Part One of a Four-Part Series on Movement, Impact, and Long-Term Joint Health

The Quiet Moments That Change How We See Everything

There are moments with dogs that quietly change how we understand everything that follows. They are rarely dramatic. More often, they arrive unnoticed — a small movement, a subtle hesitation, the way a body runs across the ground. And only years later do we realise we were being shown something about the future long before we were ready to see it.

For me, one of those moments came simply from watching how my dogs ran during play. Through countless hours of closely observing dogs — both in my own life and through the broader conversations that grew around Augustine Approved, I’ve learned that early movement changes are often the first quiet clue that a dog’s joints may need more protection long before anyone uses the word “arthritis.”

The First Time You Truly See It

When I first brought Sammy home and I threw a ball for him and Diesel, I watched them run alongside each other. I found myself standing still, quietly observing the way Sammy moved across the ground — a beautiful yet clunky mess. By pure chance, I had recorded that moment, and you can see it in the video below.

I remember thinking very clearly, Sammy is going to have a lot of problems when he’s older. He was only 19 months old when he came into my life, which is why, even then, my instinct was that what I was seeing was not the result of ageing or lifestyle, but something more deeply rooted in genetic structure and breeding history.

His back legs looked stiff, almost locked, kicking outward rather than flowing forward in the smooth, rolling coordination you expect when joints, muscles, and nerves are working together in harmony. Nothing dramatic was happening. He wasn’t limping or vocalising, but there was a subtle tension in the way his body moved, as though it was already compensating, already bracing, already preparing for a future the body somehow sensed long before the mind could name it.

Veterinary surgeon Dr. Malcolm Ware (Bachelor of Veterinary Science) — a certified canine rehabilitation therapist with more than 40 years of clinical practice, including 15 years in rehabilitation medicine — offers an important clinical perspective: “During examination, most dogs won’t vocalise pain until it’s already severe — often around eight out of ten on a pain scale. Subtle signs come first, not whimpering or yelping.”

And once you truly see a pattern like that, you can’t unsee it. Because years earlier, without fully understanding what I was witnessing at the time, I had watched the same story slowly unfold with Augustine.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time is that this quiet pattern-spotting is now echoed in modern biomechanics and rehabilitation science. Subtle asymmetries in gait, posture, and load distribution are increasingly recognised as early indicators of future joint stress, long before obvious disease appears. In other words, the body often tells the story years before diagnosis gives it a name.

Another subtle layer within early movement change is something most people never realise they are seeing: the beginning of asymmetry. Bodies are rarely perfectly balanced, even in youth. Just as humans tend to favour one hand or one leg, dogs often carry a slightly stronger push-off limb, a preferred turning direction, or a small difference in muscle tone between sides. On its own, this natural unevenness is not a problem. But when weakness, structure, or repeated strain begins to affect one limb more than the other, the body quietly shifts weight to compensate.

Over months and years, the stronger side may appear powerful and stable while the weaker side becomes less used, less supported, and more vulnerable. By the time obvious stiffness appears, this imbalance has often been shaping joint stress for far longer than anyone realised. In that sense, asymmetry is not just a detail of movement — it is often one of the earliest whispers of the future.

Augustine, Faith, and How Structure Shapes Mobility

Augustine and Faith were both boxers, both deeply loved, both raised with extraordinary care and attention. They were supported with intentional nutrition, gentle inflammatory balance, and the kind of daily observation that naturally develops when dogs are not just companions but the centre of your world. Yet despite sharing so much in common, their bodies still expressed themselves differently through movement and structure.

Faith was explosive, fast, and elastic — slimmer, lighter, quicker on the take-off. And yet, when I later looked back at videos of them moving side by side, I could see that their overall mechanics were actually far more similar than I had first believed. Both of them carried a kind of free-flowing motion through the rear legs, a natural rhythm that suggested joints, muscles, and nerves working in harmony. Augustine, however, felt different in a way that is difficult to describe unless you have lived closely with a dog like her. She was more solid, heavier through the rear, slower in her take-off, yet incredibly powerful once she was moving — slower to launch, but stronger through sustained speed. I often thought of her like the Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Terminator 2: not sleek or graceful, but unstoppable in a deeper, more grounded way. Faith felt lighter, slimmer, built for fluid speed — she was more like the T1000. Two distinct structural expressions of movement existing side by side, shaped by genetics more than anything else.

As Faith grew older, I did begin to notice the first hints of stiffness appearing in her movement. Sadly, she never reached what I would consider a truly old age, and I never witnessed the kind of hind limb muscle wasting that Augustine eventually experienced — even though, in many ways, Faith had pushed her body just as hard, if not harder, throughout her life. Her story was shaped less by gradual physical decline and more by the genetic challenges she carried from the beginning.

Even so, despite receiving some of the most thoughtful wholefood nutrition and supplementation I could possibly provide — the same philosophy that shaped everything we created through Augustine Approved, Augustine’s back legs still carried the cost of a lifetime lived with full intensity.

