Great. So, hi everyone, thank you very much for joining this webinar on a really important topic, but one I think that we don't talk about nearly enough. My name's Caroline and I'm the chief of the RSPCA.
Before I joined the RSPCA, I spent more or less 20 years in private practise, so it's certainly something I've got a lot, hopefully got, you know, a lot of, a lot of experience of, and looking forward to sharing some of that with you today. So just to give you a little overview of what we're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk about euthanasia through a contextualised approach. That's obviously something that we we're talking a lot about a lot at the moment, we're talking a lot about contextualised care.
I think it's such a useful and important approach for us vets who are practising in the real world. And I have written a few articles on that, on the topic, so I'd encourage you to have a read of those. We're going to delve into some of the really important contexts, understanding the owner, your own context, and of course, you know, the thing that is closest to my heart, which is animal welfare.
And we're gonna touch then on some help that is available to you, be that through tools, the law, that actually can really help us and support that is available. So hopefully you'll find this an interesting presentation. So, first thing, we're talking about euthanasia, better a day too early than a day too late.
I think it's important to define what we're talking about in these situations. And for the terms of this presentation, I'm taking one of the dictionary definitions. There are a few, but the one that I'm Going to go to is this one around the practise of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
So we're not talking about, you know, culling or slaughter or anything like that. We are talking about those deliberate decisions that we make with owners. And I just find it so fascinating that when we think about all the different things that go on in in the world of veterinary medicine, you know, all the presentations that you see, you know, we, we're often talking about liver disease, cardiac disease, hyperthyroidism, you know, common conditions.
But the fact of the matter is, like, we all die, all the pets that we care for will die. It's just about the way that they die. So this is something that is relevant to every pet.
And I really would like to see us talk more about it, because if you think about the differential diagnoses for death, if you like, you know, there's not that many. You've got euthanasia, and then you've got obviously a, a natural death, which, you know, as we know, often is really not what we want, and there can be an awful lot of suffering associated with a natural death. Or we can be talking about sort of a, a traumatic death, or, you know, a death while while under treatment, which obviously, you know, is, is not something that we want either.
So, you know, I think thinking about how death can occur and how we can make that as good as possible is really important. It's something I want to talk about in this presentation. And I really want to encourage in the way that we have structures to our approach for, you know, cardiac disease, upper thyroidism, we should have structures in how we talk about and how we approach euthanasia.
And I think that can really be helpful for everyone involved in that equation. So when we think about euthanasia decisions, when we think about the context, we want to be thinking about who are the interested parties. And you know, I'm here from the RSPCA.
I'm also a vet, you know, who's made my oath to the animals under my care. So for me, the animal is always there, front and centre. You know, they are the key interested party in in their welfare.
You know, and their lives and the value of their lives, they have to be, you know, front and centre of this. And there may be other factors around those animals, whether they can be easily brought into the vet practise, whether they get completely stressed out by being put in the basket. These are all factors that are going to influence our decisions.
But of course, we can't ignore the owners. They really have to be front and centre here, ourselves and our wider practise, and also the interests of wider society. So if we're thinking about, you know, something that I know, you know, bothers a lot of vets is around being asked to perform euthanasia in the face of behavioural problems, or particularly potentially bite histories or aggressive animals.
It is really important that when we're thinking about those contexts, we think about, you know, that whether there are risk factors for the wider society, because we can't ignore those. So there's a lot of different interests, then they may not be compatible. So there is a real question here around how we manage these tensions.
And I think there's quite a lot of evidence now that this can be quite stressful for vets and other members of the team, obviously veterinary nurses as well, and animal care staff. And if this isn't sort of dealt with well, if we don't have the right structures, if we don't have the right support. You know, it can end up causing moral injury, which is something that we want to avoid.
