He used to take the couch in one motion. Now he walks up to it, sets his front paws on the cushion, and stops. He stands there for a second or two, as if doing the math. Some evenings he makes the jump. On others he takes his paws back down and settles on the rug.
Mention it to anyone and you get the same answer. Your sister, the neighbor with the Lab, the man at the pet store: he’s getting old. He’s ten, so it sounds right, and it may be right. What if he’s hurting, though, and you’re missing it?
Aging does slow a dog down. Joint pain does too, and it is easy to miss. Here is what the research says about both, and what it means for the dog standing at your couch.
Quick answer
Is a dog who is slowing down in pain? Maybe, and it can’t be settled from home. Losing muscle, moving less and sleeping more are part of normal aging. Joint pain can produce the same changes, and there is no proven way to tell the two apart at home. So “he’s getting old” is a reason to have him checked. Book the visit, and bring a note of what you’ve been seeing. If the change came on over hours or days, skip the note and call your vet today.
Is slowing down just part of getting old?
Partly, yes. Older dogs tend to lose muscle even when nothing is wrong with them. Vets call it sarcopenia: muscle loss that comes with age in the absence of disease. It is easiest to notice along the back, where the spine gets easier to find under your hand (Freeman, 2012). Illness can strip muscle too, which vets call cachexia. Whichever it is, tell your vet you’ve noticed the muscle going.
The scale often misses it. As muscle goes, fat tends to arrive, so his weight can hold steady, or climb, while he gets weaker (Freeman, 2012). Older dogs also slow down in the ordinary sense: less activity, less play, more sleep during the day. Hearing fades in many of them, and the lens of the eye tends to cloud (McKenzie et al., 2022).
Some slowing down is normal. Normal here means common, and plenty of common things are still worth treating.
Most families have a human version of this. There’s the grandfather who stopped coming to Sunday dinner, and everyone agreed he didn’t like going out anymore, at his age. It was his hip. “Age” was true, and it was also the reason nobody asked.
The same review that describes normal aging in dogs lists arthritis inside it, as one of the things older dogs develop (McKenzie et al., 2022). The senses and the mind age as well, and that side has its own signs; we cover it in Anxiety in Older Dogs Is Rarely Just Age.
How do I tell age from pain?
Not from the couch. Sorting it out takes an exam, and sometimes more than one.
Put the two lists side by side. An aging dog moves less, plays less, sleeps more, rises slowly and hesitates before a jump. A dog with chronic joint pain can do the same things.
Dogs also carry on as if nothing hurts. The Merck Veterinary Manual notes that a dog may wag his tail and greet people while in pain. The usual signs of long-term pain, like low activity, only say that something is off and needs a diagnosis (Allweiler, Merck Veterinary Manual).
Take the dog who no longer meets you at the door. He may not have heard the car. He may have heard it and decided the trip across the hallway wasn’t worth what it costs his hips. From where you stand, those two dogs look identical.
Researchers who study aging in dogs call the job of separating a drop in motivation from a physical deficit “challenging” (McKenzie et al., 2022). The pain questionnaires vets use were built around specific diseases such as arthritis, and may not capture plain aging (McKenzie & Chen, 2022).
You may have seen charts for reading pain in a dog’s face. Facial pain scales have been developed for cats, horses and rabbits, among others. For dogs, none has been developed and validated (Mota-Rojas et al., 2025). No checklist has been shown to separate an aging dog from a hurting one at home.
Why does everyone say “he’s just getting old”?
Because it’s the default explanation, and careful owners reach for it too. The pain guidelines from the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) describe the pattern: owners can detect pain in their dogs by comparing normal behavior with abnormal, but they may explain the signs away and delay acting for several months (AAHA, 2022).
The change owners notice most is the undramatic one. In a UK survey of 633 dog owners, whose dogs had a median age of 11, slowing down on walks came first, reported in 57% of the dogs (Wallis et al., 2024).
When owners decided against a vet visit, one of the main reasons was that they believed the sign was a normal part of aging (Wallis et al., 2024). These were volunteers who knew the study was about older dogs, so they may be more invested than most owners.
The same team interviewed owners and veterinary staff, and one theme they drew from those conversations was named “Just old age.” A veterinary professional described watching dogs walk into the exam room and judging that they probably needed pain relief, when their owners didn’t think so (Wallis et al., 2023).
