Additional Resources for You And Your Pet
Quality of Life
Pain Scale
Your pet may be in more pain that you think. These downloadable charts can help you determine the level of pain that your pet is struggling with.
Quality of Life
If you are concerned about your pet’s quality of life, take a moment to look at these available assessment tools to help provide you with more ways to look at their condition.
How Do I Know When It's Time from Ohio State University: How Do I Know When pdf
Vet Social: Quality of Life.
While not every pet follows the same path in decline, this graph depicts common end of life decline trajectories for those pets dealing with cancer, organ failure, or simply comorbidities that go along with old age and can help inform and prepare us to support them.
Grief Support
To lose a beloved pet is to lose a family member and these feelings can be overwhelming. To compound this, we live in a society that doesn't always recognize the significance of this loss for many. So much so that our industry has begun to call this phenomenon "disenfranchised grief" because surrounding messaging (even from those well intentioned) can sometimes convey that we shouldn't take it so hard because they were "just a pet".
But of course they weren't! We are not trained psychologists, but we understand the weight of this grief and the need for support, having gone through it ourselves. Listed below are websites that can assist individuals and families:
https://cvma.net/resources/practice-resources/pet-loss-support/
Educational and Support Resources
- Veterinary Partner: Articles and Information to help you with your pet needs.
- West Coast Pet Memorial: Provider of Pet Memorial Urns and other items.
- Grief Support: Grief Support and Community for pet loss.
