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This guide helps you triage; it does not replace your veterinarian's exam. When in doubt, call us at 514 223-1197.
Go now: the signs that cannot wait
Any single one of these is enough. You do not need to tick several boxes, and you do not need to wait and see if it passes. Head to the clinic or the nearest emergency centre, and call on the way so they are ready for you.
- He is no longer putting weight on the leg, even if his toes still brush the ground.
- The leg hangs and swings, or the limb sits at an angle that is not its own.
- An open wound, visible bone, a bite, or bleeding that will not stop.
- The leg is swelling as you watch, or a joint is hot and swollen while he is flat, feverish or shivering.
- He yelps, growls or turns on you when you come near, or the pain does not let go even when he is lying down.
- It followed an accident: a car, a fall from a balcony, a window or the stairs, a fight. You leave even if he is walking again.
- His hind legs are giving out, he is dragging them, he is walking on the tops of his feet, or he cannot get up (section 3).
- A hind leg is limp and cold, and the pads look pale or bluish.
- His overall state worries you as much as the leg does: pale gums, laboured breathing, he collapses.
- You gave him something from your medicine cabinet. Call right away, even if he seems fine (section 2).
His mood tells you nothing about what is inside that leg
A dog who is eating, wagging his tail and holding one paw up still goes in. A fracture, a dislocation or a joint starting to get infected look exactly like that in the first hours. At home, nobody can tell them apart, and tonight is not the night for you to try.
After an impact, walking does not mean unhurt
This is the best-documented trap of the whole subject. A dog hit by a car, dropped from a height or pulled out of a fight can walk in front of you and be bleeding inside: chest and abdominal injuries take hours to declare themselves. Our internal triage guide has always put it the same way: trauma, even if he seems fine.
A bite is two small holes and a lot of damage
What you see on the skin is the tip of the iceberg. Teeth crush and tear deep down, leave a pocket under the skin and deposit bacteria in it, while the surface shows almost nothing. A limp after a fight always gets examined.
Before you drive: five things
- Call to announce your arrival, ideally while someone else drives. The call is to get the team ready, not to decide whether you go.
- Do not press on the leg to find the sore spot: you risk making the injury worse, and even the gentlest dog can bite when he hurts.
- Do not give any tablet from your medicine cabinet. What relieves you poisons him.
- Do not improvise a splint or a bandage: badly placed support works like a lever on the bone, and a tight bandage cuts off circulation. Carry him or support him rather than making him climb stairs.
- A strip of cloth around the muzzle protects everyone during transport, except in four cases where you do not muzzle: if he is vomiting, if he is struggling to breathe, if his face is injured, or if he is a short-nosed breed (Bulldog, Pug, Boxer, Shih Tzu). For those dogs, tell us on the phone and avoid the heat: effort and stress take their breath away.
Before you give him anything
The instinct is human. Your dog hurts, and there is an anti-inflammatory in the cabinet. It is a common instinct, and almost always the instinct of someone trying to help. Here is why we are asking you not to.
Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), aspirin
Toxic to dogs: they attack the stomach lining and the blood flow through the kidneys. Ulcers, digestive bleeding, and in the worst cases an ulcer that perforates the stomach wall and gets repaired in an operating room. Aspirin counts too, including low-dose aspirin, including the one people take "for the heart".
Naproxen (Aleve)
The most treacherous of the three, and it earns its own line: it stays in a dog's body for days, far longer than in ours. A single tablet can be enough to do damage, even in a large dog.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
Dangerous for dogs, and fatal to cats, even a single tablet: give it to no animal in the house. In dogs, the gap between the dose that would help and the dose that damages the liver is very narrow, and it does nothing for the joint inflammation you are actually trying to ease: maximum risk for zero benefit. If your cat has swallowed any, even half a tablet, call right away: he can look perfectly normal for hours before it shows, and treatment exists and works far better the sooner it starts.
Pain creams and leftover prescriptions
A cream you rub on your own back gets licked off. A drug prescribed for another animal, or for another episode, is never a stopgap: it was chosen for a different body and a different problem.
An anti-inflammatory he already takes
Do not raise the dose on your own, and never add a second one. Two anti-inflammatories together is exactly the combination that perforates stomachs. Call us: it is a two-minute conversation.
What tonight's tablet costs him tomorrow morning
This is not only about toxicity. If he got a human anti-inflammatory tonight, we cannot layer the veterinary one on top: depending on what he took, it can mean waiting several days before starting the right drug. If his limp actually calls for a steroid, or for surgery this week, that tablet complicates both of those paths too. And a half-relieved dog uses the leg: on a fracture or an infected joint, that is not relief, that is more damage.