Age tells you when the signs showed up. It can’t tell you why. At North Carolina State University’s veterinary school, researchers examined 123 dogs between eight months and four years old from their own primary-care practice. Between 16% and 24%, depending on how strictly pain was defined, had arthritis that hurt (Enomoto et al., 2024).
The owners of those dogs had noticed something in roughly 30% of cases (Enomoto et al., 2024). That is one clinic and 123 dogs, so it says nothing about how common this is across all dogs.
If you’ve been saying “he’s getting old” for a year, you had plenty of company, including owners who care a great deal. The two possible mistakes are different sizes, though. Calling pain “age” can cost a dog years of hurting. Calling age “maybe pain” costs a vet visit, sometimes two.
What should I write down before the vet visit?
Book the visit now, and start a note on your phone today. By the time you walk in, you want up to two weeks of it; a few days is still useful. Your vet gets one appointment with him, in a strange room. The rest of his week happens in front of you. Anything sudden skips the note and goes straight to the vet.
What to write down before the visit
- What changed: the couch, the stairs, the car, getting up, the length of the walk, play, sleep, how he greets you.
- Since when: your best guess at when you first saw it.
- What makes it worse: first thing in the morning, after a long nap, the day after a big walk, cold or damp weather, slick floors.
- What makes it better: does he move more freely once he’s been up for a minute? After a quiet day?
- Where: one leg or side more than the other, a joint he keeps licking.
- What he now objects to: being touched in one spot, being lifted, getting his nails trimmed.
- Anything else that’s new: mood, hearing, eyesight, appetite, thirst, how his back feels under your hand.
Write down what you see and leave the scoring out. The note’s job is to hand your vet a stretch of your dog’s ordinary life.
Mood counts as much as movement: pain can sit behind a dog who has turned short-tempered or clingy, even when there’s no limp to see (Mills et al., 2020). If you can, add a short phone video of him getting up from his bed and walking across the room.
Your vet may also give you a questionnaire. AAHA’s guidelines point out one thing these forms do well: they ask every owner the same questions, so trends over time show up more clearly (AAHA, 2022). Treat one as something you and your vet fill in together.
At the visit, expect your vet to watch him walk or trot, feel along his spine and each leg, joint by joint, and in some cases recommend x-rays (Cornell Riney Canine Health Center). X-rays can look better or worse than the dog feels (Jones et al., 2022), which is one reason the hands-on part matters.
Somewhere in those days you may become convinced he’s hurting. The tempting next step is half of one of your own pills, to get him through the weekend. That is the one shortcut to refuse.
Ibuprofen, acetaminophen (Tylenol), naproxen (Aleve) and aspirin are all toxic to dogs, at doses that can look small to us. Between them, they can cause stomach ulcers, kidney failure and liver damage (Hovda, Merck Veterinary Manual). Pain relief for a dog comes from your vet, in a drug and a dose chosen for him.
What helps either way?
Three things are worth doing whether the answer turns out to be age, arthritis, both, or something else the exam turns up.
Know his weight, and his muscle. The international guidelines for canine arthritis make weight control part of the plan for every dog, with or without signs (COAST Development Group, 2023). Ask your vet for a target weight, and because the scale can miss muscle loss, ask for a muscle score too. Let them set any diet.
Keep the daily walk, at whatever length he finishes comfortably. In one study of Labradors with hip dysplasia, the dogs that got more daily exercise were also the ones that limped less (Greene et al., 2013). For plain aging the picture is thinner. Exercise is the best-proven way to hold on to physical function in older people, and in aging dogs it has barely been studied (McKenzie & Chen, 2022).
Cover the slick floors. A rug or runner with a non-slip backing along the paths he walks every day costs little, and it helps a weak dog and a sore one alike. AAHA’s guidelines suggest secure footing such as carpet runners, plus ramps or steps, for arthritic pets (AAHA, 2022). A sturdy step beside the couch saves him the jump.
These give you something useful to do in the days before the appointment. None of them replaces it.
What if it happened suddenly?
Aging is slow, and arthritis is a chronic disease that usually builds over months and years. A change that arrived over hours or days shouldn’t be filed under either until a vet has seen him.
A leg he won’t put weight on, a yelp when you touch him, or a limp after a fall or a scrap with another dog needs a vet today. For a milder limp, Cornell’s canine health center draws the line at a day or two: past that, or if the pain is severe, sudden or worsening, don’t wait (Cornell Riney Canine Health Center).
