10 Early Signs Your Dog Is in Pain

A study published in PLOS ONE in 2026 tested something researchers at Utrecht University had long suspected: dog owners are genuinely good at spotting pain once it’s obvious — limping, vocalizing, an injury you can see. What the study found is that the same owners, surveyed alongside people who don’t even have dogs, performed no better at recognizing pain in its earlier, quieter forms. Yawning, nose licking, changed facial expressions, altered blinking — signs that were actually present in the case scenarios researchers presented — were consistently rated as unlikely to mean anything at all. The gap wasn’t a knowledge failure so much as a framing one: pain simply wasn’t on the list of explanations people reached for.

Here are ten of the specific, evidence-backed signs that tend to slip past that mental filter.

1. Nighttime Restlessness

A dog who used to sleep through the night but now paces, repositions frequently, or seems unable to settle is showing one of the signs researchers specifically flagged as commonly present before more obvious pain symptoms appear — often written off as aging or a random off night instead.

2. New or Increased Clinginess

A dog who starts shadowing you from room to room, when that wasn’t their pattern before, is showing exactly the kind of behavioral shift the Utrecht research found owners struggle to connect to pain. It’s easy to read as extra affection instead of what it more often is: seeking reassurance or proximity because something feels wrong.

3. Subtle Facial Changes

A tighter look around the eyes, a vacant or distant stare, or noticeably increased blinking are documented pain indicators that facial grimace scales — increasingly used in veterinary pain assessment — are specifically designed to catch. These are easy to miss because they don’t look dramatic; they look like a slightly different expression on an otherwise normal-seeming dog.

4. Excessive Yawning

Yawning gets read almost universally as tiredness or boredom. Researchers studying pain recognition found it’s also a behavior owners are especially unlikely to associate with discomfort, even though it’s a documented low-grade stress and pain indicator worth noticing, particularly when it shows up more frequently than usual or outside of typical rest periods.

5. Nose or Lip Licking Without Food Present

Repeated licking of the nose or lips, disconnected from mealtime or an obvious food-related trigger, is another sign that showed up consistently in pain research but rarely registers to owners as meaningful on its own.

6. Turning Away When Touched in a Specific Spot

A dog who shifts, pulls back, or turns their head or body away specifically when touched in one particular area — but not elsewhere — is showing a localized guarding response. This is one of the more specific, actionable signs on this list, since it can help point toward exactly where the discomfort is coming from.

7. Hesitating Before Stairs, Jumping, or Getting Up

This one is subtler than outright refusal. A dog who still jumps onto the couch or climbs the stairs but pauses first, or takes a visibly different approach than they used to, is often showing early discomfort that hasn’t yet progressed to outright avoidance — the harder-to-catch stage before a limp becomes obvious.

8. An Unusual Stretching Posture

Veterinarians have specifically flagged a “front legs down, rear end up” stretch — beyond the normal, brief morning stretch dogs do — as a posture that can signal abdominal pain or pancreatitis when it appears repeatedly or seems to linger, rather than as the innocent stretch it’s usually assumed to be.

9. Changes in Coat Quality or Grooming Habits

An increase in grooming focused on one area, or a broader decline in coat condition and texture, showed up in recent research as a pain-associated change owners rarely connect to discomfort — more often chalked up to a skin issue or simple laziness about self-care that doesn’t really apply to dogs the way it might to a cat.

10. Increased Reactivity to Noise

Pain can lower a dog’s tolerance for sudden or loud sounds, showing up as more flinching, startling, or barking in response to noises that wouldn’t have bothered them before. This one is particularly easy to misattribute to an anxiety issue developing out of nowhere, when it may actually be discomfort lowering the threshold for an already-existing sensitivity.

Why This Gap Matters

Dogs are instinctively wired to mask pain — a survival trait that made sense in a wild environment where showing weakness carried real risk, and one that hasn’t gone away just because a dog now lives on a couch. The Utrecht researchers noted something worth sitting with: owners whose dogs had previously experienced a painful, veterinary-treated condition were significantly better at recognizing these subtle signs afterward — suggesting that a quick explanation from a vet in the moment genuinely reshapes what an owner notices going forward. You don’t need that experience to start recognizing the pattern. You just need to know these signs are worth taking seriously the first time, not the second.

None of these signs, alone, confirm pain — many overlap with normal aging, mild stress, or simple personality. But a cluster of two or more appearing together, or any of them representing a genuine change from your dog’s usual baseline, is a reasonable and responsible reason to schedule a vet visit rather than wait for something more obvious to show up.

Sources & Further Reading

• Dog owners often miss subtle signs their pets are in pain — Earth.com
• Most dog owners miss subtle signs of pain. How can veterinarians help? — dvm360
• Dog Owners Often Miss The Subtle Signs Their Pet Is in Pain, Study Finds — ScienceAlert
• Vets Warn ‘Normal’ Dog Behavior Can Actually Be a Sign of Pain — Newsweek
• When Pain Hides in Plain Sight: Why Clients Still Miss Subtle Canine Pain Signals — MyVetCandy

Dr.Sofia Romano, DVM

Dr. Sofia Romano, DVM, is an experienced veterinarian specializing in small-animal medicine and preventive care. She has treated thousands of cases using evidence-based diagnostics and modern clinical practices. Dr. Romano is dedicated to providing science-backed pet-health guidance that helps owners make informed decisions and improve their pets’ quality of life.