iProven
iProven Dog & Cat Thermometer DTK-117, Digital Rectal, Flexible Tip
$9.99 on Amazon, sold by iProven and shipped by Amazon, read via the Creators API on 2026-10-09. Any digital thermometer already in the house does the same job for nothing: VCA's owner guide says a digital thermometer normally used under a person's tongue can be used rectally on a pet
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Best for
A household nursing a dog who cannot get up, who needs one number at 3am to tell heat, fever and pain apart before deciding whether to call
If there is already a digital thermometer in the house, use that and keep it for the dog. If not, a well-reviewed digital thermometer from a pharmacy is the better buy. This is the cheap online fallback for a household that cannot get to one: rectal, flexible, made for a dog who is already lying down, and it remembers the last reading. Buy it knowing more of its accuracy reviews are negative than positive and the listing never states a tolerance or a display resolution, so check it against the clinic once, take two readings before you act on one, and phone on what the dog is doing as much as on what the screen says.
What works
- Rectal and digital, which is the kind VCA's owner guide recommends; the guide discourages mercury glass thermometers and does not mention non-contact infrared ones
- Flexible tip, and the maker says a reading takes 20 seconds. For a dog who is already lying on his side, the position VCA tells owners to use, that is a reading you can take without moving him
- Waterproof, so it can be washed with soap and water after every use; remembers the last reading, so a 3am number is still there at 7am for the phone call
- Sold by the maker's own storefront and shipped by Amazon, with a free 30-day return on the listing (read 2026-10-09); 4.5 stars from 4,376 ratings
What doesn't
- Accuracy is the recurring complaint, and the reviews lean against it: of the 166 Amazon counts as mentioning accuracy (read 2026-10-09), 77 are positive and 89 negative. Some owners report readings badly off, reads of 30 to 45 seconds, and a display that shows only whole numbers; the listing does not state the display's resolution, so we could not confirm that. If it is true for your unit, it cannot separate 102.5 °F from 103 °F. Check it once against the clinic's reading at his next recheck, and treat any single reading that does not fit the dog in front of you as a reason to take a second one
- The listing claims "High Accuracy" and prints no accuracy figure. Its specification table gives the "temperature range" as 101 °F to 102.5 °F, which is close to the normal range for a dog, not the range the device can measure; the same table calls it "Rechargeable" while saying it takes one LR41 coin battery (included). We could not find the real measuring range or tolerance anywhere on the listing
- No backlight is mentioned, and reviewers split on how readable the display is. At 3am you will want a phone torch on it
- A thermometer gives one number. It does not tell you why the number is high, a normal reading does not rule out pain, and it does not clear the bladder either: in a study of dogs with chronic spinal cord injury cited by the spinal cord injury consortium, fever was not associated with urinary infection
Specifications
- Materials
- ABS plastic body, flexible tip; one LR41 battery included
- Warranty
- The listing's bullets promise a "lifetime replacement policy" and its product details field says "2 Year Warranty"; we could not find written terms for either
Why this is on a dog orthopedic site
A dog who cannot get up and starts panting at night could be in pain, could be too warm, could have a full bladder, or could be running a fever. Three of those look the same from the doorway. A thermometer separates one of them in about a minute. That is the whole case for it, and it is why the one we recommend is the cheapest credible one rather than the cleverest. Our article on a dog who can't get up and pants or cries at night sets out the 3am check it belongs to.
Who should not buy it
- Anyone with a digital thermometer already in the bathroom cabinet. Use that one, and keep it for the dog from now on.
- Anyone hoping it will tell them whether the dog is in pain. It will not. Pain can sit at a normal temperature.
- A household that will not lift the tail. If the dog clamps, VCA's advice is not to force it, and to let the clinic take the reading instead.
Head to head: this against a no-contact thermometer
The pet thermometers that cost three or four times as much are mostly no-contact infrared ones, sold on the promise that you never have to lift the tail. The best test we found of that idea is a university teaching hospital study of 300 dogs (Kreissl and Neiger, Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, 2015;25(3):372–378, doi:10.1111/vec.12302), which took three readings per dog with a rectal digital thermometer and with a no-contact infrared thermometer pointed at the eye. The infrared device was more comfortable for the dogs. It also agreed poorly with the rectal reading (r = 0.43 for the experienced investigator), repeated less well (0.24 °C against 0.12 °C), and "tends to underrecognize hypothermic and hyperthermic conditions". The authors' conclusion: it "cannot be recommended in dogs at this time."
That is one device at one site, and newer infrared work on other sites (the gum, the groin) has done better in research hands. But the question at 3am is whether a dog who cannot get up is running hot, and the 2015 result is that the eye reading tends to miss exactly that. For a dog who is already lying on his side, the rectal reading costs you thirty seconds and one awkward moment, and it is the one his clinic will compare it with.
Frequently asked
- Can I use a human thermometer on my dog?
- A digital one, yes. VCA's owner guide says a digital thermometer normally used under a person's tongue can be used rectally on a pet, and it discourages mercury glass thermometers. We would keep it for the dog afterwards.
- What is a normal temperature for a dog?
- VCA's owner guide gives 100.0 °F to 102.5 °F (37.7 °C to 39.2 °C), and says to take the pet to the vet if the temperature rises above 104 °F or falls below 99 °F, or stays high or low on a recheck. Your own vet may give you a different line for your dog; theirs wins.
- Is an ear or no-contact thermometer better for a dog?
- Not on the evidence we found. VCA's guide recommends a digital rectal or ear thermometer and says nothing about non-contact infrared ones. In a 300-dog teaching-hospital study (Kreissl and Neiger, 2015), a no-contact infrared thermometer aimed at the eye agreed poorly with a rectal digital one and tended to miss low and high temperatures; the authors said it could not be recommended in dogs. For a dog who is already lying on his side, the rectal reading is also the easier one to take.
Where we recommend it
The articles this product earns a place in, and the context it earns it for.
