Spinal Staging Calculator
Assess IVDD severity in dogs and cats using owner and veterinary spinal staging. Estimate grade, prognosis, urgency, and recommended next steps.
Choose who is answering
Owner mode asks plain-language questions about how the dog is moving. Vet mode stages the same case for clinical use. Switching mode clears the answers.
Spinal Disease Calculator. Answer a few plain-language questions about how your dog is moving right now. It grades a suspected slipped disc from 1 to 5 and tells you how fast you need to act.
Answer one question at a time
The button stays disabled until every option on the screen is answered, and the deep-pain question only appears when it applies — so a run is three or four questions long.
Read this first
If your dog suddenly can't walk, has gone limp in the back legs, or has lost the ability to pee, treat it as an emergency and call a vet now. Time is the single biggest factor in whether a dog with a spinal injury walks again. This tool helps you understand the severity — it does not replace a hands-on exam.
This is an educational triage guide, not a diagnosis. Definitive grading, prognosis and surgical decisions require advanced imaging (MRI). This tool does not replace clinical assessment.
How this calculator works
Pick a mode first. Owner mode asks plain-language questions about how a dog is moving right now; Vet mode stages the same case on the 5-point (modified Frankel) scale. Switching between them clears the answers and starts the questions again.
The calculator asks one question at a time, and the button below the options stays disabled until every option on that screen is answered. The deep-pain question appears only when the answer to the movement question is that the back legs are completely limp, so a run is three or four questions long.
The result names the stage, the urgency, the prognosis and what to do next, and lists anything in the answers that raises the urgency. In Vet mode it adds the key rule-outs to consider. The buttons at the top of the card stay with you the whole way: “Start again” clears every answer and returns to the first question, and once a grade is on screen you can email, copy or print it.
