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Anesthetic Risk Estimator

"Is it safe to put my pet under?" This weighs the things vets actually weigh — age, body condition, heart disease and its stage, other illnesses, medications, and how urgent and how big the procedure is — and turns it into a clear risk rating out of 10. By Dr Duncan Houston.

Plain-language mode: a score, what it means, and what to ask your vet.

1. Choose the animal

2. The patient

Choosing a breed auto-flags known predispositions — brachycephalic airways, breed-linked heart disease, sighthound drug sensitivity and more.
Very young and older animals both carry more anaesthetic risk.
Sets the "senior" threshold — giant breeds age fastest.
Obesity and being very underweight both make anaesthesia harder to manage.
Stabilising an unstable patient before anaesthesia is one of the biggest ways to lower risk.

3. Heart

Heart disease is the single factor that changes an anaesthetic plan the most. Pick what your vet or cardiologist has told you. Not sure? Choose "murmur, not yet investigated."

A louder murmur is not always a sicker heart, but an uninvestigated loud murmur is a reason to look closer before anaesthesia.

4. Other health

Tick anything that applies
Some medicines (heart drugs, diuretics, insulin, sedatives) change the anaesthetic plan and need timing around the procedure. Never stop a medication without asking your vet first.

5. The procedure

Emergencies leave less time to stabilise and investigate, which raises risk on its own.
Longer and bigger procedures mean more time under and more physiological stress.
Estimated anaesthetic risk
0 / 10
0LowModerateHigh10

What's driving this score

    How to lower the risk before the day

      Published mortality context

      Anaesthetic-related death within 48 hours of the procedure, from large veterinary studies. Real numbers depend on the individual, the drugs and the team — this is population context, not this patient's odds.

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      Store your pet's heart status and meds in ASK A VET™

      Keep vaccination, heart disease stage, medications and past anaesthetics in one profile you can hand to any vet in seconds, set reminders for pre-anaesthetic bloods, and chat to a certified vet before you book the procedure.

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