Welfare-centred approaches to end-of-life decisions for companion animals, including quality of life assessment, palliative care, and euthanasia as a welfare tool.
End-of-life decision-making is one of the most welfare-significant aspects of companion animal ownership. The ability to offer peaceful death when quality of life has irreversibly deteriorated is a profound welfare advantage — one not available to human patients in most jurisdictions. The welfare failure mode is typically procrastination: owners delay euthanasia past the point where animals are suffering unnecessarily, often due to anticipatory grief. Quality of life scales provide objective frameworks for these difficult decisions. Palliative care enables maximising comfort in the final weeks while maintaining honest assessment of when euthanasia becomes the most humane option.