Palliative Care for Pets

Palliative Pet Care – Virgil Animal Hospital

Caring for a terminally ill pet poses a unique set of challenges for your family. Virgil Animal Hospital is dedicated to providing you with amenities to make this life stage as full of peace and love as possible for you and your pet.

Veterinary palliative treatment is a route wherein the decision to withdraw curative therapy has been made in the best interests of the pet. It provides a compassionate alternative to early euthanasia while still addressing the pet’s suffering. It offers different methods than isolating an animal to intensive care units or the standard alternative of insufficient home-based treatments.

Most often, the situations which lead to the decision to commence palliative care are:

Diagnosis of a life-limiting illness
Progression of a terminal sickness
Deciding against pursuing curative treatments
Disease impacting pet’s daily life

Cancer & Organ Failure

Incurable organ failure or cancers are some of the leading causes for families to choose palliative medical care. In order to gain an understanding of how palliative pet care will impact the disease’s progression and the animal’s quality of life, the first step is to consult with your veterinarian. Coupled with an understanding of your pet’s lifestyle, the vet will be able to create a proper course of action to make the transition as easy as possible. Our veterinarians will discuss with you the ramifications of palliative treatment, the nature of quality of life, and help you generate goals for care. We are dedicated to supplying comprehensive knowledge and helpful tools so that you can best manage the situation as your pet approaches the end of their life.

In-clinic End of Life Care

Handling the loss of a pet is an incredibly challenging task, posing one of the most difficult situations a pet-parent will ever have to manage. In order to make this time as easy on you as possible, Virgil Animal Hospital does everything possible to assist you in ascertaining the correct time to apply euthanasia. This course of action is a true act of affection towards your pet, as it means an end to great pain or illness that can no longer be tolerated due to the diminishment of your pet’s overall quality of life.

During the procedure, your pet will be administered a sedative to give them a feeling of calm, which is then followed by a specialty medication. This process is entirely painless and allows your pet to painlessly and peacefully transition out of this life.