When "Not Acting Right" Means Something Is Wrong: Subtle Signs of Illness in Dogs and Cats

You know what would be super helpful for a veterinarian? Pets coming in with clear clinical signs that have obvious diagnoses and a straightforward treatment path. Didn't we go to vet school to get the secret cheat sheet and fancy decoder rings? We spent years (oh so many years) cramming facts into our overfilled brains only to come out and be presented with a lot of pets that didn't attend those same lectures. There's a saying in medicine that diseases often don't read the book. From where I'm sitting, it seems like most diseases have never even owned a library card.

Sure, some presentations are classic: there are patterns we see all the time that probably equate to a specific disease. But more often we're dealing with vague signs and a handful of issues that look about the same on the surface. In fact, the most common reason an animal presents to an emergency vet, near as I can tell, is for being "ADR" — a complex and deeply technical medical term that stands for "ain't doin' right." It's named after the Greek philosopher Antonios Donia Rightitus, the godfather of the shrug emoji.

ADR can be anything from "my dog is laying on a different part of the couch" to "that there bull has accidentally attached itself to the milking machine at the dairy." The range is wide. So we rely on a thorough history and some pointed diagnostics to help figure it out.

Most importantly, it starts with a conversation. So, if your dog or cat isn't acting right and you're not sure whether to come in, call us at (970) 851-8751, get on our waitlist, or come in during open hours.

Your Gut, or Possibly a Dandelion

That "something is wrong here" feeling you get is right more often than you'd think. You know your pet better than anyone. If you think something is up, it may be the first warning sign of something real.

Also, fair warning: it's entirely possible your dog ate something silly like a dandelion and is simply feeling the pressure of granting all those wishes now scattering through his intestines. As in: it could be nothing. Sometimes coming in to the vet is just an expensive car ride.

Unfortunately, animals have evolved to hide weakness. They don't want to show you something is wrong or they may get banished from the pack. It's a safety mechanism. It's also the same reason we watch sad movies in dark theaters and why I work out in my garage: I don't want anyone to see me cry. Even your 8th generation Yorkipoo has the base instinct to try to keep it together on the surface for fear that they will get ejected from their cozy Chanel handbag. Which means you, the person who knows them best, are usually the first to notice the small stuff.

Subtle Signs Your Pet Isn't Acting Right

A few of the things you may pick up on:

• Less energy than usual, or sleeping more
• Appetite changes: eating less, picking at food, walking away from the bowl
• Drinking more or less than normal
• Hiding (especially cats) or seeking out unusual spots
• Being clingy or, conversely, withdrawn
• Reluctant to go up stairs or jump on the couch
• A change in posture: back hunched, head down, sitting differently
• Vocalizing differently: being quieter, more vocal, or whining
• Lip-licking or drooling
• Looking at their side, belly, or back end in a way that isn't normal for them
• A bad smell that wasn't there yesterday

In other words: "Doc, they just ain't doin' right."

Look: dogs have bad days. Cats are, well, cats. Dachshunds reserve the right to take a break from their routine of burying themselves in cozy blankets. Cats occasionally remember that they are the descendants of Egyptian gods and were not destined to eat kibble from a stainless steel bowl. But sometimes these subtle changes can be more clinically important.

The combination of subtle changes or the duration of any one of them can be important. There's a difference between an off day and "something is off." An off day looks like one bad morning that's normal again by afternoon. "Something is off" looks like a slow drift over hours or days — the usually-eager dog isn't bouncing back, the usually-vocal cat is unusually quiet, the senior pet seems suddenly older than he did last week. Direction matters as much as the symptom.

What's Normal for Your Specific Pet

Here's a homework assignment for some quiet moment when nothing is wrong: figure out what "normal" looks like for your dog or cat. Not normal for the breed. Not normal for the species. Normal for Earl (boy do I hope your pet's name is Earl). How much do they sleep on a typical day? How much do they eat? Are they greeters or aloof? Are they affectionate or do they prefer being near you without being touched? What does their water bowl look like at the end of the day?

We get a lot of "is this normal?" calls. The honest answer is usually that we don't know your specific pet, but you do, which makes you the expert in the room. We just happen to know the right questions to help you determine if the change sounds normal-ish for your pet. You've got all the information and we are really good at 20 questions.

