Best practices for hygiene care for pets in advanced age or on hospice
The most important asset that I’ve been able to hone in my practice is that I’m deep in the trenches with providing hands-on care to pets with very special needs. That regular exposure as I tend to pets, no matter if they’re recovering from illness or injury, or senior, geriatric—even moving through their final months or days—it gives me a perspective that’s nuanced, rich and humbling. Working in the area of animal hospice, I feel like it’s really easy to tell a pet guardian, ‘Oh, use this product’ or ‘ This is why XYZ is going to be beneficial ’. Basically, ‘I’m an authority, and you should do this’. The truth is that there isn’t anything that I recommend or dissuade a pet guardian from doing, a product that I don’t think would be useful in their case because I’m often doing it myself. I’m never too far removed from the caregiving experience of the families I’m connected to. One of the topics that comes up has to do with hygiene care. It’s more important during these life event...