7 subtle signs your dog is in pain
By Gomi's human — written from 11+ years alongside Gomi (@gomithesuperyorkie), not a vet's office · Last updated: September 30, 2026 · about a 9-minute read
Here is the uncomfortable part. Most owners do notice. They notice the slower morning, the new spot on the sofa, the game that stopped being fun — and then they explain it. She's just getting old. She's had a big week. It's the weather. The 2022 AAHA pain management guidelines describe this exactly: owners spot the difference between normal and abnormal behavior, but "may contextualize these signs and delay action for several months."
Part of our complete guide to caring for a senior dog.
Why the person reading this is the actual instrument
The WSAVA Global Pain Council guidelines emphasize owner observations in assessing chronic pain. They are one part of the picture, alongside a veterinarian's examination and any tests the vet considers appropriate.
There are good reasons for that. A dog in a consult room is in a strange place with a strange person, running on adrenaline, and will often move better there than she does at home on a Tuesday morning. The changes themselves are also slow — WSAVA notes that behavioral changes from chronic pain "may develop gradually and may be subtle," which is a polite way of saying they hide inside your daily routine until they're large.
And imaging doesn't rescue you either. The AAHA guidelines note that joint pain on palpation and radiographic signs of arthritis "often correlate poorly" — a normal-looking X-ray does not mean a comfortable dog, and a dramatic one does not always mean a suffering dog.
The person who sees her every day can notice and report changes that are easy to miss in a short appointment. Working out whether pain or another medical problem explains them is the veterinarian's job.
The seven signs
1. Panting when there's no reason to pant
Panting cools a dog down, follows exercise, and comes with excitement. None of those explain panting in a cool room after she's been lying still for an hour, or panting at two in the morning while the house is quiet. Out-of-context panting is one of the most commonly reported and most commonly dismissed signs there is. Write down when it happens, not just that it happens — the timing is the information.
2. She can't get comfortable
Watch for a change in how she settles: repeatedly getting up, shifting position, or taking longer than usual to lie down. A changed favorite sleeping spot or resting only on one side is worth recording too. There is no number of circles that diagnoses pain, and a preference for a hard or soft surface does not establish the cause.
3. Licking or grooming one particular place
Dogs groom themselves all over. A dog who returns again and again to one wrist, one knee, one hip is telling you where. The fur there may go darker or thinner before you consciously register why. This is one of the few signs that comes with a location attached, which makes it unusually useful to your vet — so note the spot, not just the behavior.
4. A tighter face
Compare your dog with her own usual expression. New squinting, ears held differently, or tension around the muzzle may be worth reporting alongside changes in movement and behavior. Breed, context, and other conditions affect how a face looks. A baseline photo can help show a change, but neither it nor Gomi's photo diagnoses pain.
5. Doing less, rather than doing it badly
This is the big one, and the easiest to file under aging. Dogs in chronic pain rarely limp dramatically. They quietly stop: no longer jumping onto the sofa, taking the stairs one at a time or waiting at the bottom, turning for home sooner, losing interest in the ball after two throws instead of twenty, greeting you from the bed rather than the door. Each individual subtraction looks like nothing. The list is the sign. If stairs specifically are where you're seeing it, we go deeper into that here.
6. New feelings about being touched
A dog who has always loved being picked up and now stiffens, ducks, or turns her head away is reporting something. So is one who's become oddly particular about being brushed in one area, or who moves away when you sit down beside her in a specific spot. Watch especially for a dog who tolerates it but goes still and tense while it happens — tolerance is not comfort, and stoic dogs get missed for exactly this reason.
7. A changed relationship with you
Pain moves dogs in one of two directions and both get misread. Some withdraw: less greeting, more time in another room, a new preference for being alone. Others become uncharacteristically clingy, following you between rooms, needing to be touching you. Grumpiness with other pets in the house belongs here too. Owners tend to interpret all of this emotionally — she's sulking, she's getting needy, she's grumpy in her old age — when the plainer explanation is that something hurts.
What is not a reliable sign
Crying, whimpering, or yelping. These belong to sudden, acute pain — a trodden paw, an injury. Chronic pain is almost silent. Waiting for a noise before you act means waiting through the entire period when the problem was easiest to manage.