You already gave him some?
Then the most useful thing you can do is tell us, exactly and without leaving anything out. Nobody here is going to lecture you: we need three things to decide well. What, how much, and at what time. A photo of the box beats the brand name, because the name alone does not give us the strength.
In most cases the right move is to call, not to rush out the door. Leave now if it is a cat who swallowed acetaminophen, if he is a small dog, if doses were repeated, or if you see blood in the vomit or black, tarry stools.
It may not be a limp
Some signs do not come from a leg at all, but from the back and the spinal cord. Then the plan is different: you do not watch at home, you go. This section has no watching window, and any one of the signs below cancels every window described elsewhere on this page.
Go now if, suddenly or getting worse by the hour, your dog:
- cannot get up, or his hind end sinks when he tries;
- drags one or both hind legs, or walks on the top of his foot;
- has limp hind legs, or is not moving them at all;
- cries, stiffens or refuses to be lifted when you touch his back or neck;
- stands hunched, trembles and will not move;
- has not urinated since this started, or soils himself without seeming to notice;
- has weak or unsteady front legs as well;
- has just taken a hit: a fall, a car, a bigger dog.
The sign that really separates the two
A limping dog spares the leg: he knows where it is, he sets it down badly because it hurts. A dog whose nerve or spinal cord is affected drags it, or walks on the top of the foot, because he no longer knows where it is. That is your best marker at home. And it is not just a hind-leg thing: a dog who "limps on a front leg", holds his head low and refuses to turn his neck may have a neck problem, not a shoulder problem.
Here, no pain is not good news
A dog can have a serious spinal-cord injury without crying and without looking like he is in pain. A leg that hangs, that he drags, and that does not seem to hurt should worry you more, not less: when a nerve is damaged, the leg stops hurting at the same time as it stops working.
Do not test whether he can feel his legs
A paw that pulls away when you pinch it is a reflex: it pulls away even in a dog who feels nothing at all. You risk a bite and, worse, false good news that will make you wait.
While you get ready to leave, and without delaying the departure
- Keep him still, flat on a firm surface, and handle him as little as possible. That is the instruction from our guide on a pet who can no longer get up, and it applies here word for word.
- Do not make him walk, climb stairs, jump or turn sharply.
- Lift him supporting the chest and the pelvis at the same time, back as straight as you can, without bending or twisting him.
- Small dog: a carrier or a padded box. Large dog: a board, a tray, or a blanket held taut by two people, with someone staying beside him while another person drives.
- If you are alone with a big dog and none of that is possible, go anyway. An imperfect trip beats a delayed one.
Does time matter?
Yes, moving fast helps. But we are not going to write a deadline, and that is deliberate: there is no clock to run down at home, and arriving later never means it is no longer worth it. If surgery needs to be considered, that is decided after an exam, never over the phone.
Not sure this is what you are seeing?
Call and describe it: that is exactly what the call is for. Hind-end weakness that has been building for weeks in an older dog gets looked at too, and we will sort out with you whether that means tonight or an appointment. But a dog who cannot get up tonight goes now, even if things had already been getting worse for a long time.
"He isn't crying, so he isn't in pain"
It is the sentence we hear most on the phone, and the one that costs the most time. A dog can hurt in silence.
Crying is an unreliable signal
Some dogs yelp at almost nothing; others make no sound at all with a torn ligament. Its absence proves nothing, and you should not wait for a cry before acting. The most-used false marker is not the cry anyway: it is the tail. A dog in pain can keep wagging, greet you at the door and ask for his walk.
What is reliable, you already noticed
It is the limp itself. In dogs, a leg that limps is most often a leg that hurts. And when a limp does not hurt, it is usually a nerve or the mechanics of the limb: that is not better news, it is another reason to have him examined. So it is not up to you to judge whether he hurts, or how much. Nobody is asking you to. Your part is already done: you saw that something was wrong.
The signs his body gives instead of a cry
- He rises stiffly, especially in the morning or after a nap.
- He hesitates at the stairs or the car, he no longer jumps onto the couch.
- He tires on walks, he slows down, he wants to head home.
- He licks or chews at one joint, always the same one.
- He no longer likes being touched in one spot, or pulls away when you reach.
- He pants at rest, without having run, or cannot settle into a position to lie down.
- He keeps to himself, he gets grumpy, he sleeps differently.
If he growls, that is not bad behaviour
The growl, the stiffening, the head turning toward your hand: those are responses to pain, not character flaws. If it happens, stop immediately, note it and tell us: it is useful clinical information. And tonight, children stay away from that leg.
