![]() Whether you chose burial, cremation, or a necropsy (autopsy), your veterinary team can make arrangements, and also offer suggestions for ways to cope with your loss. Your veterinarian will continue to help after your pet’s death.Your veterinarian will be sensitive to your wishes in such a tender time. There are even veterinarians who exclusively practice in-home euthanasia, or will meet you at a park or beach if local laws allow. Euthanasia can be performed in the veterinary hospital or at home.Simple modifications to your home can make a real difference in your pet’s comfort, such as altering slippery floor surfaces, improving accessibility to food and water, ensuring that bedding is comfortable, optimizing litter box location and design, finding an ideal home temperature, and maintaining sanitation and hygiene. Ask your veterinarian how to maximize your pet’s quality of life. Provide palliative and end-of-life care at home if at all possible.This includes assessing your dog or cat’s level of pain as well as their ability to eat or drink, breathe without difficulty, eliminate appropriately, move about your home, and engage with surroundings and caregivers. Your veterinary team will customize a plan for your pet’s specific needs.Your team may refer to the Animal Hospice Care Pyramid to guide their recommendations to you. Addressing your pet’s physical, social, and emotional needs are critical to maximizing your pet’s comfort and minimizing suffering. ![]() Your veterinary team will carefully evaluate your pet’s end-of-life transition.Neglecting or ignoring a pet’s suffering is considered unethical and inhumane. While veterinary caregivers sympathize with how difficult making the decision to euthanize a beloved animal is, animal hospice doesn’t permit a pet to die without euthanasia unless effective measures are in place to alleviate discomfort under the care of a licensed veterinarian. Euthanasia can be a final act of love.Pet owners are often comforted by how quickly, quietly, and peacefully an animal passes away during euthanasia. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has approved specific methods to minimize your pet’s pain, discomfort, and anxiety. Humane euthanasia is a peaceful process.This alternative is ideal for those who struggle with the decision to purposefully end their pet’s life, even if done humanely and for ethical reasons. Under the care of a veterinarian, death can occur naturally or with the assistance of medications administered by your veterinarian. Hospice-supported natural death is an alternative to euthanasia.This type of care seeks to relieve pain and anxiety using medications and can include euthanasia or hospice-supported natural death. Hospice care should be provided-under veterinary guidance-from the time of a terminal diagnosis through death. Just like in human hospice, animal hospice care focuses on relieving the patient’s suffering and supporting their caregivers.Since the medical issue itself is incurable, the goal of medications and treatment will be making every day as good as it can be. In the final life stage, dogs and cats generally have a terminal or ultimately fatal disease, a chronic or progressive disease, like end-stage kidney or heart failure, debilitating arthritis, a chronic disability like the inability to walk, or any combination of these. There are clear reasons a pet can be a candidate for palliative or hospice care.Your veterinarian will tell you about the expected trajectory of the disease so, together, you can create a treatment plan for each step of the way. While you might feel powerless when your pet is diagnosed with a terminal disease, you can still be proactive about their care. You still have some control of the situation. ![]() Top 12 things you need to know about these guidelines That’s why AAHA collaborated with the International Association of Animal Hospice and Palliative Care to create the AAHA/IAAHPC End-of-Life Care Guidelines. Deciding how to handle a beloved cat or dog’s final life stage-their last hours, days, weeks, or months-can be extremely challenging.Īs animal lovers and medical professionals, veterinary teams want to support you when it’s time to make end-of-life decisions. For so many of us, pets are more than animals who live in our homes-they’re family. ![]() The hardest part of loving a pet is having to say goodbye.
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