Quality of Life Scale: When to Put a Dog Down
Deciding when to put a beloved old or sick dog down can be one of the most heart wrenching decisions that pet caregivers will ever have to make. Unfortunately, it’s an issue that faces many parents of sick and aging pets, like the carers of Marley, a 13-year-old female Golden Retriever mix. Marley was diagnosed with presumptive pancreatic cancer that involved her liver in April 2019, when I first met her. Thankfully, there’s help for pet caregivers struggling with this decision. The Quality of Life Scale I created in 2004 can help guide parents like Marley’s to make the right choice for their beloved companions. By answering questions about their pet, carers can determine a quality of life score. The higher the score, the better a pet’s quality of life. When I first met Marley, she had been undergoing symptomatic treatment to reduce her vomiting and diarrhea. At her first consultation with me, her carers said she had been feeling better on those medications. Together, we assessed Marley’s condition using the Quality of Life Scale, and determined that her score was high, indicating a good quality of life. I recommended a range of care, from supplements to low-dose chemotherapy to using diapers for her incontinence, among other tactics. Thankfully, at that time, we did not have to consider euthanasia. Over the past 15 years, thousands of pet caregivers have thanked me for providing decision-making guidance with my Quality of Life Scale. Veterinarians, their staff and pet carers tell me that using this tool has really been helpful as they lovingly provide palliative care, hospice or “pawspice” care for pets that are approaching the end of life.
