Calgary vet clinic offers end of life care for pets

Palliative care for pets A Calgary pet hospital is offering end of life care for pets. Adriana Zhang has details.

CALGARY — Kimberly Williams first saw her dog, Cricket, on an animal rescue website at just 12 weeks old.

The pair embarked on many adventures together over the span of 10 years, but Cricket's health began to deteriorate in the summer of 2021. In early September, she was diagnosed with primary lung cancer.

"I'd had experience with palliative and hospice care from a human perspective when my dad was ill," said Williams, "and I wondered if there was such a thing for dogs."

Southpointe Pet Hospital's Dr. Alyssa Eslinger,  the first veterinarian in southern Alberta to be certified by the International Association for Animal Palliative and Hospice Care, said "End of life care for animals is a relatively new field."

"It focuses on the needs of pets with life-limiting illness and disabilities."

Eslinger's clinic provides home euthanasia, palliative and hospice care, and quality of life assessments for pets.

"We offer telemedicine and home support on call so that we can make changes to the treatment plan as we need, while keeping that care base where the patient is most comfortable – at home," she said.

Williams already knew she would seek out home euthanasia when she discovered Cricket's illness was terminal, "I decided we're going to do this as quietly and as familiarly as possible."

Williams said Eslinger's hospice care program allowed Cricket to be more comfortable up until the end, "We were hiking up until four days before she died."

Cricket passed just two months after her diagnosis. She was at home, surrounded by her family.

"Cricket died in the room where she spent most of her days," Williams said, "She was at home so she could be really comfortable."

She said hospice care for pets is really similar to the care offered to humans, "I learned there are ways to keep dogs more comfortable than perhaps we realize."

Williams encourages other pet owners to think about options that work best for them and their pets, "Folks might not want to watch their pets die, but that gave me so much closure. I feel so good about the decisions that I made about (Cricket's) end of life."