TL;DR: A normal resting heart rate for an adult dog is about 60 to 140 beats per minute. Big dogs run slower (around 60 to 100), small dogs run faster (around 100 to 140), and puppies are faster again (often 160 to 220). What matters most is knowing your own dog's normal so you can spot when a resting rate is unusually high, low, or irregular and get a vet check.
Your dog's heart rate is one of the simplest health numbers you can learn, and one of the most useful. It tells you how hard the heart is working at rest, and a change from normal is often an early nudge that something is worth a closer look. The good news: you do not need any equipment to check it.
What is a normal heart rate for a dog?
Heart rate is measured in beats per minute (bpm) and it depends heavily on size. Smaller hearts beat faster, larger hearts beat slower. As a rough guide for a calm, resting adult dog:
- Large and giant breeds (Labrador, German Shepherd, Great Dane): roughly 60 to 100 bpm
- Medium breeds (Border Collie, Spaniel): roughly 70 to 120 bpm
- Small and toy breeds (Chihuahua, Yorkshire Terrier): roughly 100 to 140 bpm
- Puppies: much faster, often 160 to 220 bpm
These are resting figures. During a run, a game, or a moment of excitement, any dog's heart rate climbs far higher, and that is completely normal. The number only tells you something useful when your dog is calm and settled.
How to check your dog's heart rate at home
You can measure it in under a minute with nothing but your hand and a clock.
- Get your dog calm. Wait until they are lying down or sitting quietly. A reading taken straight after a walk or a doorbell will be misleadingly high.
- Find the beat. The easiest spot is the left side of the chest, just behind the front leg where the elbow meets the body. Rest your palm there and you should feel the heartbeat. Alternatively, gently press two fingers into the crease on the inside of a back thigh to find the femoral pulse.
- Count. Count the beats for 15 seconds, then multiply by four to get beats per minute.
- Note it down. Do this a few times over a week or two when your dog is relaxed. That gives you a personal baseline, which is far more useful than any chart.
While you are there, it is worth learning your dog's normal resting breathing rate too. Our guide to why dogs pant explains how breathing and heart rate work together to cool and fuel the body.
Why your dog's heart rate changes
A healthy heart rate is not a fixed number that sits still all day. It rises and falls for good reasons:
- Activity. Exercise, play, and even a brisk walk push the rate up, then it recovers within minutes of stopping.
- Excitement and stress. A visitor at the door, a car trip, or fireworks all speed the heart with adrenaline.
- Age. Puppies run much faster than adults, and the rate settles as they grow.
- Fitness. A fit dog usually has a lower, steadier resting rate. If your dog is getting more active over months, you may see the resting number drift down.
- Breathing. Many dogs speed up slightly on the in-breath and slow on the out-breath. This rise-and-fall pattern, called sinus arrhythmia, is normal in dogs and nothing to worry about.
When a dog's heart rate is a warning sign
You do not need to diagnose anything yourself. The job is simply to notice when the resting rate does not fit your dog's normal, then let a vet take it from there. Reasons to book a check include:
- A resting rate that stays high for the size of dog, especially well above 140 in a medium or large breed
- A resting rate that is unusually slow or that comes with weakness, wobbliness, or fainting
- A rhythm that feels chaotic or skips rather than gently rising and falling with the breath
- A changed heart rate alongside coughing, tiring quickly, heavy breathing at rest, or a swollen belly
Any of these, especially in an older dog, is worth a prompt vet visit. A short note of the readings you took at home is genuinely helpful in the exam room, because a nervous dog's heart often races the moment it arrives at the clinic.
How tracking activity helps you spot changes
A one-off heart rate reading is a snapshot. The more powerful signal is the trend: is your dog recovering as quickly after exercise as it used to, moving as much, and resting as calmly? That pattern is hard to hold in your head from day to day.
An activity tracker like Rocket logs how far and how hard your dog moves and how much it rests, so a gradual drop in activity, or a dog that tires faster than it did last month, stands out instead of slipping by. Pair that trend with an occasional resting-pulse check and you have an early-warning system built from your dog's own normal. For the bigger picture of what healthy looks like day to day, see our guide to the signs of a healthy dog, and if you are unsure whether hard exercise is taking a toll, can you over-exercise a dog is worth a read.
The bottom line
Most adult dogs rest somewhere between 60 and 140 beats per minute, with size setting where in that band they land. Learn your own dog's normal resting rate, check it now and then when they are calm, and treat a steady change, an odd rhythm, or a high rate paired with other symptoms as a reason to call the vet. For more everyday dog-health guides, browse our dog guides.