When Pain Changes More Than Movement

From The AKC Canine Health Foundation

Your dog cannot tell you that getting up hurts, that persistent discomfort is making it harder to engage, or that everything feels off today.

Instead, dogs communicate through their movements, behaviors, expressions, and interactions. When those signals change, families and veterinarians work to understand what the dog may be experiencing.

Osteoarthritis, a painful joint disease that affects one in five adult dogs and four in five senior dogs over age eight, often makes those changes visible: a slower walk, stiffness after rest, hesitation before lying down, or reluctance to tackle the stairs. Pain may reach far beyond mobility, shaping how a dog thinks, learns, and experiences the world.

Dr. Maggie Creamer, a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, is exploring those effects through research supported by the AKC Canine Health Foundation (CHF).

Her interest began during her PhD studies at the University of California, Davis, where she developed tests to better understand behavior in cattle.

“I’ve always been interested in what we can gather from animal behavior since we can’t ask them how they’re feeling, how they’re doing, or how they’re functioning,” Dr. Creamer told CHF.

In people, chronic pain can interfere with everyday cognitive functioning and ability to focus. It is also frequently associated with anxiety and depression. Dr. Creamer wants to understand whether dogs living with pain experience similar changes in cognition and emotional state.

“We need to study if this is also happening in dogs,” she said. “Are they also having cognitive dysfunction and these negative states that come with the pain?”

Cognitive functioning in dogs has been studied extensively, and established tests are available. Affect and emotion, however, have received far less attention, so Dr. Creamer developed new tests to evaluate these qualities in dogs with and without pain.

Working with NC State’s Thinking Pets Program and Dr. Brian Hare’s laboratory at Duke University’s Canine Cognition Center, the team has enrolled more than 40 dogs.

The study uses five tests to examine cognition, persistence, flexibility, judgment, and emotional state.

In one test, dogs learn which three holes in a nine-hole board contain treats. Researchers then change the pattern and observe how quickly each dog learns the new locations, providing insight into cognitive flexibility.

Another test presents a dog with a treat inside an open container. After the dog retrieves it, the lid is closed, making the next treat impossible to reach. Researchers observe how long the dog persists with the unsolvable task and whether the dog looks to a handler for assistance.

A judgment-bias test explores emotional state. Dogs learn that a bowl in one location contains a treat while a bowl in another does not. Once they recognize the pattern, researchers place a bowl in a neutral location. How quickly the dog approaches that unknown bowl may offer insight into whether the dog expects a positive or negative outcome.

Together with additional tests developed by Dr. Creamer, these exercises allow researchers to look for consistent differences between dogs experiencing pain and those who are not.

Posted by Liz on Aug 31 2026. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.