Many dogs may have an injury long before you might realize it. The best thing you can do to prevent your pets from aggravating an injury is to learn and understand your pets behavior.
If your pet is injured, hopefully you were there when it happened. Unfortunately this is not always the case. As many times a pet might be outside, running loose, or simply in another room. So how do you determine if your pet is injured in some manner? You can tell by the way that your pet behaves.
When a pet is injured, they will act quite noticeably different. For instance, a playful pet may become suddenly aggressive, or may sit quite still and try not to move. Much of this will depend on the nature of the injury and the temperament of your pet. Recently one of our German shepherds, Abie, was not opening her mouth at all. She would not eat, take a drink, give a kiss. There was no way she was opening her mouth on her own. Along with this she kept nuzzling her nose into my hands, as if trying to tell me something.
The vet had to sedate her to determine she has a laceration under her tongue from a stick that was still partially embedded in the soft tissue.
Our other dog, Axel, broke his ankle several months back and was still ready to run and play immediately after it happened. But the extreme limping, whimpering, and the fact that he would not put his foot down were dead giveaways.
When a dog is in pain, they will find some manner to express it to you and even find a way to ask for help. All you have to do was listen to her body language.
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