So, as I've already mentioned, I think this is just another example of contextualised care and when contextualised care frameworks are really, really helpful. And I would refer people to the increasing sort of resources that are out there around contextualised care, the RCVS knowledge resources that include questionnaires for owners are really super helpful. And there are some references at the end of these slides, and that's included there.
So, you know, you'll know, I think, be aware and I'd I'd encourage you as we go through this presentation, as we go through this presentation, to think about cases that you have personally dealt with. I'm not gonna talk a lot, a lot about cases myself because I think we all know these cases that perhaps we made the decision a day too early or a day too late and just bring some of those to mind while we're talking through this and, you know, see if, you know, challenge yourself to think. Are there ways that I could have done this better?
Are there things that could have helped me do it better? I mean, there's no right answer in any of this, let's be honest, but it's about how we can how we can grow and how we can learn and how we can do better. So, you know, we know that there are a multitude of owner factors that come into play, when we're talking about any treatment, but especially euthanasia.
The owners may have had previous experiences, they'll have their own values and beliefs that would have been influenced by all sorts of things, their upbringing, what they've said on TV the night before, through to, you know, religious, religious, Religious beliefs that are going to influence what they do. We know, of course, that finances, of course, they play a role in this. You know, people cannot necessarily afford to progress down the line of, you know, procedures, tests, and, you know, that's not their fault.
It is just something that we need to be able to deal with in the real world. The relationship to the animal is really important and I think that we start starting to understand more about Animal-human relationships and how complicated they can be. We're certainly moving beyond this idea that, oh yes, get an animal, you know, it would be wonderful.
There was a lot more complexity in there, and certainly with older unwell animals, and actually younger animals as well, caregiver burden can be really significant and can have really significant impacts on animal owners, and it's something I think we should be more aware of. The owner factors may include, you know, the ability of support to give the cat a tablet. To get the cat in the basket, to actually, you know, deal with the loss of an animal, to be able to manage their dog in a crate.
There are so many factors and, you know, unless we delve into these, unless we ask, you're not gonna know anything about them. But the point about contextualised care that's really important is that this is not about you in the consult room trying to understand all of these things, cause it's just impossible. It is just impossible in 15 minutes, 20 minutes, however long you have.
It's really about. The team about the relationship that you have with the owner, about the role that the veterinary nurse and the reception team can play, they're so, so critical, but also using resources like the RCVS knowledge questionnaire, so that you're already prompting the owner to think about these things and to come in, you know, maybe having jotted some notes and coming in, a bit clearer with their own position. And I'd really encourage you to have a look at those.
I want at this point to be a little cheeky and kind of, you know, bring in the own the shelter charity as an owner. This may not be something that you see all the time, but it's certainly something that, you know, I think it needs to be a little bit more, awareness of a little bit more understanding around charity contexts. It is.
Even more important in the charity setting, I would say that appropriate early euthanasia decisions are made, when particularly when there are welfare issues, because prolonged periods in rescue care is not a good thing, you know. Good rescues should be all about supporting animals to move through the rescue and move out. For the companion species that we're talking about, particularly for dogs, but for cats as well and other small species, you know, .
It is not great for animals to be in care for prolonged periods, you know, even given the very best care, there is likely to be some welfare compromise. And there are, of course, you know, we can't ignore that there are resource issues here as well. And if animals are staying for prolonged periods in a shelter setting, that limits the number of animals that can be helped.
Space is finer in the rescue setting, and right now, rescues are absolutely crammed full. So it's really important that any vets who are working with charities are really understanding. What the charity wants from them, what the charity's looking for in terms of rehomeability.
You know, you're not fixing an animal just because you can, you're fixing an animal to get that animal to a point of being rehomable and not to a unicorn home, but to a home that is, you know, out there and, you know, likely to provide good welfare for that animal. Length of stay is the most critical metric for the successful running of a of a of a charity organisation. So it's really something to be thinking about and talking about if you are involved in charity work.
