Quality of Life

Healing Hands is honored to offer quality of life assessments, veterinary hospice, in-home euthanasia, end-of-life care and cremation services when that difficult time comes for your pet- all from the comfort of your own home.

When pet parents reach out to discuss their pet’s quality of life and wish to have an in-home consultation, you’re no longer alone in having to make the right decision for your pet. Asking for help in this endeavor is a symbol of how much you care. This first step is sometimes the hardest part! Together, we can prepare for what’s to come and decide when the time is right. Sometimes we find the reason an older pet is slowing down due to a treatable illness. For example, severe arthritis pain that can be alleviated with the appropriate medication. In other cases, there are numerous factors that begin to affect your pet’s quality of life. For example, a thorough physical examination and consideration of comprehensive blood work to rule out organ dysfunction and systemic disease is helpful to determine what the root cause for illness and slowing down may be.

Please visit the ”Resources” page to help give your pet a score in several different categories of daily activities (I.e. mobility, nutrition, hydration, interaction/attitude, eliminations, etc) to help determine their quality of life. The daily diary can be filled out each week; the calendar helps us look at the month as a whole and realize if we are having more bad days than good days. This takes away the guesswork, and also the guilt that is so common to feel. This is not you giving up- saying goodbye out of love to prevent your family member from suffering is the most kind farewell gift you could give your pet.

Sometimes pet parents just know when they’ve reached the time to say goodbye, and Healing Hands is here to honor and support your choice, with our priority being to help make this difficult day just a little bit easier for you, your pet, and your family.

Cremation services are also available if you do not have the ability or wishes to have a home burial. A private cremation ensures your pet’s ashes (and only your pet’s ashes) are carefully delivered directly to your home within a few weeks. With a communal cremation, your pet is gently placed into the crematory with other pets and no ashes are returned. All cremations are performed at Furever Friends, a family owned and operated crematory service we work closely with located in Thomasville, GA. You may visit them here: https://www.fureverfriendspc.com

If you think your pet may be in need of a quality of life assessment, please give us a call at 850-739-0202, or e-mail us at healinghandsveterinary@gmail.com.