Chronic pain in dogs is vastly underdiagnosed because dogs mask pain effectively and owners and vets may attribute behavioural changes to normal aging.
Chronic pain recognition in dogs is one of the most important welfare gaps in companion animal medicine. The combination of evolutionary pain-masking behaviour, subjective assessment challenges, and owner normalisation of gradual change means that many dogs live with significant chronic pain for months or years without adequate treatment. A dog that slows down on walks, stops jumping on furniture, and sleeps more is frequently attributed as simply getting older — but these are the classic signs of musculoskeletal pain that, when treated, result in dramatic quality of life improvements. The welfare case for proactive chronic pain screening in senior dogs — using validated questionnaires, force plate analysis, or at minimum systematic owner questioning — is strong. The availability of modern targeted pain therapies makes the absence of treatment increasingly indefensible.