End of life care for pets

[Keely Parr]

My question is how do you know when it is time for your pet to make his transition versus feeding him with a syringe so he has energy enough to heal? Karma has been sick for a week, he threw up blood clots for two consecutive days. Went to conventional vet for tests and to make sure nothing was perforated, it was not. Blood tests uneventful, a little anemia and slight elevation in kidney values, better than in the past. For the first few days I was just feeding him homemade chicken broth with Reno-Go (thanks Dr. Jeff) + aloe vera & slippery elm to coat his digestive tract. He has improved slightly but will only eat in the morning and will only eat a little raw organic chicken if I heat the skin and it smells like chicken grease. He does not want to eat in the evenings. Last night I tantalized him with Beechnut chicken baby food and he ate a little bit. Today he had sub-q fluids and did not want to eat at all tonight. I made organic chicken, organic sweet potato baby food and the homemade broth into a puree and syringed it to him with his vitamins. Karma is under Dr. Jeff's care and gets little energetic spurts when I give him nux vomica 6c. How do I know when to stop "force" feeding him and let him stop eating to make his transition or is this necessary to give his body the energy to heal? (He is 17 and I want to honor his wishes)

Thank you,
Keely

 

[Dr. Jeff]

Thanks so much about Karma, Keely.

IMHO, BEAM ? is almost always the answer to the quality of life question.

However, since appetite and energy are very sensitive indicators of imbalance, they need to be interpreted in the full context of BEAM. Your best bet is to continue supporting his picky appetite as long as the rest of his BEAM is good.

If he is engaged in the environment, wants to patrol his territory, is possibly even occasionally purring and clearly happy, etc. he is not ready to go.

"Coincidentally", I just got off a great webinar about comfort care and mild palliation of aged and sick pets.

Dr. Cooney strongly advises the Assisi Loop for use anywhere on his body that needs gentle support.

Home - Assisi Animal Health

assisianimalhealth.com

What is Animal Hospice? - IAAHPC

Hospice incorporates all of palliative care; and is defined as a philosophy, a specialized program of care, and in some instances, a place for the dying.

iaahpc.org

I couldn't agree more.

Go energy!!

 

[novasimpson]

Thank you Keely and Dr Jeff for this insightful and helpful post. I had similar concern....wanting to support body and spirit, working with her. I feel much more comfortable syringe feeding after reading this thread.

Is there a way to guesstimate how many calories we should be aiming for in a day? I know some foods have less calories but more nutrition (raw and home cooked vs canned) and calories vs fat and protein content. but we aren't really sure what we should be aiming for.

Thank you!!

 

[Dr. Jeff]

Wonderful question Nova, and thanks for asking!

About 1.5x Toshi's resting energy requirement. More precisely:

Resting Energy Requirements (or RER), which can be calculated by multiplying the animal’s body weight in kilograms raised to the 3⁄4 power by 70, for example, a 10kg (22lb) adult neutered dog of healthy weight needs RER = 70(10kg)3/4 ≈ 400 Calories/day.

This quote is from the vet school at Ohio State:

https://vet.osu.edu/vmc/companion/our-services/nutrition-support-service/basic-calorie-calculator

For healthy weight gain shoot for the middle to upper part of the scale based on ideal body weight. About 250-300 kcal/d.

However, her weight gain will be partially determined by how much she is willing to eat. This is based on her energetic balance and homeopathic treatment.

Is there any change since the Arsenicum album Q1 homeopathic medicine dose?

 

[novasimpson]

Thank you Dr Jeff! I saw that calculator but it seemed high since we were feeding her less calories (I think) when she was eating normally a home cooked meal. At baseline she is a pretty lazy pooper! But she prob toably needs more now for extra healing energy?

Since the Arsenicum dose yesterday:

Her appetite was lower then normal yesterday and we did syringe feed her a little at night. She also had several small mucus pudding poops (stress of yesterday)? Last one was last night at 1230am.

She wasn't interested in food this morning but I syringe fed her a little and she licked some off my hand after that.

She did start her walk on FOOT/PAW and walked 2 blocks this morning (with a bit of a rest at midpoint -laid down, head up watching and smelling the scents in the air)

Her gums look the same and HR yest was 130-140 and this AM 140/min. RR 16-20/min

Thank you!

 

[Dr. Jeff]

You're welcome, Nova.

You're right about the extra calories needed for weight and healing.