How veterinarians and animal owners can recognize pain in animals across species, and why accurate pain assessment is foundational to welfare.
Accurate pain recognition is the gateway to pain management — you cannot treat what you cannot detect. Decades of underestimating animal pain capacity led to routine surgical procedures in species including fish, poultry, and piglets being performed without analgesia. The science has shifted dramatically: we now have validated pain assessment tools for many species, clear evidence that animals have the neural architecture for pain experience, and good pharmacological options for analgesia. The remaining challenge is implementation — ensuring these tools and medications are used routinely rather than as special cases, and that animal owners are taught to recognize pain signs in the animals they care for.