REVIEW article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Behavior and Welfare
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1679966
This article is part of the Research TopicAnimal Communication: Neurobiological, chemical, and physiological aspectsView all 22 articles
Clinical interpretation of body language and behavioral modifications to recognize pain in domestic mammals
Provisionally accepted
Daniel Mota-Rojas1*
Alexandra Whittaker2
Lydia Lanzoni3
Cécile Bienboire-Frosini4
Adriana Domínguez-Oliva1
Alfonso Chay-Canul5
Vivian Fischer6
Ismael Hernández-Avalos7
Andrea Bragaglio8
Eleonora Nannoni9
Adriana Olmos-Hernández10
Arthur Fernandes-Bettencourt11
Patricia Mora-Medina7Julio Martínez-Burnes12
Alejandro Casas-Alvarado1
Temple Grandin13*- 1Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico City, Mexico
- 2The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
- 3Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy
- 4EPLFPA-Avignon, Site Agroparc, Avignon, France
- 5Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco, Villahermosa, Mexico
- 6Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
- 7Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlan, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Mexico
- 8CREA Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari Sede di Treviglio, Treviglio, Italy
- 9Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- 10Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitacion Luis Guillermo Ibarra Ibarra, Mexico City, Mexico
- 11Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Brazil
- 12Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Ciudad Victoria, Mexico
- 13Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
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Nonhuman animals use nonverbal cues to communicate their mental state about positive and negative events, including pain. Pain is a multidimensional process that elicits behavioral changes aimed at preventing further damage and promoting healing. These changes include restrictions on movement and/or activity, as well as adopting body postures to relieve pain. Additionally, changes in the ear and tail position have been associated with pain perception and are considered a sign of pain in several domestic species. Thus, this review aims to critically analyze and discuss the behavioral modifications and body language expressions associated with pain in domestic animals, with a particular emphasis on changes in tail position, ear posture, and overall postural dynamics. This review also aims to underscore the essential role of veterinarians and animal scientists in recognizing these subtle non-verbal indicators during clinical evaluation, thereby fostering early detection and effective pain management through more precise observational assessment.
Keywords: back arching, ear flattening, tucked tail, companion animals, farm animals
Received: 05 Aug 2025; Accepted: 26 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mota-Rojas, Whittaker, Lanzoni, Bienboire-Frosini, Domínguez-Oliva, Chay-Canul, Fischer, Hernández-Avalos, Bragaglio, Nannoni, Olmos-Hernández, Fernandes-Bettencourt, Mora-Medina, Martínez-Burnes, Casas-Alvarado and Grandin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Daniel Mota-Rojas, dmota100@yahoo.com.mx
Temple Grandin, cheryl.miller@colostate.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.