Our dogs provide humans with companionship, loyalty and unconditional love. Our responsibility as owners is to ensure that our animal care keeps them healthy, safe and well looked after. You can take dog grooming courses to ensure they're kept looking great on the outside, but what happens when they start experiencing pain on the inside?
Several things can affect your dog's health, and it's something they'll often hide. Easily the most common type of pain for a dog relates to their mouths and teeth, with 80% of pooches having some kind of dental disease by age 3.
Why Do Pets Hide Their Pain?
As animal care online training teaches, canines process pain similarly to humans, and hiding it goes back to when dogs roamed wild and needed to hide weakness. In order to protect themselves against predators, many types of wild animal attempt to hide pain so they wouldn't be attacked by competitive beasts that seek to cause them harm.
How Do You Know When A Dog Is Suffering?
To provide effective pet first aid, you first need to know if there's a problem and in this blog, we’ll run through a few symptoms that you should watch for. Animal care professionals are well-versed in spotting the signs of animals in severe discomfort, but are you? Let's see how many signs you'd naturally associate with your pooch struggling to cope with pain.
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Signs Of Restlessness
Just like us, your dog will prefer sitting or laying in a comfortable position, so if they have a problem settling, it could be that pain is the cause. Other signs of agitation include more obvious symptoms like yelping or growling during normal handling, so watch out for them, and you could spare your dog from suffering unnecessarily.
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Grumpiness Or Unfamiliar Grumpiness
Anyone who's spent some time in a vet's practice after completing short courses online in animal care will tell you that pain can have a significant impact on your dog's mood, so you shouldn't always assume that they're just having a bad day if they snap at you when they wouldn't usually.
If they are in pain, they may guard a particular area of their body and express displeasure when your hand goes near it. For this reason, you and anyone helping you examine your dog should take care not to get bitten.
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Hiding Away Or Being Quiet
Another sign that your dog might need some pet first aid is if they become quieter than usual or you find them hiding away. It's a natural instinct for your dog to hide when they’re vulnerable as they would in the wild, so if you find them secreting themselves away for no apparent reason, check for other signs that they might be unwell or in pain.
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Not Eating/Walking
It’s no secret that doggies love meal times and going for walkies, so when they stop wanting to do either, it's a pretty significant sign that something's wrong. It could be that your dog is depressed (yes, dog’s get depressed, just like us), unwell or in pain - either way, they could need some urgent pet first aid...
Can You Do Anything For A Dog In Pain?
Once you've determined that your dog IS in pain, you have a couple of options. When taking more advanced short courses online in animal care, you'll learn that some mild pain relief is available (Vets can prescribe something called Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs or NSAIDs, for short). Failing that, you should get your pet to the vet for an examination as soon as it is practical for you to do so.
Veterinary or animal care workers have the skill to find the source of the pain or discomfort, but if visiting them is not immediately possible, you should be looking to modify or stop physical activities and keep a record of precisely what is being experienced and when so that you know what to tell the animal worker or vet when you get to see them.
Get Your Dream Vet Nurse Job With OCA Short Courses Online
If you're looking for a career in the Animal Health industry, there's no easier or more convenient way to get the skills and knowledge you need than taking video-based CPD-Endorsed online learning with OCA. Our courses offer a truly immersive experience that makes gaining new skills easily, with every one of our students benefiting from 1-to-1 mentoring throughout their journey.
Are ours the best online courses Australia has to offer? Well, our students think so, and you can understand why by watching our Student Study Demo. Packed with industry-led content that inspires you to learn more, our courses extend past animal care to include training suitable for more than 20 professional sectors - something you can see by visiting www.onlinecoursesaustralia.edu.au.
Alternatively, to speak directly with our friendly team about any questions you may have, call us on 1300 611 404 or email [email protected] today. As soon as we hear from you, we’ll do our level best to reply without delay.
