How Do I Know When it’s Time for End of Life for My Pet?
After working now with thousands of pet owners during their time of grief, please know that each decision about euthanizing your beloved pet is an individual one and that no matter what it is, that decision is to be respected, and you are doing your very best with the information that you have.
I’d had her for 14 years. She had been my first child…..only she had fur. As a Border Collie, there wasn’t much she could not do. Hike for ten miles? Yup. Keep up with my two kids? Yup. Herd the two kittens around and nestle them into her furry belly to sleep? You betcha. She was my huge love and an integral part of our household. I had noticed she was getting very arthritic as she aged, but a little bit of antiinflammatory medication really seemed to help. Until the fateful day when we discovered she was urinating blood everywhere. She had a bladder tumor and was extremely uncomfortable. We took her in for an ultrasound and we knew it was her time. In our minds, here was no other choice for her, but that did not make the grieving any easier.
As you begin to assess whether to euthanize your pet, or as some call it “put their pet down”, I recommend to consider what animals in the wild would do….. I have noticed that many pet owners have reported that when its their pets time, suddenly the pet will try to “go away to die” and will end up in a strange place, such as behind the water heater in the basement or under a bush in the corner of the yard …. only to be brought back by their concerned owners. I believe this correlates with their wild ancestors who innately knew it was their time and would crawl off to pass away on their own. Some people then go to extraordinary measures to keep their pets alive. This is understandable when we look at the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It is very easy to not realize what is happening with your pet at first.
Consider looking daily at their quality of life in three different main areas: social, emotional and physical. For the social aspect, is your pet engaging with the family or doing any activities that they used to like to do? For the emotional component, do they seem happy? Is their tail up and are they responsive to you? For the physical aspect, are they eating any kind of normal food in enough quantity to keep their weight on? Are they drinking enough? Do they keep losing weight? If your pet is a cat, do they seem in pain or have difficulty jumping up like they used to? If a dog, do they have difficulty getting up, or walking? Dogs with arthritis can often be found circling a lot longer before they slowly lay down, often due to arthritis or discomfort. All of these can be indicators and help you in your decision.
If your pet has been diagnosed with an illness or disease process, ask your veterinarian to consult with you about what to look for as the illness or disease progresses, what are worsening signs or symptoms? Can your vet help give guidance on when to say when?
The best is to try to objectively mark down on a calendar “good day” or “bad day” for your pet. When the bad days outnumber the good days, often its time to consider euthanasia.
Copy and paste the url below into your browser for a sample quality of life assessment from Dr. Alice Villalobos, a pioneer in animal euthanasia. You can print and fill this out daily and use this as a guide to help gauge how your pet is feeling more objectively.
https://360petmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Quality-of-Life-Scale.pdf
No matter what you decide, you love your pet so incredibly much, so be kind to yourself in this process and know that you are doing the best you can with the information that you have at this time.
With Love to You and Gratitude to All Animals Big and Small,
Dr. Deborah Rotman
