the date and time. The AKC advises recording your dog's vital signs when they are healthy and at rest, so you have something to compare against in an emergency.
One tip from the clinic world: a 2024 triage review in The Canadian Veterinary Journal warns that pulse rates are not reliable in dogs with arrhythmias, because some heartbeats don't produce a pulse you can feel. If you count the chest and the thigh at the same time and the numbers don't match, that mismatch is worth telling your vet about.
What we do with Rocket: our lab gets three resting counts on three calm evenings, usually when he is stretched out after dinner, and we write the average on the same fridge note as his temperature. After a run, we also count once at the 10-minute mark. We are not chasing a target number. We just want to know what "settled" looks like for him, so a slow recovery stands out.
How to read the number
Use this for a calm adult dog at rest. The ranges come from Merck, VCA, and the triage review cited above. The "recount" step is our own habit, not a veterinary cutoff.
| Resting reading | What it likely means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Under 60 bpm, dog bright, fit, relaxed | Can be normal; healthy dogs dip near 40 in 24-hour recordings | Nothing, if your dog acts normally |
| Under 60 bpm with weakness, wobbling, or fainting | Slow rate (the triage review uses under 60 as its bradycardia cutoff) | Call your vet today |
| 60 to 120 bpm | Normal range | Note it as part of your baseline |
| Above 120 bpm at rest | Upper edge; often excitement, heat, or a recent walk | Let your dog settle for 30 minutes and recount |
| Above 150 bpm at rest in a large dog | Unusual: normal large dogs rarely go this high | Call your vet, sooner if other signs are present |
| Any rate with pale gums, collapse, or labored breathing | Possible emergency | Go to a vet now |
Is an irregular heartbeat normal in dogs?
Usually, yes, and this surprises many owners the first time they count. The Merck Veterinary Manual explains that in quiet, healthy dogs the heart rate is usually irregular: it increases while breathing in and decreases while breathing out. Vets call this sinus arrhythmia, and Merck describes it as a good indicator of health.
Merck adds that this rise-and-fall pattern usually disappears during excitement, pain, or fever, and in some heart diseases. So a steady, metronome-like beat in a dog who is supposedly resting can mean they are not as relaxed as they look.
What is not normal: a rhythm that feels chaotic, with pauses or bursts that have nothing to do with breathing. Don't try to diagnose it. A vet will listen with a stethoscope and, as Merck notes, may recommend an ECG to find the cause.
Why your dog's heart rate goes up
A fast heart is a response, not a diagnosis. The common causes, from harmless to urgent:
- Exercise and play. Expected. The Ohio State dogs topped out around 190 bpm on a normal day.
- Excitement, fear, or stress. Visitors, fireworks, the vet's waiting room.
- Heat. A hot dog pants and its heart works harder to move heat out. Our guide to why dogs pant explains when panting is cooling and when it is a warning.
- Pain or fever. Merck lists both as states that change the normal rhythm. If your dog seems hot, check the normal temperature for a dog next.
- Shock. The AKC's first-aid guidance lists a rapid heart rate, weak pulse, and pale gums among the signs of shock. That combination is an emergency.
Heart rate and breathing move together, so take both. Our guide to the normal respiratory rate for a dog shows how to count breaths while your dog sleeps.
When to call your vet
Call your vet, or an emergency clinic if yours is closed, when:
- Your dog's resting rate stays well above its usual baseline on two counts at least 30 minutes apart.
- The rate is under 60 bpm and your dog is weak, wobbly, or has fainted.
- A large dog reads above 150 bpm while calm.
- The rhythm feels chaotic rather than rising and falling with the breath.
- You see a changed heart rate together with coughing, tiring quickly, breathing hard at rest, pale gums, or collapse. Collapse or pale gums means go now.
Bring your written readings. Many dogs are nervous at the clinic, so numbers taken calmly at home help your vet see what normal looks like for your dog.
Mistakes we see all the time
- Counting right after a walk and reading a normal post-exercise rate as a problem.
- Trusting a size chart over your own dog. Breed and weight explain little of the difference between dogs.
- Worrying about a "skipping" beat that is simply sinus arrhythmia keeping time with the breath.
- Only checking when something seems wrong. Without a calm-day baseline, you have nothing to compare to.
- Counting the thigh pulse alone in a dog with a known heart problem. Count the chest.
In short
A normal resting heart rate for an adult dog is 60 to 120 bpm, and size moves it by only a few beats on average. Count it at rest with your hand on the chest, write down your dog's own normal on a few calm days, and treat a high resting rate, a slow rate with weakness, or an odd rhythm as a reason to call your vet. A dog whose heart is working harder often slows down in daily life first, so our guide to why your dog is lethargic and our checklist of the signs of a healthy dog are good companions to this one, and if you train hard together, read can you over-exercise a dog.
Rocket, the activity tracker we are building, is designed to show how your dog moves and rests day after day, so a dog that tires sooner or recovers slower than usual is easy to notice. Join the waitlist to hear when it is ready.