He’s a big dog, so every so often you check. You watch him trot back across the grass with the ball, looking for the thing everyone looks for: one leg he’s saving. You don’t see it. He’s fine, you decide. No limp.
That check feels like an answer, and it’s a rougher test than it seems. One research team went looking for arthritis in dogs that had never been diagnosed with it, and what they found is worth knowing before you trust the check again.
Quick answer
Yes. In one study of 30 medium and large dogs with no arthritis diagnosis, 18 dogs had x-ray signs of osteoarthritis. In 15 of those 18 dogs, a board-certified surgeon watching for it saw a slight limp or gait change, a 1 on a 0-to-4 scale, though at least 4 of the 12 dogs without those signs scored a 1 too. The other 3 dogs showed no limp at all, and all 3 had them on both sides. So “he isn’t limping” is weaker reassurance than it sounds. At his next routine visit, ask your vet to examine his joints, even if nothing seems wrong.
What did researchers find when they went looking?
At the University of Tennessee, Darryl Millis and Silke Hecht studied 30 dogs that had come in for a routine dental cleaning (Millis & Hecht, 2026). The dogs were 4 to 10 years old, all over 24 pounds, none from short-legged breeds like Dachshunds, and none had ever been diagnosed with arthritis.
Each dog was sedated for x-rays of its shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and hocks, the ankle joints of the back legs. Eighteen of the 30 dogs showed signs of osteoarthritis on those x-rays, and 16 of the 18 had them in two or more joints. The study scored each joint only by osteophytes, small bony spurs at the edge of a joint. That is what “dogs with arthritis” means in this study: changes on an x-ray, not a measure of pain.
Most of the affected joints had small spurs, 2 millimeters or less. The hips and hocks were the joints most often involved. The dogs with arthritis were also heavier on average, roughly 62 pounds against 48.
Before any sedation, a board-certified surgeon watched each dog stand, walk and trot, and scored its gait from 0, normal, to 4, not bearing weight. In 15 of the 18 dogs with arthritis the surgeon saw some lameness, and none scored higher than a 1. The other three showed no visible lameness at all, and all three had arthritis on both sides. A score of 1 also turned up in dogs without arthritis, though: 4 of the 12 at a walk, against 13 of the 18 with arthritis, a gap too small in a study this size to rule out chance.
On the hands-on exam, 12 of the 30 dogs had something the surgeon could find, such as fluid in a joint, discomfort, or a joint that didn’t bend as far as it should. When owners filled in a questionnaire about how their dogs moved at home, the answers for dogs with and without arthritis differed only modestly, which the authors read as owners not recognizing mobility problems their dogs had.
What the study shows is how much arthritis can show up on x-rays in dogs that have never been diagnosed with it.
It’s also a small study: 30 dogs from one teaching hospital, examined in 2013 and 2014. The owner questionnaire hadn’t been tested on its own, and the authors note that choosing bigger, middle-aged dogs may have pushed the number up. They say firm conclusions need a larger group. And spurs alone aren’t enough to diagnose arthritis, and how bad an x-ray looks often doesn’t track what a dog feels (Jones et al., 2022).
Why can a limp stay hidden?
A limp is a comparison. A dog shifts weight off the leg that hurts onto the one that doesn’t, and your eye catches the difference. When both hips are affected to about the same degree, there may be no better side to lean on. The authors say as much: dogs with arthritis on both sides may not show the uneven gait of a limp in the early stages (Millis & Hecht, 2026).
Arthritis on both sides is common in some conditions. Elbow dysplasia, a developmental problem seen mostly in large breeds, has been reported to affect both elbows in up to 80% of dogs that have it, and the American College of Veterinary Surgeons notes that this can make lameness hard to spot, because the gait isn’t asymmetric (ACVS).
A 1 is the mildest lameness the surgeon’s scale records. A surgeon grading gait is watching for exactly that, in an exam setting. At home you see him in motion, from an angle, happy to be going somewhere.
The knee makes a useful contrast. Knee arthritis was less common in this group than hip or hock arthritis, and the authors offer an explanation. In most dogs it follows a torn cruciate ligament, a key stabilizer inside the knee, which generally causes a more obvious limp, so those dogs were likely already seeing a vet. By that logic, the limps that reach a vet tend to be the obvious ones.
So what is “he isn’t limping” worth?
It’s worth something, just not what it’s usually taken for. The check tells you whether one side is doing more of the work than the other. It tells you far less about the joints themselves.
If you’ve already noticed small changes in how he gets around, Why Dogs Hide Pain, and What You Can See Instead covers what tends to be visible from home. My Dog Is Slowing Down. Is He in Pain? explains how to keep a short note for your vet.
What should I ask my vet?
Ask for a joint exam by name at his next routine visit, even though nothing seems wrong, with your vet watching him walk and trot, then feeling and flexing each joint. Mention his size, and his age if he’s getting older.
Millis and Hecht recommend screening large dogs in middle age or older for arthritis. The international guidelines for canine arthritis go further for dogs that look normal but carry a risk factor, such as a predisposed breed or extra weight: a fuller orthopedic exam every six months (Cachon et al., 2023).
If he’s going to be sedated or put under anesthesia anyway, for a dental cleaning or a minor procedure, ask your vet whether x-raying his joints at the same time is worth it. The study’s authors single out that moment as a convenient one. It adds cost, and the call is your vet’s.
What changes if arthritis turns up? The same guidelines build care in layers. For nearly every dog, the base is an owner who knows what to watch for, a suitable diet and exercise, and a weight plan for dogs that need one, with more added as arthritis progresses (Cachon et al., 2023). What gets added follows how the dog is doing on exam and at home, not what the x-ray shows.
The study’s authors argue for catching arthritis early. Their own data don’t test whether finding it before it shows leaves a dog better off, and we didn’t find a study that does.
Before the exam or after it, don’t give him anything from your own medicine supply. Painkillers made for people can seriously harm a dog’s stomach, kidneys or liver (Hovda, Merck Veterinary Manual). If he’s sore, your vet can prescribe pain relief chosen and dosed for him.
Back on the grass
You’ll probably keep watching him come back across the grass, and that’s fine. When you book his next checkup, ask for his joints to be examined too, limp or no limp.
Common questions
Does arthritis on an x-ray mean my dog is in pain?
Not necessarily. The study above wasn’t designed to measure how much the dogs hurt. Whether a dog hurts is something your vet judges from examining him and from how he’s doing at home, not from the x-ray alone.
Should I ask for x-rays if he seems fine?
You can raise it, especially for a large dog in middle age or older. The authors of the study above recommend screening dogs like that for arthritis. The international guidelines for canine arthritis use x-rays to confirm and stage arthritis, but base treatment on how a dog is doing rather than on the x-ray. Whether and when x-rays fit your dog is your vet’s decision, and it’s fair to ask about the cost up front.
My dog is small. Does this apply to him?
The study only looked at dogs over 24 pounds and left out short-legged breeds, so it can’t say how often arthritis goes unnoticed in smaller dogs. Your vet can tell you whether his breed, weight or history puts him at risk.
Sources
- American College of Veterinary Surgeons. Canine Elbow Dysplasia. Link
- Cachon T, et al. COAST Development Group’s international consensus guidelines for the treatment of canine osteoarthritis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2023;10:1137888. Link
- Cohen A, Todhunter R. What to expect when taking your limping dog to the veterinarian. Cornell Riney Canine Health Center. 2026. 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;9:789898. Link
- Millis DL, Hecht S. Osteoarthritis has a high prevalence in dogs undergoing routine dental prophylaxis. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2026;264(1). doi:10.2460/javma.25.05.0330. Link