This becomes especially important for senior pets and pets with chronic conditions. A 12-year-old dog with kidney disease has a baseline that's different from a healthy 5-year-old dog, and a subtle change from that baseline matters earlier. Same with diabetic cats, dogs on long-term medications, pets recovering from surgery, and any animal whose "normal" already comes with some caveats. The cushion is smaller, so the threshold for "this isn't right" is lower.

Like, when you start a new game of Jenga, you are pretty cavalier about which piece you choose. Tap the tower with gusto! Take a side piece! Plop it on top, who cares? But, if you're at the end of the game and the tower is balanced precariously on that single piece at the base, you will be closely attuned to any subtle movements in the tower during piece selection.

If you want a baseline written down, a one-page note about your pet's normal habits is genuinely useful. Energy, appetite, water intake, weight, sleep patterns, behavioral quirks. Particularly for senior pets, it gives you something concrete to compare against when things start to shift.

You Know Things We Don't

Here's the thing about an ADR workup: the most useful piece of equipment in the building is you. The exam tells us about right now. The bloodwork tells us about the systems. The x-ray images tell us about the structures. None of those tell us what your pet was doing yesterday, what they ate, what's been different for the past week, or what their normal looks like. That part lives entirely in your head.

A 7-year-old Lab who's been a little quiet for two days and is reluctant to jump into the car is a different patient than a 7-year-old Lab who's been a little quiet for ten minutes after a hike up Horsetooth. Same exam findings. Completely different clinical picture. The difference is the history.

A cat who's been hiding and not finishing her meals for three days is a different patient than a cat who's been hiding for one afternoon. Same description, very different urgency. Same point: the history changes the interpretation.

You're the one with the history. Nobody else in the building has it. By the time we walk into the exam room, you've already done more detective work than we have. This is part of why "I'm not sure if I'm overreacting" is rarely a good reason to skip the call. The information you have is the information we need to help determine urgency.

When to Watch and When to Come In

We can't write a comprehensive rule, because pets and situations vary too much. But here's a rough filter that sorts most cases:

1. If the subtle changes are paired with anything from the clear-emergency list — labored breathing, pale gums, repeated vomiting, inability to urinate, sudden collapse, severe pain — come in.
2. If the subtle changes are persistent (more than a day) or progressive (getting worse, even slowly), call.
3. If the pet is older (over about seven for most dogs, over about eight or nine for most cats) and the change is new, lean toward calling.
4. If the pet is on chronic medications, has a known condition, or is in a particularly vulnerable category (very young, very old, recently surgical, immunocompromised), call.
5. If your gut keeps insisting something is wrong even when the symptoms seem mild, call.

Pets do have off days. The list above isn't a rule that says "off days are emergencies." It's a framework for sorting "probably nothing" from "might be something."

What an ADR Visit Looks Like at Our Clinic

An ADR workup is more open-ended than most ER visits. Vomiting comes with a manageable list of possible causes that we narrow down. ADR shows up without a clear chief complaint, so we start broad and let the history and the physical exam tell us where to look.

A typical ADR workup at our Fort Collins clinic:

• A long-form history covering appetite, water, energy, bowel movements, urination, sleep, recent travel, new foods, new household members, anything different in the last few days
• A thorough physical exam covering all body systems
• Some diagnostics. This may be bloodwork to look at some major organ systems and blood cells, a urinalysis to evaluate kidney function or evidence of infection, or x-ray images to peek inside.
• A discussion of what we found, what's still unclear, and what the next step is

Sometimes ADR turns out to be the start of a clear diagnosis — a urinary tract infection, a soft-tissue injury, pancreatitis, an endocrine problem. Sometimes the workup is clean and the answer is "watch for these specific changes over the next 48 hours and call us back if anything shows up." Either way, you leave with more information than you came in with.

Trust Your Gut

If something feels off about your dog or cat and you can't quite name it, take it seriously anyway. Your subconscious got there before the words did.

There's a version of this where "they're probably fine, I'm being dramatic" wins out and the pet ends up at the ER three days later with the same problem now twice as bad. There's another version where you come on in and you have some fresh local coffee and meet our emergency team. We are strongly in favor of the second version. Catching something early is often way less stressful, far less expensive, and comes with overall better outcomes. Plus: coffee.

If your dog or cat isn't acting right and you're not sure what to do, call us at (970) 851-8751, get on our waitlist, or come into our Fort Collins clinic during open hours. We'd rather see a non-emergency than miss the start of a real one.