"She'd let me know if it hurt." She'd let you know if you stepped on her. She will not let you know that her elbows have been aching for eighteen months, because there is no evolutionary advantage to advertising a weakness and no mechanism for her to describe one.
Eating normally. The drive to eat generally outlasts the discomfort. A dog can be in real pain and still clear the bowl. If she is going off food as well, that's a separate signal worth reading about in why senior dogs stop eating — and mouth pain in particular is easy to miss, which is the subject of what senior dog bad breath means.
There is a free form the vets actually use
You can bring more than an impression. The 2022 AAHA chronic pain assessment guidance includes validated owner-completed questionnaires alongside clinical assessment. The Canine Brief Pain Inventory from the University of Pennsylvania has ten pain and function questions scored 0 to 10, plus a separate overall quality-of-life question with word-based choices.
The first four questions concern pain severity. The next six concern interference with activity, enjoyment of life, rising, walking, running, and stairs. The final question asks about overall quality of life. AAHA also lists LOAD for mobility-related assessment and SNoRE for sleep. Ask your vet which tool fits your dog and how often to complete it.
The point is not to diagnose anything at home. In the CBPI development study, pain severity is the mean of the four severity ratings and pain interference is the mean of the six interference ratings; both stay on a 0-to-10 scale. A change from 2.0 to 4.5 is an illustrative interference-score comparison, not Gomi's result or a diagnostic threshold. Your vet interprets scores together with the history and exam. Do not delay calling about a concern just to collect another score.
A short note for the appointment
Copy these prompts into your own notes. They are not a pain scale and contain no example patient readings.
| Prompt | What to write |
|---|---|
| Date and activity | When did you notice it, and what was she trying to do? |
| Change from usual | What used to be easy? What is different now? |
| Frequency and context | Once or repeatedly? After rest, exercise, or handling? |
| Evidence and question | A short video if safe, other symptoms, and what you want to ask the vet. |
Build the baseline before you need it
Every sign above is a departure from something. If you don't know what she was, you can't see what changed — so the useful work happens now, while she's fine.
- Photograph her face, relaxed, in good light. Ears, eyes, muzzle. Do it again in six months.
- Film thirty seconds of her walking away from you and back. You will not remember what normal looked like; the video will.
- Write down her list — the things she does without thinking. Sofa, stairs, car, ball, the greeting at the door. This is the list that shrinks.
- Note the time she settles in the evening and how many attempts it takes.
- Keep it dated. "Since June" is worth a hundred times more to a vet than "a while now."
Our 90-day memory and care journal has daily pages built for exactly this, and the free Tiny Changes checklist is a shorter place to start tonight. If it turns out nothing is wrong, you've lost five minutes a day and gained a record of her at eleven — which, as the longer story behind this site gets at, is not nothing.
And if you're looking for something to do with an older dog that isn't about problems, she can still learn new things — the research on that is more encouraging than the saying suggests.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if my dog is in pain?
Mostly by what she stops doing. Panting out of context, trouble settling, licking one spot, a tighter face, new sensitivity to handling, withdrawing or clinging, and a quietly shrinking list of ordinary activities. WSAVA describes owner assessment as the mainstay of chronic pain assessment in dogs precisely because these changes are gradual and subtle.
Do dogs cry when they're in pain?
With sudden pain, sometimes. With chronic pain, almost never. A dog with significant arthritis will usually be completely silent about it.
Is panting always pain?
No — heat, exertion, excitement, and anxiety all cause panting. Context is what makes it meaningful: a cool room, a resting dog, the middle of the night.
My vet said the X-rays looked fine. Could she still be in pain?
Yes. The AAHA guidelines note that pain on palpation and radiographic signs of arthritis often correlate poorly in dogs — in both directions. Imaging is one input, not the verdict, and your observations at home are a legitimate part of the picture.
Is there a way to measure my dog's pain at home?
Ask your vet whether the Canine Brief Pain Inventory is appropriate. It has ten pain and function ratings from 0 to 10 plus a separate word-based quality-of-life question. The severity and interference scores are means, not totals. It helps report changes alongside a veterinary assessment; it does not diagnose pain at home.