Senior dogs often experience multiple concurrent pain sources that reduce quality of life, and systematic pain assessment combined with multimodal management dramatically improves welfare.
Senior dogs are stoic sufferers of multiple pain sources. Without systematic assessment, significant chronic pain goes unrecognised as 'just ageing'. Regular pain scoring using validated tools, combined with multimodal treatment addressing different pain mechanisms, can transform the quality of life of senior dogs in their final years. Pain management in elderly dogs is one of the highest-impact welfare interventions in companion animal medicine.