Palliative care for terminally ill companion animals focuses on quality of life and pain management - understanding the options helps owners make welfare-centred decisions about end of life.
Companion animal palliative care welfare recognises that the goal of care shifts from cure or life extension to quality of life as death approaches. Aggressive treatment that prolongs life while maintaining poor quality of life represents a welfare failure, however well-intentioned. Quality of life assessment tools help owners and vets make evidence-based decisions about when treatment crosses from helping to harming. Adequate pain management in terminal illness is a welfare imperative - under-treatment of pain in companion animals remains too common. Timely, peaceful euthanasia is often the most important welfare intervention available and should be viewed as a gift rather than a failure.