I remember in her later years the subtle change in how she rose from rest, the brief pause before movement, the strength still in her spirit even as the body asked for more gentleness. There is a quiet honesty in biology that no amount of love can completely override. The body always keeps score, even when we are doing everything with the best intentions.

And this is a truth experienced dog people eventually come to recognise: the way a dog moves in mid-life often predicts the comfort of their later years more accurately than any diagnosis.

What we are often seeing in those mid-life movements is not just ageing, but the visible edge of years of invisible adaptation. The body is constantly negotiating force — redistributing load, protecting weakness, sacrificing symmetry to preserve function. By the time stiffness appears, the story has usually been unfolding subtly for far longer than anyone realises. In that sense, late-life joint decline is rarely sudden. It is simply the moment when the body can no longer sustain the quiet compensations that once kept everything moving.

When It’s Called Arthritis, But The Story Began Years Earlier

Over time, I began to notice that many dogs who were eventually labelled with arthritis or simply described as “getting old” had often been showing subtle signs years earlier: small changes in movement, slight stiffness when rising, gradual muscle loss, and compensation patterns spreading quietly through the hips, spine, and posture.

Compensation is the body’s quiet survival strategy — shifting load, altering posture, and sacrificing symmetry so movement can continue long after true balance has already been lost.

These were not sudden events. They were long stories unfolding slowly, often hidden beneath assumptions about ageing.

This same principle is well recognised in human rehabilitation, where even a small ankle injury can quietly alter gait, redistribute force through the hips and spine, and create symptoms far from the original site of damage. The body’s priority is always survival of movement first — balance only comes second.

This is why I have spoken before about how it’s not always arthritis, and how hidden inflammation, mechanical strain, and lifestyle patterns can shape joint decline long before symptoms become obvious. Once you begin to understand this, your attention naturally shifts earlier. You start asking different questions. You start watching movement itself, rather than waiting for diagnosis.

Decades of gait analysis, veterinary orthopaedic, biomechanical, and rehabilitation research across both human and veterinary medicine increasingly recognise that visible joint disease is typically the final clinical expression of a much longer mechanical process — one shaped by years of cumulative loading, subtle structural stress, neuromuscular adaptation, and compensatory movement patterns long before diagnosis is ever made.

Joint disease rarely begins where we finally notice it. It begins where the body first starts adapting.

As canine rehabilitation therapist Sandra Bader of Paws4Paws explains,
“I truly believe every dog should be on a conditioning or rehab program before problems begin. There is so much we could do earlier — prevention should be a much bigger part of canine care.”

And inevitably, that awareness leads to one of the most sensitive parts of the conversation: how our dogs play — and even the everyday objects we place in their mouths without much thought.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Playing Fetch

Throwing a ball feels like love. It feels like joy, bonding, enrichment, and the simple happiness of seeing a dog run freely. Emotionally, it is all of those things, and that truth deserves to be honoured. And speaking personally, as someone who was often time-poor while living with high-energy dogs, throwing a ball or a frisbee became more than just play.

It was a way to connect with them, to help drain their energy, and, if I’m being completely honest, sometimes a way to quietly soothe my guilt that they might not have been getting the kind of exercise I felt they truly needed. Yet from a purely biological and mechanical perspective, the picture is more complicated.

In the natural world, dogs and wolves certainly chase and sprint, but their pursuit is rarely the sharp, repetitive stop-start pattern we create in suburban life. Movement in the wild is curved, rhythmic, interrupted by scenting, circling, pausing, and repositioning. Fetch compresses all of that into repeated explosive acceleration, abrupt braking, twisting through joints, and immediate relaunching, often dozens of times within minutes.

Across years, that repetitive force matters — even in dogs supported by beautiful nutrition, healthy body weight, naturally supportive fats such as raw coconut oil, and broader daily nourishment that many guardians now explore through gentle whole-food blends like Augustine's SuperBoost to help maintain healthy joints, normal vitality and resilience.

Dr. Ware adds that, “In humans, around 90% of cruciate ligament injuries are caused by sudden trauma. In dogs, it’s the opposite — roughly 90% are the result of long-term degeneration within the joint, quietly developing over time until the ligament finally ruptures.”

Bundy’s story is a simple but meaningful one. An older dog who had been slowing down is now back at the park — running, chasing the ball, and enjoying movement again.

We’re not diagnosing, treating, or claiming to cure anything. This is simply a reminder of how deeply nutrition, comfort, and whole-body wellbeing can influence how a dog feels. And when a dog feels better, movement, play, and joy often follow.

And forgive the slight shameless self-promotion — this was the only version of the video I could find from 2018. More than anything, we simply didn’t want to lose Bundy’s owner’s words and the moment they captured.

With that said, it's important to note that support helps the body cope but it cannot erase physics. There is only so much mechanical stress a body can absorb across a lifetime.

And as this four-part series continues, we’ll also look beyond movement itself to the materials and everyday toys involved in these games — including why something as ordinary as a tennis ball can introduce its own set of long-term problems.

