Hospice and Palliative Care for Companion Animals: Principles and Practice

A thoroughly updated and expanded new edition of the only book providing comprehensive treatment of hospice and palliative care in veterinary medicine

Animals with life-limiting illnesses deserve compassionate, thoughtful, end-of-life care. Their caregivers and families, faced with the loss of a beloved companion, deserve empathy, support, and education, to guide them through an emotionally wrenching period and provide their companion animals with the highest possible quality of life. In recent years, the ethics of care and service to sick and dying animals and their caregivers has been the subject of considerable attention.

Hospice and Palliative Care for Companion Animals, 2nd Edition provides a thorough update to the first and only complete guide to this field of service, its foundations, and its applications. It addresses the needs of pets, caregivers, and veterinary professionals alike, including fundamental ethical and emotional principles as well as detailed discussion of specific illnesses and life-limiting conditions. The expanded second edition incorporates cutting-edge research into animal behavior and cognition to enrich the reader’s understanding of companion animals’ emotional needs and their experience of illness and death.

Hospice and Palliative Care for Companion Animals, 2nd Edition readers will also find:

• Existing chapters expanded to incorporate new research and practical experience
• New chapters discussing factors underlying the decision to euthanize, the potential role of ethology in palliative care, and more
• A companion website with educational handouts for use in veterinary practices

Hospice and Palliative Care for Companion Animals is an indispensable resource for caregivers and veterinary professionals alike.

The editors

Amir Shanan, DVM, is the Founding President of the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care and a Founding Partner of the Animal Hospice Group. He owns Compassionate Veterinary Hospice, a veterinary practice dedicated to end-of-life care, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Jessica Pierce, BA, MDiv, PhD, is a bioethicist and Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, in Aurora, Colorado, USA.

Tamara Shearer, DVM, CCRP, CVPP, CVA, MSTCVM, owns Shearer Pet Health Services and Smoky Mountain Integrative Veterinary Clinic in Sylva, North Carolina, USA, and serves on the faculty of Chi University.