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If your dog started shaking suddenly and is also disoriented, wobbly, dribbling urine, or has dilated pupils — go to a vet or call an emergency line now. That combination points at a toxin, and the most common one in homes is a cannabis edible. It is treatable, and the sooner the better. Bring the packaging if you have it.
The short answer: shaking is a symptom, not a diagnosis, and it has about nine common causes. Most are harmless — cold, excitement, fear, or an old dog's tired legs. A few are emergencies. The single most useful thing you can do in the next sixty seconds is work out which group you are in, and that comes down to three questions: did it start suddenly, is anything else wrong, and does it stop when the dog is distracted? Everything below sorts the causes by that.
Written by Marc Brannigan, Co-Founder & CEO of HempMy Pet. Last updated 20 September 2026.
The Nine Causes, Side by Side
The middle column is what you see. The right column is the tell — the specific thing that points at this cause rather than the others.
| Cause | What it looks like | The tell |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Cold | Whole-body shivering, tucked posture, seeking warmth. Small, thin and short-coated dogs most of all. | It stops when they warm up. The simplest thing on the list and the easiest to rule out. |
| 2. Excitement | Trembling with a loose, wagging body — before a walk, when you come home, around food. | The rest of the body is happy. Ears and tail up, not tucked. It passes in minutes. |
| 3. Fear or stress | Trembling with a tucked tail, flattened ears, panting, hiding, clinginess. Fireworks, thunder, the car, the vet. | There is a trigger, and it stops when the trigger does. Often paired with drooling or pacing. |
| 4. Pain | Shaking with reluctance to move, a hunched back, flinching at touch, lip-licking, or a changed sitting position. | It does not stop when they are calm and warm. Often worse on rising. Look for what they stopped doing — stairs, sofa, jumping. |
| 5. Nausea | Trembling with lip-licking, drooling, swallowing repeatedly, eating grass, turning away from food. | Drooling plus lip-licking. Often follows a car journey, a new food, or something they scavenged. |
| 6. Toxin or poisoning | Sudden onset, tremors rather than shivers, disorientation, wobbliness, dilated pupils, vomiting. | It came out of nowhere and they seem "not themselves." This is the emergency group. See the section below. |
| 7. Old age and muscle weakness | Trembling in the hind legs, worse when standing still or after exercise. Comes on gradually over months. | It is in the legs, not the whole body, and it has crept up slowly rather than started one day. |
| 8. Low blood sugar | Weakness, wobbliness, trembling, glazed expression. Puppies, toy breeds, and diabetic dogs especially. | Long gap since the last meal, and they improve after eating. In a toy-breed puppy this needs a vet, not just a snack. |
| 9. Illness or neurological | Persistent tremors that do not fit anything above, sometimes with other signs — fever, coughing, head tilt, changed walk. | Nothing you change makes a difference, and it is not going away. This is the "book an appointment" group. |
Two can be true at once. An old dog with sore hips who is also frightened of thunder will shake for both reasons, and the thunder will make the hips look worse.
Mild or Serious? The Three Questions
This is the part most articles skip, and it is the only part that matters in the first minute.
Shaking that appeared in the last few hours in a dog who was fine this morning is a different problem from shaking that has crept in over months. Sudden onset moves toxin, pain and low blood sugar up the list and moves cold, age and temperament down it.
Shaking on its own is usually benign. Shaking plus vomiting, wobbliness, dilated pupils, collapse, a distended belly, laboured breathing or disorientation is not. The companions matter more than the shaking.
If it stops when they warm up, when the fireworks end, when you distract them with a toy, or when they eat — you have found your cause. Shaking that continues through all of that is the kind to take seriously.
Cold, excited and frightened dogs stop shaking when the cause stops. Dogs in pain, poisoned dogs and unwell dogs do not.
"My Dog Is Shaking and Acting Weird All of a Sudden"
This is one of the most-searched versions of this question, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a list. Sudden shaking with strange behaviour is the pattern that should worry you, and in homes the most common single cause is something the dog ate.
We make hemp products, so we are going to be very precise here, because the distinction matters more than anything else on this page.
A dog who has eaten a cannabis edible, a vape cartridge, or someone's stash can show severe wobbliness, tremors, dribbling urine, sensitivity to light and sound, dilated pupils and a glazed, distant look. It is distressing to watch and it is treatable — but it needs a vet, today. Be honest with them about what happened; they are not interested in judging you, they are interested in treating your dog.
Hemp products containing under 0.3% THC do not do this. They are non-intoxicating at sensible servings. If you give too much, what you see is drowsiness or loose stool that passes on its own — not tremors, not disorientation, not dilated pupils. If your dog is showing the signs on the left, do not assume a hemp supplement caused them. Something else did.
