Signs of Pain in Dogs That Owners Usually Miss

Owners expect pain to look like crying. It very rarely does. Dogs evolved in a context where showing weakness was dangerous, and the instinct has survived intact: a dog in real pain will often still greet you at the door, wag, and finish its dinner.

What changes instead is smaller and much easier to explain away, which is why so much canine pain goes unnoticed for months by people who plainly love their dogs.

The signs owners miss

Changes in movement

• Slower to get up, especially after sleeping
• Hesitating at stairs, or taking them one at a time
• Reluctant to jump into a car or onto furniture it used to manage
• Sitting down in an odd, lopsided way
• Shorter walks, or stopping and wanting to turn back
• Pacing, or repeatedly changing position while lying down

Changes in posture

• A hunched back, or a tucked abdomen
• The head held lower than usual
• The "praying" position, chest down and rear up, which often indicates abdominal pain
• Shifting weight off one leg while standing
• A tail carried lower than normal for that dog

Changes in behaviour

• Withdrawing, or hiding somewhere new
• Irritability, particularly a dog that snaps when touched in one area
• Becoming clingy when it never was
• Reduced interest in play or greeting
• Restlessness at night, or being unable to settle
• Licking one spot repeatedly, which often marks pain underneath rather than a skin problem

Other signals

• Panting when it is not hot and has not exercised
• Trembling
• Eating more slowly, dropping food, or chewing on one side, which usually means dental pain
• A change in toilet habits, including accidents in a house-trained dog
• Squinting, or a change in facial expression around the eyes

The one that matters most

"He is just getting old" is the single most common explanation given for a dog that has become slow, stiff and less enthusiastic. Age is not a diagnosis. Arthritis is extremely common in older dogs, it is painful, and it is treatable.

An owner who accepts slowing down as inevitable typically has a dog living in daily discomfort that could be substantially relieved. The change after treatment is often dramatic enough that owners describe getting their dog back.

Where dogs commonly hurt

• Joints, particularly hips, elbows and knees in older and larger dogs
• Teeth. Dental disease is widespread and severely painful, and dogs continue eating through it
• Ears, which is why a dog suddenly objecting to head handling deserves a look
• Back and neck, which can present as reluctance to turn the head or to go down stairs
• Abdomen, often with the praying posture, restlessness and appetite loss
• Paws, from cracks, foreign bodies or overgrown nails

What to do

1. Write down what changed and when. Vague reports of "slowing down" are hard to work with; "will not jump into the car since last month, stiff for the first ten minutes after waking" is a useful history.
2. Film it. A short video of the dog rising, walking and going up steps is often more informative than the examination, because dogs frequently mask signs in a clinic.
3. Do not medicate at home. Human painkillers are among the most common causes of poisoning in dogs. Paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin all cause serious harm, and ibuprofen in particular damages the stomach and kidneys badly.
4. Handle gently. A dog in pain may snap, and it is not being aggressive.

What a vet can do

A great deal, and more than owners expect. Safe pain relief formulated for dogs, joint support, weight management, which lifts load off painful joints directly, dental treatment, and physical therapy in some cases.

Pain management is one of the areas of veterinary medicine that has changed most in the past two decades. A dog that would once have been left to get old slowly can often be made comfortable for years.

The quiet test

Ask yourself what your dog has stopped doing. Not what it does that is new, but what has quietly dropped off the list: the greeting at the door, the stairs, the jump onto the bed, the last twenty minutes of the walk.

Things a dog stops doing are usually things that have started to hurt.

Pain is the easiest thing to postpone, because there is no crisis and no obvious deadline, and because owners genuinely believe they are seeing age rather than a problem. That is how dogs end up spending years uncomfortable while their owners would have paid immediately had they understood what they were looking at.

Consultations and treatment are covered on Skeepy Pet HMO plans at any vet clinic in Nigeria, so the visit that establishes whether your dog is old or actually sore is one you can simply make.