Featured Quote:
Video Transcript:
Boca Park Animal Hospital
Hi, I'm Dr. Daigle-Spaulding from Boca Park Animal Hospital. Although end-of-life care and decisions may not be easy, we want you to know that your veterinary team is with you during this difficult time. My assistant, Paula, has written down a few questions that you guys have about euthanasias and end-of-life care.
Paula:
What should I expect during the end stages of life for my dog and how can I evaluate that?
Dr. Daigle-Spaulding:
Some things you're looking at with canine senior end-of-life care is you often can have cognitive dysfunction or cognitive disabilities, and they can also struggle with mobility, getting around, and incontinence. Those are a few things that we commonly see.
Paula:
How can I evaluate my dog's quality of life?
Dr. Daigle-Spaulding:
So I think the best way is to just...No one knows your pet more than you do. And so it's best to just kind of evaluate how your dog normally behaves and then if you've noticed the lack of those behaviors recently. What I usually go by is kind of the rule of three. I like to think of your dog's three favorite things to do, whenever they stopped doing two of those three favorite things, then that kind of clues you in to tell you that it may not be the best quality of life for your pet at this time.
Paula:
Can you explain to me how the euthanasia process works?
Dr. Daigle-Spaulding:
Euthanasia—it's a very sensitive and difficult decision to reach but we, as your veterinary team, could help you make that decision and come up with what the best plan is for your family. Whenever it does come to that time, we do have a peaceful comfort room that we can do it in. And what it is, is we just placed an IV catheter in a vein, so it just gives us access to the vein. You can choose to be with your pet the whole time if you like.
There are actually two different injections. The first one is a sedative, so your pet will just drift to sleep. And then the second one is a high dose of anesthesia, so it just slows everything down. It is a very peaceful process. There's no pain at all associated with it. Those are all things that we can discuss with you if you do feel like it gets to that time with your pet.
Dr. Daigle-Spaulding:
If you ever have any questions about hospice or palliative care - end-of-life care - we're always happy to see you and make an appointment and talk with you about those difficult decisions. Thank you.