Xylitol (sugar-free gum, some peanut butters), chocolate, grapes and raisins, slug pellets, certain mushrooms, nicotine, and some human medications all cause tremors. If you cannot rule out access, treat it as urgent. Keep a poison-control number where you can find it.
We wrote about this distinction in more depth after a mountain-rescue story brought it up: cannabis toxicity in dogs versus hemp. The Merck Veterinary Manual covers xylitol, which is the one owners most often miss.
Shaking or Twitching in Their Sleep
Usually the least worrying item on this page, and one people search for at two in the morning.
Dogs dream. During REM sleep, paws twitch, legs paddle, whiskers move, and some dogs make small noises. This is normal at every age and needs nothing from you — waking a dog mid-dream is more likely to startle them than help.
What is different: a genuine seizure is rigid rather than loose, the dog does not wake when you say their name, it often involves drooling or loss of bladder control, and afterwards they are dazed for minutes rather than instantly normal. Dream twitching stops the moment they wake up and they look at you as if nothing happened. If you are not sure which you saw, film it — thirty seconds of video is worth more to your vet than any description.
Shaking in Senior Dogs
Hind-leg trembling in an older dog is common enough that owners often decide it is "just age." Sometimes it is. Often it is comfort.
Age-related muscle loss genuinely does cause trembling, particularly in the back legs, particularly when standing still. But joint discomfort produces almost the same picture, and the two are worth separating because only one of them has anything you can do about it.
The distinguishing sign is the same one that separates them at night: joint discomfort is worst in the first thirty seconds of standing and eases as they move. Muscle weakness gets worse the longer they stand. If your older dog is also restless after dark, that is its own cluster of causes — we set out the eight causes of night-time restlessness and how to tell them apart.
Either way it is a vet conversation, not a supplement decision. Our senior dog guide covers what the published research does and does not show — and joint comfort is the one use where all five published canine trials actually sit. Details on our joint and mobility page.
Hemp for Hip & Joint Mobility →
Fear and Stress Shaking — Where Hemp Actually Fits
Of the nine causes above, this is the one where a calming supplement has any legitimate role. We would rather say that plainly than imply hemp helps with all nine.
A frightened dog shakes with a tucked tail, flattened ears, panting and often drooling. There is usually a trigger you can name — fireworks, a thunderstorm, the car, the vacuum, being left alone, a vet visit — and the shaking tracks it. That is the profile worth addressing, and the things that help are mostly not products: a small enclosed space they choose themselves, background noise, staying calm yourself, and never punishing the fear.
Where hemp comes in is as one part of that, for owners who want it. The honest state of the evidence: the controlled canine research on CBD is strongest for joint comfort, and thinner for stress and anxiety than most of the industry implies. We go through what actually exists — and what does not — in hemp and CBD for dog anxiety, including where L-theanine, chamomile and melatonin sit alongside it.
Timing matters more than amount. Given as an oil by mouth, most owners notice something within roughly 30 to 60 minutes, so for a predictable trigger — a firework night, a car journey, a vet appointment — it goes in ahead of time, not once the dog is already trembling. Our serving guide works from body weight.
If it turns out to be stress, this is where owners start
Small Dog Hemp Treats
2mg each · pre-measured
$25
250mg Hemp Seed Oil
Up to about 40 lbs
$49
1,000mg Hemp Seed Oil
40 lbs and up
$99
Grown on our own Colorado farm, third-party tested every batch, and the same full-spectrum extract used in our 90-day university trial. Serving by weight →
If your dog takes any prescription medication, talk to your vet before adding hemp — it can change how quickly the body clears other drugs. We cover that, and the published safety findings, in hemp and CBD side effects in dogs.
How to Calm a Shaking Dog
Assuming you have ruled out the emergency group, these are the things that actually help — roughly in the order worth trying.
- Warm them up first. It costs nothing and rules out the most common cause in one step. A blanket, a jumper for a thin-coated dog, off a cold floor.
- Let them choose where to be. Frightened dogs want small and enclosed — a crate with a blanket over it, under a bed, a bathroom. Do not pull them out of it to comfort them.
- Be boring. Anxious reassurance in a high voice confirms that something is worth worrying about. Calm, low, normal.
- Cover the noise. Background sound takes the edge off thunder and fireworks more than most owners expect.
- Feed them if it has been a while. Particularly a small or young dog. If shaking improves within minutes of eating, that tells you something.
- Do not punish it. Shaking is not disobedience, and telling a frightened dog off makes the next occasion worse.
- Write it down. Time, trigger, how long, what stopped it. Three episodes of notes turns "he shakes sometimes" into something your vet can work with.
