What are some signs that my dog is in pain?

Some of the most common signs for dogs would be hiding, shaking, and not behaving like they usually would. I always tell people that if your dog always comes to greet you at the door and they're not doing that right now, that's probably a good sign that they may have some discomfort or something is not right.

Everybody thinks of the obvious ones; maybe your pet is limping, or they're favoring a leg. Perhaps they've got a minor cut on their side or something like that; perhaps they're licking it, nursing it, chewing on it. But some things can even be more subtle like maybe they're not eating as much as they used to, or they’re not eating at all. Maybe they're panting a lot, they're shifting a lot, or they can't seem to get comfortable. They're constantly getting up, turning around, laying down, but can't find that comfortable spot. Maybe they're just not acting themselves. Maybe their personality has changed a little bit, or they even seem a little lethargic. Those can all be signs your pet may be experiencing pain.

It's a good question, and it's one that probably has quite a few answers there. Signs of pain can include but are not limited to what I'm about to say—panting or biting at either you or themselves. Sometimes if their hips are hurting, they'll turn around and try to bite at those or look at them. You can have swelling in a certain area; depending on the nature of the injury. You might experience vocalizing, crying, barking, and growling. Dogs have a hard way, at least in our language, of letting you know they're in pain, so sometimes it’s those simple things. If you’re going to make a simple day-to-day motion or you’re petting them or picking them up like you might've done every day for their entire lives—if they hurt and have, say, a back injury and you pick them up by the front legs or something, they're going to let you know it hurts.

And the flip side of that is sometimes a sign of pain might be a lack of something. So again, referencing a back, consider the example of dogs that are on and off of furniture all the time or they're on and off of your lap 20 times a day. If their back is hurting, they're not going to want to jump up and certainly not going to want to jump down. So all of a sudden, the dog is going to sit there and look at you as if, "Oh no, no, I don't want to go." And they're going to sit there and do that 10 times when they normally would just hop right up onto the sofa. That is a subtle sign that they're telling you something hurts.

So again, depending on the intensity of the pain, where it's located, there's a lot of variability with that question. But I think those are some of the most common signs that we see that tell us a dog's in pain.

Pain signs vary. They can range from vocalizing or making growling or screaming when being touched to things like limping. Sometimes a limp is subtle. Typically, if a dog's limping, there's a reason it's limping, and pain is almost always involved. Sometimes they'll lick or bite at the injured area, or their pupils will dilate. Sometimes their behavior completely changes. They don't interact with their owner, don't want to eat very well, and don't want to play anymore. They may have difficulty getting up and down the stairs, things like that.