Commercially available wearable health monitor in dogs is unreliable for tracking energy intake and expenditure.

Objective: Assess the accuracy of predicted daily energy requirement (pDER) reported by a triaxial accelerometer and activity monitor for dogs (FitBark 2; FitBark Inc) and determine whether the activity monitor accurately estimates the observed daily energy requirement (oDER). We hypothesized that the activity monitor would accurately estimate oDER in dogs and meet standards established for human devices.

Animals: 23 dogs between the ages of 1 and 10 years and variable sex, breed, and body weight were enrolled from May 5, 2021, through July 23, 2021.