How you can tell if your dog might be in pain: Study finds ear and tail positions can indicate if your pup is sore

If you have a pet you'd know how frustrating it is that they can't tell you if they're in pain or how they're feeling like humans can.

While we can somewhat communicate with their beloved furry friends, it's hard to know when they're hurt or in pain if they can't tell us.

However, researchers in Turkey might have found out a way to tell if your pooch is sore after conducting a study on dog owners and behavioural changes in their pets.

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The team from Ankara University surveyed 124 dog owners to find out if they could sense their dog was in pain and any behaviours associated with it.

The study aimed to understand which behavioural changes and gestures were perceived by owners from their dogs.

The online survey included three main parts for dog owners including demographic information about the dog, pain-related behavioural changes and pain-related ear and tail position changes in the dogs.

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Out of the 124 dog owners surveyed, 35 reported behavioural and postural changes in their dogs and 13 posture, ear and tail positions were reported more often by the owners of dogs thought to be in pain.

The majority of the changes reported were related to movement based scenarios from day to day activities, according to the study.

According to the research team, they noted that "owners were able to recognise changes in the ear and tail positions which can be related to pain during activity or positional changes".

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"The dog owners mostly reported pain-related changes in behaviours and body language of their dogs during everyday activities," the report said.

The findings of the survey have been backed up by similar findings in other studies.

In 2013 Hielm-Björkman found, "Decreased tail wagging and lowered ear-tail positions are also suggested to be typical signs of chronic pain in dogs."

Other signs reported by dog owners in the survey related specifically to senior dogs and included a reduced amount of general activity and stiffness while walking. The latter was reported significantly more often in those dogs that were thought to be in pain.