How to Tell If Your Senior Dog Is in Pain

The question I am asked more than any other is some version of this: how would I even know if he is in pain? It is a fair question, because the picture most of us carry in our heads, a dog yelping and limping, is the exception rather than the rule.

Dogs are stoic by instinct. An animal that advertises weakness is an animal at risk, and that instinct has not left our companions just because they now sleep on the sofa. A dog in real discomfort will usually go quiet rather than loud.

The signs I look for first

Panting while lying still. Panting after a walk is normal. Panting on a cool evening while resting on their bed is not, and it is one of the most reliable pain signals I see.

Restlessness at night. Pacing at two or three in the morning, circling before settling, getting up and lying down repeatedly. Pain very often shows itself once the distractions of the day are gone.

Hesitation at thresholds. Stairs they used to take at a run, the step into the yard, the jump into the car. Watch for the pause before the movement rather than the movement itself.

A lower head carriage and flatter ears. This one is subtle, and families often recognize it only when they look back at older photographs.

Changes in how they greet you. A dog who used to meet you at the door and now waits to be come to is telling you something, even if nothing else looks wrong.

What a wagging tail does and does not mean

A wagging tail is a social signal, not a certificate of comfort. Dogs will greet, wag, and try to please through considerable pain, which is precisely why so many families are blindsided when a problem finally surfaces. Judge comfort by what your dog does when nobody is asking anything of them.

Write the days down

Memory is unreliable when you are worried. A dog who refused breakfast on Tuesday and chased a squirrel on Thursday will feel, by Friday, like a dog who has not eaten in a week. Keep a simple note on the fridge: ate, moved, slept, seemed himself. Good day or bad day. Two weeks of that tells you far more than any single afternoon, and it gives us something concrete to talk about.

The good news

Much of what looks like old age is treatable pain. Arthritis in particular responds well, and I have seen dogs written off as just getting old come back to meeting their family at the door once their pain was properly managed. If you are seeing these signs, the next step is not necessarily a hard decision. Often it is simply a conversation.