SCIENCE OF CATS
THE SCIENCE OF CATS Making end of life decisions: Dr Lauren Finka delves into a study about owners’ experiences of deciding to put their cats to sleep.
Lauren Finka delves into the research about how owners decide when it is the right time to put their cat to sleep.
Scientific advances are enabling our feline companions to live longer than ever. Indeed, the average life expectancy for owned cats living in the UK is now between 9 —17 years. Unfortunately, with the benefits gained from making it to an old age come the costs of being much more susceptible to various chronic diseases.As cats cannot self-report and are very good at hiding health issues, this means that most often, we are simply going off our own judgements as to whether our cats may be in need of veterinary attention. Sometimes these judgements also involve making end of life decisions for our cats, which, speaking from personal experience, can be an excruciatingly difficult thing to do.
Knowing when it’s the right time to let our cats go can seem almost impossible.
However, we shouldn’t have to make these sorts of decisions alone and this is where good support from veterinary professionals can potentially make all the difference. Additionally, learning more about the experiences of other owners who have been through something similar might help us to feel that we are less alone at such a difficult time.
In this month’s article, we are focusing on a study that sought to better understand owners’ perspectives when making end of life decisions for their cats and the role their veterinarians play during this process.
Knowing when
it’s the right time to let our cats go can seem almost impossible.