A friend recently asked me how she would know when it was time to say good-bye to her old and increasingly fragile cat. The elderly feline had had a recent urinary tract infection that had made her very sick, and my friend had come to realize that her time with her beloved pet might be short.
This is a tough question, because none of us are granted the ability to know the future or our own end-time. As veterinarians, we can make educated guesses about how long an animal may have good quality of life, based upon how other patients have fared with similar diseases. But everyone is an individual, and some have surprising resilience. As veterinary professionals, many of us have seen pets with cancers or end-stage diseases that have outlived all statistics. Similarly, some animals seem to slide very quickly towards death.
It is our responsibility to be acutely aware of the daily changes in our animal companions as they age, or struggle with declining health. It is our sensitivity to their needs, and willingness to aid them, that allows us to “know” when their quality of life has declined to an unacceptable level. And I believe it is our responsibility to prevent future suffering when that happens.
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