We are not going to hand you a checklist to score
Pain scales exist, but they are clinician tools, and a grid gives you a threshold, while a threshold gives you permission to wait. What we are asking is simpler and more useful: tell us what changed.
These situations do not get watched
They do not necessarily call for an overnight emergency, but they skip the watching step entirely, even if the limp looks mild. Call us, or take the first available appointment without letting the day go by.
- Your dog is still growing. In a young dog the growth zones of the bone are more fragile than the rest of the skeleton, and a serious injury can follow a completely ordinary move: jumping off the couch, catching a paw, playing a bit too hard.
- The limp comes with a fever, or your dog is flat and off his food. A limp plus a fever is a sick dog, not an injured one.
- Several legs seem involved, you cannot tell which one it is, or he is stiff all over and walking on eggshells.
- A joint is hot, swollen, or no longer the same shape as the other side. An infected joint does not need a visible wound to exist: infection can arrive through the bloodstream, and it is the delay that costs the cartilage.
- The limp moves from one leg to another day to day. Do not go hunting for a tick before calling: most owners have never seen one on their dog, and the bite can be weeks old.
- He is a large dog of middle age or older and the limp is lasting, coming back, or getting worse over weeks. Especially if you can feel a firm lump or swelling over a bone.
- He is a very small dog and it is a front leg, after a jump off the couch, the bed or your arms. The forearm bone there is very thin, and this is one of the rare situations where how it is handled from the start changes a great deal.
- Your dog already lives with a known illness or takes medication. His threshold is simply shorter.
Ticks are well established in southern Quebec, including the Montreal area, and their territory is spreading. A dog who goes outside here is an exposed dog, even if he never sets foot in a forest. Our tick guide already says to call for unusual tiredness, limping, loss of appetite or fever in the weeks or even months after a bite.
Get your call ready (2 minutes)
- Since when, and is it getting worse, holding steady, or improving?
- Which leg, and is he still putting weight on it?
- What happened before: a jump, a run at the park, a fall, a fight, nothing at all?
- His current medications and known conditions.
- Is he eating? Feverish, flat? Any wound or swelling?
Watching at home: a 24-hour ceiling
If your dog is an adult in good health, still putting weight on the leg, eating and bright, and none of the signals from the sections above are present, you can keep him on strict rest until we open. In the morning you call, even if he seems better.
All of these conditions at once
- A healthy adult, with no known illness and no current medication.
- He still puts weight on the leg and gets around on his own.
- He is alert and bright: eating, drinking, asking for his normal life back.
- No wound, no swelling, no hot joint, no fever.
- No known accident: no car, no fall, no fight.
- None of the signs from sections 1 and 3, and he is neither still growing nor a large older dog whose limp has been dragging on.
This is not a timer to run down
It is the line past which you stop watching and pick up the phone. A single signal cancels it, at any hour of the night. We write 24 hours rather than two days for a simple reason: two days spent observing are two days less for examining. Our emergency page already lists sudden limping as a reason to call: this tier does not excuse you from the call, it only tells you the call can wait for opening.
What "strict rest" actually means
It does not mean "no long walk". It means: short leash, outside only for a toilet break, then straight back in. No stairs, keep him on one floor. No jumping onto the couch, the bed or into the car: you lift him or help him. No running, no ball, no tug, no dog park, no play with the other dog in the house. A quiet room rather than the run of the place. A dog who limps a little often feels well enough to make his injury worse.
Do not confuse this with arthritis: in a dog already diagnosed with osteoarthritis, the home instruction is the opposite, gentle movement rather than strict rest. The strict rest described here is for a new, undiagnosed limp, over a short window.
What you can look at, and how
With your phone light, and only if he lets you: the underside of the pads, between the toes, the nails and the nail bed. You are looking for a cut, bleeding, a cracked or torn nail, a swollen toe, a foreign object. Compare with the paw on the other side.
- You look, you do not dig. Do not probe a wound, do not soak it, do not disinfect it.
- Anything embedded stays embedded. You do not pull it out: you leave with it in place.
- At the first stiffening, the first head turning toward your hand, you stop. That does not mean he is mean, it means it hurts.
A Montreal winter puts two different things under those paws
A limp that starts partway through a cold-weather walk is sometimes just a ball of ice packed between the toes: look before you conclude. Road salt and de-icers are a different problem: they dry, crack and can burn the pads, and that shows up at home when you get back.
What not to do
- Do not walk him to see how far he can push it. Film the few steps he already takes on his toilet break instead: from the side, from a distance, about ten seconds. That video is gold at the exam, because plenty of dogs hide their limp once they get to the clinic.