Some signs point to the nerves instead of the joints: a paw that knuckles over or drags, wobbling or weakness in more than one leg, or sudden accidents in the house (Southeast Veterinary Neurology). When a disc problem in the spine has taken away a dog’s ability to move, every hour counts, and without timely treatment the damage can be permanent (Southeast Veterinary Neurology).
So what do I do tonight?
Tonight he’ll walk up to the couch, put his front paws on the cushion, and stop. You still won’t know whether that pause is age or pain, and now you know why nobody could tell you.
Open the note and write the first line: the date, the couch, the pause. If the appointment isn’t booked yet, that’s tomorrow morning’s call.
He may be an old dog doing what old dogs do, or a dog with sore hips that a vet can ease, or some of each. The exam may turn up something else, and one visit may not settle it. Either way, the question will be in front of your vet, with your notes beside it.
Common questions
How often should an older dog see the vet?
Every six months was the most common answer from veterinary professionals in one UK survey: 73% of them said so for a healthy senior dog, while 47% of owners thought once a year was enough. Ask your own vet what fits your dog.
My vet examined him and found nothing. Is it just age, then?
It may be. A clean exam is good news, and it’s also one reading on one day. X-rays and pain don’t always line up, and early changes can be hard to find. Keep the note going. If the pattern continues or gets worse, take the updated note back and ask what else is worth checking.
Is there anything safe to give him while I wait for the appointment?
Don’t give him any pain medicine made for people unless his vet tells you to. Human painkillers can seriously harm a dog, even in amounts that seem harmless to us. If he seems to be struggling, call the clinic and say so; they can move the appointment up or advise you by phone. Rugs on slick floors and gentler walks are reasonable in the meantime.
Sources
- AAHA. 2022 AAHA Pain Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats: Chronic Pain Assessment in Dogs. Link
- AAHA. 2022 AAHA Pain Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats: Nonpharmacologic Modalities for Pain Management. Link
- Allweiler S. Recognition and Assessment of Pain in Animals. Merck Veterinary Manual, rev. 2023/2024. Link
- Cachon T, et al. COAST Development Group’s international consensus guidelines for the treatment of canine osteoarthritis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2023. Link
- Cohen A, Todhunter R. What to expect when taking your limping dog to the veterinarian. Cornell Riney Canine Health Center. 2026. Link
- Enomoto M, et al. Prevalence of radiographic appendicular osteoarthritis and associated clinical signs in young dogs. Scientific Reports. 2024;14:2827. Link
- Freeman LM. Cachexia and Sarcopenia: Emerging Syndromes of Importance in Dogs and Cats. J Vet Intern Med. 2012;26(1):3-17. Link
- Greene LM, Marcellin-Little DJ, Lascelles BDX. Associations among exercise duration, lameness severity, and hip joint range of motion in Labrador Retrievers with hip dysplasia. JAVMA. 2013;242(11):1528-1533. Link
- Hovda T. Toxicoses From Human Analgesics in Animals. Merck Veterinary Manual, rev. 2024/2025. Link
- Jones GMC, Pitsillides AA, Meeson RL. Moving Beyond the Limits of Detection: The Past, the Present, and the Future of Diagnostic Imaging in Canine Osteoarthritis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2022. Link
- McKenzie BA, Chen F, LaCroix-Fralish ML. The phenotype of aging in the dog: how aging impacts the health and well-being of dogs and their caregivers. JAVMA. 2022;260(9). Link
- McKenzie BA, Chen FL. Assessment and Management of Declining Physical Function in Aging Dogs. Topics in Companion Animal Medicine. 2022;51:100732. Link
- Mills DS, et al. Pain and problem behavior in cats and dogs. Animals. 2020;10(2):318. Link
- Mota-Rojas D, et al. How facial expressions reveal acute pain in domestic animals with facial pain scales as a diagnostic tool. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2025;12:1546719. Link
- Southeast Veterinary Neurology. Lameness in Dogs: When It’s Not an Injury. Link
- Southeast Veterinary Neurology. Everything You Need to Know about IVDD in Dogs. Link
- Wallis LJ, et al. “Just old age”: a qualitative investigation of owner and veterinary professional experiences of and attitudes to ageing in dogs in the UK. Journal of Small Animal Practice. 2023;64(7):425-433. Link
- Wallis LJ, et al. Cross-sectional United Kingdom surveys demonstrate that owners and veterinary professionals differ in their perceptions of preventive and treatment healthcare needs in ageing dogs. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2024. Link