The short answer for a sensitive herding breed
Write down the eye result, the weight, the skin and coat findings, the vet's medicine guidance and the next due date after every vet visit for a Collie. Two features of this breed shape the record. The first is the eyes, which Collies are examined for from puppyhood onward. The second is medicine sensitivity found in herding breeds, which makes the vet's exact words about what your dog should and should not be given the most safety-critical line in the whole file.
Eyes and medicine guidance: the Collie entries that matter
Record the eye entry first for a Collie. Note what the vet saw, whether both eyes were checked, and whether any follow-up with a specialist was suggested, keeping the vet's own terms for anything found in a puppy's early screening. The medicine entry matters just as much: many Collies carry a sensitivity that makes some common medicines risky, and your vet's guidance on this is individual to your dog. Write down precisely what the vet said, which products were discussed by category, and what alternative approach the clinic prefers, never your paraphrase of it. Then add the coat findings: a rough Collie's dense double coat hides skin irritation, mats and lumps, so anything the vet's hands found under it goes in the note. Finish with the weight, because that same coat makes a Collie look unchanged while the scale disagrees.
How to capture the visit in the clinic car park
Write the note while your Collie settles in the car, working through the appointment in order. Begin with why you went and the vet's summary. Then the specifics: eyes, teeth, heart, joints, skin under the coat, and the weight as read aloud. The medicine conversation gets its own line, quoted as closely as you can manage, with the name of the vet who gave the guidance. List anything to do at home with its timeframe, and every date the visit produced: results pending, boosters due, rechecks set. If the vet suggested monitoring something, such as a skin patch under the coat or a change in vision behaviour at home, record what you were asked to watch and how often, so the next note can answer the question directly.
What Collie owners most often forget to record
The forgotten entries for a Collie tend to be behavioural and seasonal. Owners rarely write down the squinting, head-shyness or reluctance on stairs they mentioned at the desk, yet for a breed whose eyes are tracked lifelong, those home observations are exactly what the next eye check gets compared against. Seasonal coat notes get lost too: when the heavy shed started, whether the skin beneath looked red, and what the vet advised for it. Also record any reaction your Collie has ever had to anything given at home or at a previous clinic, however mild it seemed. A sensitivity history scattered across memory is no history at all; written once, in the visit note where it happened, it protects the dog at every future appointment.
When a note should become a phone call
A Collie's record should make the call-or-wait decision obvious. Ring the clinic if your notes show the skin patch spreading despite the routine the vet set, if a medicine-guidance question arises before anything new is given by anyone, or if the eye observations you logged, bumping into furniture, new clumsiness in dim light, are becoming more frequent. A cloudy or painful eye, or any collapse after something was administered, is an urgent same-day call. Keeping every visit filed in the KinsLe Pet Passport means that medicine guidance and eye history sit in one portable record, so a new vet meeting your Collie for the first time starts informed rather than guessing.