pet connection

I subscribe to the MarketWatch daily e-mail newsletter and today’s edition had two pieces about pet health care and end-of-life issues, both by Kristen Gerencher. In “More demand for pets’ end-of-life care,” she talks about the growing demand for pet hospice care. (Note: you may have to subscribe to access the story, but it’s free.)

A growing movement toward hospice or “pawspice” care for pets is catching on as owners demand more emotional support and options for end-of-life care such as pain management, alternative medicine or palliative radiation treatments for terminal cancer, said Dr. Alice Villalobos, a veterinary oncologist and director of Pawspice in Hermosa Beach, California. “Professionals know there is a cry out there for more home care and more instruction on pets that are treated more like family members than anything,” she said. “It’s a natural next step.”

Pet hospice care might include pain management and hydration, as well as counseling on quality of life and making the decision to let go. At a symposium last month on veterinary hospice care at the University of California-Davis, veterinarians, vet techs, grief counselors, hospice volunteers and human medical experts met to find ways of helping clients who are facing tough decisions for aging pets, whether that’s putting them through surgery or chemotherapy or letting a disease take its course.

In her Health Matters blog, Gerencher shared her own story about Daisy, her family’s 14-year-old Lhasa-poodle mix, discussed coming to terms with loss and promoted the adoption of geriatric pets. She writes:

Geriatric pets in shelters can find people willing to adopt them, even if it means the new owners have to pay a modest monthly sum for maintenance drugs to keep the older pets healthy, San Francisco SPCA president Jan McHugh Smith tells me. Our video crew met a few of those animals, who were just as loving (and didn’t need to be housebroken).

For pets who don’t yet need hospice care but have health care requirements that might be a bit much for some pet owners, Dr. W. Jean Dodds is hoping to create an alternative. I interviewed Dr. Dodds a few months ago for a profile in Dog World magazine, and her latest project is the development of the Restore Health Center, where animals with special medical needs can stay until they regain their health. It will provide short-term alternative, transitional or emergency care for dogs and cats, including acupuncture, physiotherapy, chiropractic, herbal medicine and pick up by animal ambulance.

Dr. Dodds describes its patients as animals who leave a veterinary hospital but still need four to six weeks of care before they can function in their home environment. They might be animals that have undergone complicated orthopedic procedures, that have diabetes that must be regulated or that have renal failure.

“We’re going to have pet nurses that follow up with home health care, and cost will be based on financial aid means testing, so people can afford to bring their animals to the facility,” Dodds says.

On a lighter note, the New York Times’ Peter Gerstenzang reports on the weekend lifestyle of dog show exhibitors (Hi Gina and Flatcoats!). He describes last month’s Saw Mill River Kennel Club show in White Plains, New York:

Dogs were being fluffed and pouffed, brushed and coached, often by people whose own hair had been dyed and teased into styles eerily similar to those of their furry familiars.

That made me laugh because it reminded me of the story that a Beagle friend once told me. She was at a show, it was raining, and her very curly hair was drenched and unmanageable. Luckily for her, two Poodle handlers took her in hand, and in no time she was once again presentable.

In his homage to the movie “Best in Show,” Gerstenzang goes on to compare exhibitors to Deadheads, referring to them as pooch-toting Dogheads. It’s all in good fun, although I could have done without knowing that somewhere a Rottweiler is wearing a fur-lined coat. He interviews Anthony F. Bernard, handler of Papillon Ch. Arkeno Rodeo Fast Talking (Slick to his friends). Not surprisingly, Bernard has great stories about life on the road with his dogs. In one, he and Slick are in Palm Beach for a show.

“I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner and had made a reservation, by way of the concierge, at a very nice restaurant. Well, at the last minute, my friend canceled on me, so I called the concierge to tell him about it. The concierge said, ‘Your friend? I assumed you were having dinner with your dog. That’s who I made the reservations for at the restaurant. You and your dog.’ So I ended up taking Slick to this wonderful place, where he sat with me at the table and ate grilled chicken.”

Breaking puppy news: Harper might get to be in a photo shoot for the cover of a dog magazine! And we practiced “walking nice” on the way to Starbucks today (our favorite, Peets, is a little far for a pup). It’s a five-minute walk, tops. It took us 15 or 20, since we practiced not pulling on the leash and had to stop and back up every time she did. Those construction workers were just way too much of a distraction.