Your dog’s BRisk score
BRisk uses six details about your dog to help assess the risk of serious complications in hospital after airway surgery. Enter what you know and leave the rest blank.
Struggling to breathe or collapsing? Seek urgent veterinary care.
Veterinary teams: BRisk with a BOAS referral
- Enter: breed, previous airway surgery, concurrent non-airway procedure and BCS on the five-point scale.
- Admission measurements: airway status and rectal temperature. Leave unmeasured values unknown; earlier clinic values are provisional.
- Send: score or possible range, completed inputs and when measurements were taken. The hospital team confirms the admission values.
BRisk supports assessment of major inpatient complications. It is not a personal risk percentage; a low score does not exclude complications. Later validation found poorer performance in French Bulldogs.
Use the calculator ↓ · Points and research ↓ · Back to the BOAS referral checklist →
Nostril examples — visual reference
These photographs show examples of open and narrowed nostrils. Nostril appearance is not one of BRisk’s six inputs. Your veterinary team assesses breathing separately.
Your current BRisk result
Answer what you know. You can leave the hospital measurements for your team.
BRisk is a points score, not a percentage.
In both studies, serious problems were more common in dogs scoring above 3. A low score does not rule out serious problems. BRisk was less reliable in French Bulldogs in the later study.
A possible range will appear as you add answers.
The papers compared scores of 3 or below with scores above 3. This split is not a guarantee of how a dog will recover.
What happened in the studies?
Dogs counted here needed oxygen for longer than 48 hours, needed a temporary or permanent breathing opening through the neck, or died during their hospital stay.
These percentages describe the study groups. They do not give a personal risk percentage for your dog.
Both score groups are shown below.
Tarricone 2019
Original study · 283 dogs
6 of 185 dogs (3.2%)
29 of 98 dogs (29.6%)
Cooper 2025
Later study · 228 dogs
7 of 104 dogs (6.7%)
22 of 124 dogs (17.7%)
French Bulldogs: the later study found BRisk less reliable in this breed. These combined study groups include several breeds.
What counts as a complication?
Each bar counts dogs with at least one of the outcomes below during their hospital stay. One dog could have more than one. Some dogs recovered after needing oxygen or a breathing opening through the neck.
Oxygen for longer than 48 hours
The dog still needed extra oxygen more than two days after surgery. Shorter periods of oxygen support were not counted in this outcome.
A breathing opening through the neck
A tracheostomy creates an opening into the windpipe so air can bypass a blocked upper airway. The studies counted both temporary tracheostomies, which use a tube while the dog recovers, and permanent openings.
Death during the hospital stay
This included dogs that died or were euthanized before leaving hospital. Death was one of the outcomes counted, alongside prolonged oxygen support and tracheostomy.
Other problems, such as food coming back up or pneumonia, can also need treatment. The graphs show the specific outcomes above, rather than every complication or long-term recovery.
Hospital care
The surgical team uses BRisk alongside the examination to plan surgery and hospital care.
Ask what anaesthesia, recovery monitoring and hospital care are planned and whether oxygen or extra support may be needed. The surgical team decides what monitoring your dog needs and when they can go home.
See the points and research
Each answer contributes the points below. Body condition uses the paper’s 0–5 scale; temperature uses °F to preserve its exact boundaries.
Points follow Figure 1 in Tarricone and colleagues (2019). The score was developed using 233 dogs and tested in 50 dogs at another hospital. The study compared scores above 3 with scores of 3 or below.
Cooper and colleagues (2025) tested the score in 228 dogs at another hospital. Its ability to identify dogs who went on to have serious problems was poorer in French Bulldogs.
Both studies tracked specific problems during hospitalization: oxygen support for more than 48 hours after surgery, a temporary or permanent breathing tube through the neck (tracheostomy), or death. BRisk does not measure every possible complication or long-term recovery. The studies do not give a reliable personal risk percentage for your dog.