Animals Unfolded

One of the biggest struggles that families face with pets who are aging or are on hospice is an appetite that's unreliable or absent. And it's understandable, given how much of a gauge that behavior is for us. In fact many pet guardians are convinced that their pet is choosing not to eat or eating less because they're dying. And in all my years of supporting people, and in educating them on how the dying process actually unfolds , I can say that they're relieved to learn that is often quite a stretch. Pets don't decide to stop eating. Something is standing in their way—like a symptom, a trigger or a disease process. Or less commonly, their body is moving through the process of actively dying and the body no longer has the need for food. But it's not an active choice.  Appetite does tell us a lot, and while it can be a barometer, it's not something we should ever be using on its own to determine what's going on with a pet. Because quite honestly, it'...

Eating is an activity of daily living (ADL) that looms large in the work that families & I do together. We track the usual aspects of this activity: the pet’s interest in food, how much they’re eating, when they’re doing so, & what they’re eating. And that gives the pet guardians, the core members of the vet interdisciplinary team (vets, vet techs) & me good information about how well a pet is doing & coping with symptoms & changing needs as they navigate this time, whether they’re senior or geriatric, coping with recovery through injury or illness, or, as is a focus of my practice—when they’re benefiting from the program of care that is a nimal hospice & palliative care .  If a pet is demonstrating a change in appetite, our identifying what’s happening, when, how often, to what degree, & what has or hasn’t worked is par for the course & then relaying that information to the vet team. Routinely submitting quality of well being assessments ...

Many guardians discover as they tend to pets in their final months, their appetite just isn’t the same as it once was. It’s not a happy observation. It’s important to understand that pets aren’t giving up or being willful about their desire to eat: it’s something that can emerge with that time of life.  Disease processes can affect a pet’s appetite, along with medications and changes in physiology can impact how food tastes to them. Pain of all sources most definitely plays a role, in fact it’s the most common reason behind appetite challenges, with anxiousness following closely. Pets who’ve entered the period that leads up to animal hospice supported natural death—usually three months prior, give or take—most certainly see a decrease in food intake, along with other signals, and that’s expected and interpreted differently. While that is a topic for another time, what I will be focusing in on here is that messy, grey area in those final months when families really struggle since...