Watchful Waiting with our Pets
During the end of a pet?s life we engage in watchful waiting. The definition of waiting is to delay action until a particular time or event happens, to defer, or to remain in readiness for some purpose. We have both fears for our pets and fears for ourselves. The JOURNEYS Quality of Life scale addresses many of these concerns.
We may fear our pet will have a sudden catastrophic event- like a seizure, respiratory distress, or severe internal bleeding. We worry this may occur when we are not at home. Underlying this fear is our own fear of losing control. We want to be able to control what happens to our pet, mitigate the symptoms and severity, and make them feel better. The fact that sometimes no matter what we do, our pet may still suffer is upsetting. In all reality we really have very little control over much of what happens in our life. We humans like to think we can control the events of the day with our calendars, appointments, and plans, but we can?t. Watchful waiting with our pets is noticing the small things- perhaps our pet being a little more withdrawn, a little more reluctant to eat, a little slower. Many times people have told me that prior to the catastrophic event, they noticed their pet was a little off. Engaging in wishful thinking at this stage can be harmful to our pet- thinking that a wag
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at us for making the decision to euthanize. We worry that our pet may have one good day left, or is it better to let them go before they have that really bad day? I feel our pets live in the moment and when they are feeling poorly that is their whole experience. Underlying this fear for our pets may be our own fear of death, the afterlife, and the unknown. Our pets do not have this fear- they do not think about nor do they care about what come after death, they are afraid of pain, hunger, being unable to move, and being unable to