Euthanasia

At some point, most pets will develop a life-limiting disease (such as organ failure or cancer).

As soon as such a diagnosis is made, it is time to begin measuring your pet’s quality of life. Your veterinarian will be better equipped to help you identify the right time for euthanasia if you keep them informed regularly about your pet’s life at home.

Speaking with your veterinarian about your pet’s approaching end of life is even more important.

It is certainly possible to honour religious/ spiritual beliefs that prevent euthanasia while still providing and delivering appropriate pain management and comfort care.

In this case, your veterinary healthcare team may need to be a bit more involved in measuring quality of life trends to prevent your pet from suffering unnecessarily.

Not necessarily. We are fully aware that the hospital is not the best environment to have such an emotional event take place. It is well known that some pets are more anxious when visiting the vets at the best of times! We are also aware that as owners you don’t want to be waiting in a room full of people and other animals having made such a difficult decision.

Therefore, we do offer home visits wherever possible, should you decide to have your pet put to sleep. Both a veterinarian and nurse can come to your house at a suitable time to perform the euthanasia. We can provide pre-arranged home visits during our working hours but unfortunately, we might not always be able to provide same-day visits as we have to organise for sufficient staff cover at the hospital in case of emergencies.

If you do want to come to the hospital, we advise that you let us book you in a for a specific time when the hospital is more likely to be quiet. Once we know you are here, you are more than welcome to ask for a quiet room to wait in until the veterinarian is ready. Alternatively, you are welcome to wait in the car park and we can call you to go directly in the consult room.

Normally both a veterinarian and veterinary nurse are present when your pet is being put to sleep.

After having explained the whole process to you, the veterinarian or nurse will insert an intravenous (IV) catheter in one of the main leg veins (front or back) to establish vein access to inject the necessary drugs. This part can be done in your presence in the room, should you choose to but ideally this is done in another room and once the catheter is inserted, the veterinarian will bring your pet back to the room where you are.

Once you said your goodbye, you can either stay in the room when the injections are given or if you wish to leave before that, we will take care of your pet with the utmost dignity and respect.

Once the veterinarian proceeds with administering the injections, the effect is almost instantaneous and within seconds. There are some reflexes that can occur after your pet has passed. It is normal for the eyes to remain open afterwards, and it is also common that some urine or faeces can just leak out as everything relaxes. Occasionally you can get some muscle twitching and it is also possible to get a sudden sharp intake of breath.

This can be upsetting if you are not expecting it, but again is normal and it is just due to the muscles relaxing. The animal is absolutely not aware of this.

This is a 3-step procedure:

• We administer general anaesthetic substance to make the pet much less anxious and be in a happy state of deep sleep. Your pet is still alive at this stage.
• This is followed by a normal saline injection to flush the catheter while waiting and monitoring the heart and breathing rate (both will start to slow down).
• We proceed to give the third injection which is a very strong anaesthetic-based drug which anaesthetises the brain first (so the animal become unconscious and unaware) before then stopping the heart. The process is very quick – often occurring within a few seconds.

The whole process is performed to be as gentle, stress-free, painless and dignified as physically possible. We have your pet’s best well-being at heart.

Absolutely not. The drug injected is designed to render your pet fully unconscious before the heart stops. All they are aware of, is gradually drifting off to sleep – just like having an anaesthetic. The injection itself is not painful and feels like any other injection.

If your pet is still eating, then you may bring his/ her favourite treat or something special like ice-cream of chocolate for them to enjoy it while you are saying goodbye.

If there are calm housemates (dogs especially), you may bring them along. Many dogs and cats have some level of grief when they lose a friend so allowing them to be present and minimally sniff the departed friend after euthanasia may provide closure. It may help you through that difficult moment too.

You can bring their favourite toy, blanket, bed or any keepsake you know they love to have.

We obviously understand that paying the bill is probably the last thing on your mind at such a difficult time for you.

If you have come to The Veterinary Hospital, we will take you to a private consultation room and you can sign the consent form and make the payment ahead of the start of the procedure. That way, we don’t have to trouble you when you are grieving.

If we are coming to your house, we will send you the bill ahead of time and you may make an over the phone payment or we can send you a payment link ahead of the visit.