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You’re Probably Missing Signs Your Dog Is in Pain. Here’s What to Look for.

We don’t know quite as much about our pets as we thought.

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As a dog owner myself, I’d like to think that I know his behaviors. I know all his little personality quirks and when he’s happy, sad, or scared. But there’s a new study that shows even the most obsessed dog parents might not know their pup as well as they think. Especially when it comes to signs of pain.

Researchers at Utrecht University found that dog owners were basically no better than non-owners at picking up on early behavioral signs that a dog might be hurting. The findings, published in PLOS ONE, came from a survey of 647 people, including 530 current dog owners, who were asked to judge 17 dog behaviors and three case descriptions. When the pain was obvious, say limping, hopping, or holding up a leg, nearly everybody got it. When the dog was clingier, restless at night, or not as into walks, a lot of people missed it.

People who love their dogs are constantly narrating their behavior. He’s tired. She’s moody. He’s being needy today. She must be scared of the storm. We’re always assigning reasons, and many of them are probably accurate. But that familiarity can also make people a little too confident. You end up filtering behavior through the version of your dog you already have in your head.

People Who Don’t Own Dogs Might Be Better at Noticing Pain

One detail that stands out is that non-owners actually scored higher on a couple of pain-related behaviors, including freezing and turning the head or body away. The researchers think dog owners might be more likely to read those signs as fear or stress instead. Which makes sense. The longer you live with a dog, the easier it is to explain away behavior instead of seeing it for what it actually might be.

The people who did better were those with some firsthand experience. Participants who’d been through a painful illness, injury, or medical treatment themselves were better at identifying pain in dogs. Owners whose dogs had already been through something painful also performed better. That suggests this is at least partly a learned skill, which is good news, because dogs are stuck relying on us to catch this stuff before it gets worse.

Loving your dog so much it hurts and reading your dog correctly aren’t always the same thing. And for people who treat their dog like their child (which, yes, guilty), that’s probably worth considering the next time they start acting a little off. 

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