- Do not flex the leg, do not hunt for the sore spot, do not massage it. Locating pain is the exam's job.
- No ice and no heat tonight. Those are treatments, and the wrong one of the two on the wrong injury either feeds the inflammation or burns the skin. That gets decided once we know what we are treating.
- No bandage, no splint. A tight bandage cuts off circulation.
- Do not wake him up to check, and do not stage a walking test at midnight.
Any one of these cancels the watching
- He stops putting weight on the leg, or holds it up.
- He cries, trembles, pants at rest, or cannot settle.
- A leg, a toe or a joint swells, gets hot, or changes shape.
- He goes off his food, turns flat, or looks feverish.
- The limp gets worse instead of better, or a second leg joins in.
In the morning there are only two answers
The limp is completely gone: read the next section, there is one more test to run. It is still there, even slightly, even much better than yesterday: book an appointment. Not the emergency room, an appointment. A limp that survived the night deserves hands on the leg, not a second day of watching.
Emergency tonight, or an appointment tomorrow?
A mild limp your dog is still weight-bearing on, with none of the signals above, does not call for an emergency visit tonight. Keep him quiet and call us at opening. And if you are torn between the two, phone: a call commits you to nothing, and deciding between "tonight" and "tomorrow" is exactly our job.
Gone already? The real test is going back to normal activity
A limp that vanishes with rest and comes back the moment the dog runs, jumps or climbs the stairs is not a healed limp. It is in fact the most effective delay mechanism there is.
The rule
If the limp returns when normal activity resumes, even briefly, even once, book an appointment. A 24-hour ceiling will never catch that dog: he passes the test every single time, and in the meantime nothing is healing.
Why this rule exists: the knee
The cruciate ligament of the knee is one of the most common causes of hind-leg lameness in adult dogs. And here is the detail that changes everything: in dogs, that ligament almost never snaps the way a healthy athlete's does. It wears down slowly, over months, and finally gives out during an ordinary movement, a jump off the sofa, a turn at the park. The weekend run is not the cause, it is the moment. The classic pattern goes like this: a limp that improves for a few days, then comes back harder a few weeks later. That lull is not healing, and a partial tear almost always ends up becoming a complete one.
"He is still using the leg" is not proof
It is what allows us to wait until morning, not proof that the cause is harmless. Two of the most consequential situations present precisely as a mild limp with weight-bearing: the partial knee tear, and bone cancer in a large older dog, which starts as a mild to moderate limp, slow and gradual. Watch for this trap too: a limp that improves on an anti-inflammatory and then returns is not a limp that has been dealt with. It is in fact one of the most common ways a bone problem gets missed.
The gradual limp: the one that settles in
It does not start with an event. It starts with a dog who gets up more slowly, hesitates at the stairs, shortens his own walks. Morning stiffness that eases after a few minutes of movement is a classic sign of osteoarthritis, and osteoarthritis eases very well once it is named.
"It's just his age" is the sentence that most often delays pain relief in an aging dog. Aging itself does not make a dog limp and does not make him hesitate at the stairs. Osteoarthritis does.
And beware of the reverse trap. If your dog is already followed for arthritis, do not pin everything on it. Arthritis settles in over weeks and months. A limp that appears all at once, or gets clearly worse over a day or two in an arthritic dog, is a change, and a change gets examined.
The large older dog: why we X-ray early
In a large dog of middle age or older, a limp that lasts, returns, or worsens over weeks gets X-rayed early, especially with a firm swelling over a bone. It is not because we assume the worst: it is because the X-ray is the only way to separate several explanations that look very much alike from the outside, and because some of them are handled far better early than late.
Frequently asked questions
The questions we hear most on the phone, and one people don't always dare to ask.
He limps a bit, but he still runs around like a maniac. Am I overreacting?
He was limping yesterday, this morning he is fine. Should I cancel the appointment?
Can I give him half a tablet of what I take for my back?
He is 12. Isn't it just his age?
It is the middle of the night. Can it wait until morning?
Do I let him move a little, or stop him completely?
He has been limping for weeks and I did nothing. Did I harm him?
Also worth reading
The honest triage, in one sentence
No weight on the leg, a leg that hangs, a wound or an accident, a hot joint with a fever, or the hind end giving out: go now. Still growing, feverish, several legs involved, a large older dog whose limp is dragging on: same day. A mild limp in a bright, healthy adult who is still weight-bearing: strict rest until we open, and you call in the morning even if he seems better. You do not have to decide alone: sorting it out with you is our job.
Your dog is limping and you are hesitating?
Stop hesitating: call us and we will triage together. If an appointment is enough, we will say so; if it is more urgent, we will point you in the right direction immediately.