Beyond eyeballing a walk. RehabVet is developing clinic-first AI that quantifies canine gait across four planes — with research-grade pose estimation and the honesty to suppress numbers it cannot stand behind.
A skilled clinician eyeballs a few walk passes. Mild, bilateral, or well-compensated lameness is easy to under-call — and hard to score the same way twice.
Quadrupeds redistribute load. What looks “a bit stiff” can be measurable asymmetry in stride, stance, head bob, or sit-to-stand weight-shift.
Force plates are gold-standard for load — and largely confined to research centres. Day-to-day rehab still lacks objective, clinic-native kinematics.
Under the hood: YOLO26 detects the dog; DeepLabCut 3.0 SuperAnimal-Quadruped (HRNet-W32) estimates 39 keypoints; analytics compute gait metrics; reliability gates suppress weak views. Research developed inside production clinical care — not a slide-deck prototype.
A multi-plane clinical capture — lateral walk, frontal approach, rear retreat, and sit-to-stand — filmed under controlled clinic conditions. No markers. No wearables. No force-plate lab.
YOLO26 locates the dog in every frame so pose estimation stays locked on the patient — even when a handler is in shot.
DeepLabCut 3.0 SuperAnimal (HRNet-W32) estimates 39 anatomical keypoints — nose to paws — with a confidence score on each joint.
Stride timing, stance symmetry, joint range of motion, head bob, pelvic drop, tracking symmetry, and sit-to-stand weight-shift — measured, not guessed.
If a view or metric group is too sparse, we suppress it. Numbers that reach the report are ones the system is willing to stand behind.
A lameness score (0–5), affected-limb localisation, owner-facing language, and a full clinical narrative for the veterinary team.
Real RehabVet clinic captures with the skeleton overlay our pipeline draws — switch planes, inspect joint groups, and read the metrics each view unlocks.
Interactive pose stream
Tap a region — see what we measure
Illustrative walk cycle using the same keypoint layout our model outputs. The video on the left is a real RehabVet session with the live overlay.
Why this plane
The workhorse view for joint angles and timing.
Selected: Forelimbs — Elbow / carpus ROM · tracking
A side-view exam is powerful — and blind to tracking and pelvic drop. Frontal and rear views, plus sit-to-stand, close the gaps that a few walk-by eyeball passes leave open.
The workhorse view for joint angles and timing.
What a side camera cannot see — tracking and pelvic drop.
Load transfer under effort — often the first place pain shows.
3.2
Lameness / 5.0
Left Rear90% confidence · 767 frames
Lateral walk overall 3.17/5 localised to left rear (hindlimb 3.17 vs forelimb 2.62). Hindlimb stride asymmetry 40.2%; stance asymmetry 22.7%; head-bob asymmetry 8.7%. Sit-to-stand overall 4.29/5 (confidence 0.9) with weight-shift asymmetry 155.7% — corroborating the same limb.
3.3
Lameness / 5.0
Right Front90% confidence · 954 frames
Lateral walk overall 3.28/5 localised to right front (confidence 0.9, forelimb score 3.28). Head-bob asymmetry 16.3%; pelvic asymmetry low (3.5%). Sit-to-stand overall 3.9/5 (confidence 0.9) with marked head compensation (121.7 px) and 3.2 s transition time.
3.3
Lameness / 5.0
Right Rear90% confidence · 703 frames
Lateral walk overall 3.30/5 localised to right rear (confidence 0.9). Head-bob asymmetry 19.1%; pelvic asymmetry 29.4%; hindlimb stance asymmetry 32.9%. Frontal forelimb tracking produced no usable frames and was gated. Sit-to-stand 3.46/5 in 1.8 s on first attempt.
3.3
Lameness / 5.0
Left Rear90% confidence · 546 frames
Lateral walk overall 3.31/5 localised to left rear (confidence 0.9; hindlimb 3.31 vs forelimb 2.38). Hindlimb stride asymmetry 38.9%; stance asymmetry 17.4%; head-bob asymmetry 7.4%. Sit-to-stand overall 3.60/5 with weight-shift asymmetry 183.8%.
Scientific honesty is a feature
When frontal forelimb coverage is too sparse, we null those metrics instead of inventing them. Force plates measure load; we measure movement. Use both when you need the full picture — and always verify against the video.
| Visual gait exam | Force-plate lab | RehabVet AI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Subjective impression of limp / asymmetry | Ground reaction force (load) | Multi-plane kinematics + timing + sit-to-stand |
| How the call is made | Clinician eyeballs a few walk passes | Instrumented walkway / force plate | 39-keypoint pose model + gait analytics |
| Repeatability | Varies by observer, lighting, and day | High — under lab conditions | Standardised protocol · confidence-scored |
| Reliability posture | Always forms an impression | Gold-standard kinetics | Suppresses unreliable metric groups |
| Where it lives | Every consult — but unquantified | Research / specialty centres | Live rehab clinic · R&D in production care |
RehabVet is Singapore's first — and one of its most comprehensive — animal rehabilitation clinics. This gait intelligence is being pioneered in the same rooms where we treat IVDD, cruciate disease, and arthritis every week: eight years of hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, TCVM, and outcomes care informing the science.
Read the June 2026 Impact ReportObjective movement data should be as ordinary in rehab as a thermometer — and as honest about its limits.
Dr Sara Lam · Founder, RehabVet
This page is the source of truth for the claim, methodology, and sample results. Download the fact sheet, or email us for interviews and B-roll.
“A Singapore rehab clinic is pioneering multi-plane AI gait research — quantifying what vets have long judged by eye, and refusing to invent numbers when tracking fails.”
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RehabVet AI Pet Mobility Assessment supports — and does not replace — veterinary diagnosis. Results depend on footage quality. Always verify findings against the video and clinical examination.