Recognising the Pattern In Another Dog

I lived this reality with Augustine, and more recently I recognised it again when a lady reached out to me about her 11.5 year old dog. She sent me a video of him struggling to walk across her living room due to what appears to be muscle wasting in his hind limbs. Sadly, I do not have permission to share the video.

Before she had even finished explaining her concerns, I felt that quiet certainty return. The rear-leg movement pattern was instantly familiar, carrying the same history written silently in muscle and motion.

I asked her one simple question: whether her dog had spent years playing intense ball games. She said yes — not because she had done anything wrong, but because this is what loving people grew up thinking is a normal part of having dogs. That is precisely why conversations like this matter. Not to create guilt, but to create awareness early enough to change the ending.

Sandra Bader of Paws4Paws adds, “Loss of muscle leads to loss of balance, coordination, and strength. It becomes a chain reaction.”

Different Bodies, Different Futures

Not all dogs are built the same, and rear-leg decline is never random. Diet matters enormously, but beyond nutrition breed structure, hip depth, angulation, muscle distribution, growth rate, body weight, and exercise patterns all shape how force travels through the body. Movement is information, if we learn to see it. And once we see it, the question gently changes from what has happened to what we might still protect.

Often, the answer is not dramatic. It may be as simple as rethinking repetitive fetch, choosing softer ground, allowing pauses between sprints, and rediscovering slower, more natural forms of movement such as wandering, sniffing, gentle hills, and steady walking. Variety protects joints in ways repetition never can.

Where This Story Leads Next

In the second part of this four-part series, we will look more closely at the hidden mechanical damage created by repetitive high-impact play, and why some of the most common modern exercise habits quietly shape joint decline years before symptoms appear. From there, we’ll move into practical ways to protect a dog’s back legs before visible problems begin, before finally examining the often-overlooked role of everyday toys and materials, including tennis balls, in shaping long-term health.

Because watching a dog run is never just watching movement. It is watching genetics, lifestyle, nourishment, joy, stress, and time all expressed through motion. And sometimes, if we pay attention early enough, we are given the rare opportunity to protect the future before damage becomes permanent.

The Quiet Truth At The Centre of It All

That is why I notice these things now. Why I ask different questions. Why Augustine’s story continues to be told. Not to change the past, but to help another dog keep running with strength still in their back legs many years from now.

Maybe that is the quiet lesson hidden inside all of this. The way a dog moves is never just movement. It is history written through structure, repetition, and time — all revealed within a single stride. Long before pain appears, the body is already telling its story. If we are willing to slow down enough, we will notice it, and once we begin to see it clearly, we are faced with a gentle but powerful responsibility: to decide whether the patterns shaping our dogs’ future will continue unnoticed, or whether we begin, step by step, to guide them toward something softer, stronger, and more protected in the years ahead.

Understanding how movement shapes ageing is only the beginning… and in the next part of this series, we look more closely at the hidden mechanics of impact, repetition, and the everyday games that place the greatest cumulative strain on the body over years.

And perhaps that is the simplest responsibility we carry for the dogs who trust us completely — to notice earlier, soften sooner, and protect the years they cannot protect for themselves.

Series Navigation

Part 1: Early Signs of Arthritis in Dogs: What Subtle Movement Changes Can Reveal (you are here)
Part 2: Is Fetch Bad for Dogs? The Hidden Joint Impact of Repetitive Sprint–Stop Play (coming soon)
Part 3: How to Protect Your Dog’s Back Legs and Joints Before Problems Begin (coming soon)
Part 4: The Tennis Ball Problem: Hidden Risks in Your Dog’s Most Common Toy (coming soon)

Quick Summary

Joint decline often starts as tiny changes in movement, long before a diagnosis.
Subtle asymmetry in movement is often one of the earliest quiet shifts, gradually redistributing load and shaping joint stress long before stiffness becomes visible.
What looks like “arthritis” is often the overlap of structure, inflammation, and mechanical load.
Dogs compensate quietly, shifting load to keep moving until compensation runs out.
Repetitive sprint–stop play can create high cumulative joint stress across years.
The earlier you notice patterns, the more power you have to protect comfort later.

FAQ

Can movement changes appear before arthritis in dogs?

Yes. Subtle gait asymmetry, stiffness when rising, reduced stride length, or quiet compensation can develop years before arthritis is diagnosed. Look for small changes like a slower rise, a shorter stride, or a slight shift of weight to one side—especially after rest.

Does playing fetch cause arthritis in dogs?

Fetch does not automatically “cause” arthritis, but high-frequency sprint–stop play can increase cumulative joint loading over time, especially in larger dogs or dogs with existing structural weakness. The risk is shaped by repetition, surface hardness, intensity, and recovery time—so moderation and variety matter more than banning the game entirely.

What are the earliest signs of joint decline in dogs?

The earliest signs are often subtle: slower rising after rest, reduced stride length, quiet stiffness, shifting weight between limbs, or decreased enthusiasm for jumping and sprinting. These changes can appear years before arthritis is formally diagnosed, which is why early observation of movement is considered one of the most important ways to protect long-term joint comfort.