When to Call the Vet
Call an emergency service now if:
- The shaking came on suddenly and your dog seems disoriented, wobbly, or "not themselves"
- There are dilated pupils, dribbling urine, or sensitivity to light and sound
- You suspect they ate cannabis, xylitol, chocolate, grapes, raisins, or any medication
- They are vomiting repeatedly, retching unproductively, or their abdomen looks distended
- They collapse, cannot stand, or the tremors are rigid rather than loose
- Breathing is laboured, or the gums are pale, blue or brick red
Book an appointment this week if:
- The shaking is new and does not resolve with warmth, food or calm
- It is paired with reluctance to move, stiffness, or a change in how they walk
- Your dog is a puppy or a toy breed and shakes when meals are delayed
- It has been going on more than a couple of days
- They are on medication and this started after a change to it
For a veterinary-school overview of canine health topics including when tremors matter, the Cornell Riney Canine Health Center is a reliable starting point, and the American Kennel Club has an owner-focused summary.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my dog trembling so much all of a sudden?
Sudden onset is the pattern that deserves attention, because it moves toxin exposure, pain and low blood sugar to the top of the list. If your dog is also disoriented, wobbly, has dilated pupils or is dribbling urine, treat it as an emergency and get to a vet — a cannabis edible or other household toxin is the most common cause of that combination. If they are otherwise completely normal, cold and fear are far more likely.
What toxins cause tremors in dogs?
The common household ones are THC-containing cannabis products, xylitol (sugar-free gum and some peanut butters), chocolate, grapes and raisins, nicotine, slug and snail pellets, certain mushrooms, and a number of human medications. Tremors from a toxin usually come on suddenly and arrive with other signs — disorientation, vomiting, wobbliness, dilated pupils. Hemp products containing under 0.3% THC are non-intoxicating and do not cause this.
Do dogs show pain by shaking?
Yes, and it is one of the more commonly missed causes. Pain-related shaking does not stop when the dog is warm and calm, and it usually travels with other signs: reluctance to jump or do stairs, a hunched posture, flinching when touched in one spot, lip-licking, or a change in how they sit. Look at what your dog has quietly stopped doing over the last few weeks.
Do dogs shake if they are sick?
They can. Nausea, fever, low blood sugar, kidney disease, distemper and a number of neurological conditions all produce trembling. The distinguishing feature is that it persists regardless of temperature, mood or distraction, and it usually comes with something else — appetite change, vomiting, coughing, drinking more, or a changed walk. Persistent shaking with no obvious trigger is a reason to book an appointment.
Should I be worried if my dog is shaking but isn't cold?
Not automatically. Excitement and fear both cause shaking in a perfectly warm dog, and both stop when the cause stops. What matters is whether anything else is wrong and whether it resolves. Shaking that continues through warmth, food, calm and distraction is the kind worth a vet's opinion.
Why does my dog shake in their sleep?
Almost always dreaming. During REM sleep dogs twitch their paws, paddle their legs and sometimes vocalise — it is normal at any age and needs nothing from you. A seizure looks different: rigid rather than loose, unresponsive to their name, often with drooling or loss of bladder control, and followed by a dazed period. If you are unsure, film thirty seconds of it for your vet.
Can CBD or hemp stop my dog shaking?
It depends entirely on why they are shaking, and for most of the causes on this page the answer is no. Hemp has no role in shaking caused by cold, toxins, low blood sugar, pain of unknown origin, or illness — those need warmth, a vet, or food. Where a calming supplement has a legitimate place is fear and stress-related trembling with an identifiable trigger, and even there the controlled canine evidence is thinner than the industry implies. Work out the cause first.
My old dog's back legs shake. Is that normal?
It is common, and it is worth investigating rather than accepting. Age-related muscle loss causes hind-leg trembling that worsens the longer the dog stands. Joint discomfort produces a similar picture but is worst in the first thirty seconds of rising and eases with movement. The two need different responses, so it is worth asking your vet which one you are looking at.
The Short Version
Shaking is a symptom with about nine common causes, and three questions separate them: did it start suddenly, is anything else wrong, and does it stop. Cold, excited and frightened dogs stop shaking when the cause stops. Dogs in pain, poisoned dogs and unwell dogs do not.
If the answer turns out to be fear with a trigger you can name, that is the one place a calming supplement belongs — given ahead of the trigger, not during it.
Shop Calming Support → All Hemp for Dogs
Hemp for Dog Anxiety · Night-Time Restlessness · Cannabis Toxicity vs Hemp · Serving by Weight · Side Effects
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This article is general information, not veterinary advice. If your dog is unwell, contact your veterinarian.
