•Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features of brain tumors from dogs are described.•Groups include meningeal or ventricular masses, intra-axial enhancing to non-enhancing lesions, and multifocal lesions.•Guidance for differential diagnoses is provided.•MRI features need to be interpreted with available clinical information. A great deal of information is now available regarding the range of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features of many primary and secondary brain tumors from dogs. In this review, these canine neoplasms are grouped into meningeal masses, ventricular masses, intra-axial enhancing lesions, intra-axial mildly to non-enhancing lesions, and multifocal lesions. For each of these patterns, the major and sporadic neoplastic differential diagnoses are provided, and guidance on how to rank differential diagnoses for each individual patient is presented. The implication of MRI features such as contrast-enhancement, signal intensities and location is discussed. However, the information garnered from MRI must be correlated with all available clinical information and with epidemiological data before creating a differential diagnosis.