And you know, just like in with our owners, we can have issues of moral injury in the charity sector, so, and caregiver burden. So it's really important to be having open and honest conversations with charities you're working with. Of course, there is always a concern about reputational risk, you know, the charity puts everything to sleep.
But, you know, our experience is when there is, you know, a clear medical or behavioural reason, and that decision is made within the appropriate frameworks and in a timely way, you know, that is generally understood. There will always be a small number of people who will just not accept that. But you know, they are, they are a minority, and often we find if we get criticism on social media, other people will come in in those circumstances and actually, you know, defend us, .
Because of the, you know, the animal welfare impact. No. And I think we've got to be really honest and say when it comes to, you know, euthanasia decision making, we all carry our own values and experiences, and it really encourage you to to delve a little bit into that, around what your influences are, what your ethics are, and maybe how they might be the same or how they might differ from your colleagues.
And to have a think about, you know, have there been conflicts in your team? And if so, how have you managed those? Do you have, kind of, you know, do you have rounds?
Do you have M&M meetings? Do you have situations where you can discuss, you know, maybe where there has been a conflict? I think it's really important that, you know, within a good practise culture, there is really space to discuss these things.
And you know, when we talk about, practise factors sort of in the contextual care space, it's really important to recognise that not all practises can do the same things. You know, you may not have a piece of equipment or an appropriately skilled member of staff to allow you to do a particular orthopaedic surgery, maybe without referring. So there's an option there that isn't available to an owner.
That is fine. You know, we are really talking about, you know, veterinary medicine in the real world. The world is not perfect.
We have to be open and honest about what we can offer, but we shouldn't beat ourselves up if we can't offer everything that's just not realistic. But now finally on to the animal factors and you know, I'm gonna go into this in a little bit of detail because I think certainly thinking back on my time in practise and again thinking about some of those cases. I think that I didn't have a broad enough view on animal welfare or, or what we can call quality of life.
When I was making decisions about some of the, some of the, animals that I was treating, some of the treatments that I was, you know, suggesting and prescribing, I think I was over-focused on health. And you know, that I think is now something that I've really learned about through working more with behaviourists, with welfare scientists that we really need to take a broader view of animal welfare. And think about good welfare or quality of life, being about an animal.
Yes, of course, who is physically fit and comfortable, not in any pain, but they also do need to be psychologically fulfilled and, you know, feel happy. And we, we shouldn't, you know, be overly scientific and not allow ourselves to think about what the animal is feeling. So, I mean, I'm sure many of you are aware of this, but I know I I still hear vet's talking about the five freedoms and the five welfare needs.
We've very much seen an evolution of how we talk about animal welfare and the five freedoms and 5 welfare needs, you know, were, were, you know, really important, really powerful ways of thinking about animal welfare. But over time, we've sort of started to see that the the five freedoms was very much about just not doing bad things, avoiding bad things, minimising suffering. But what we really understand now is that it is important that we don't just minimise suffering, that we actually give animals opportunities and choice and agency.
And ensure that they are able to experience positive welfare, that they're able to, you know, have good experiences and that they are able to, you know, have positive feelings in their lives. I think that's something really important. Oh, this slide's just doing something funny.
Bear with me. There we go. So, this is really great work, carried out in, in New Zealand, and there's a great, there's a great body of work now, which if you're interested, and urge you to look into, which is called the five domains.
And it is kind of how welfare is discussed now, sort of contemporary welfare science. And it's all about. About us thinking about health, yes, of course, but also behaviour, environment and nutrition and asking questions about each of those in a way that allows us to ultimately come up with an idea of the animal's mental state, which is the 5th state.
And it is about how the animal is feeling. So There are various ways of of looking at this in the RSPCA's development tools. There are other tools out there as well.
But essentially, we want to be thinking in each domain, are the conditions likely to be good or bad? And then we need to take our understanding of species specific needs, which may be behavioural, or maybe biological, which obviously as vets, we're going to know more about. And it also allows us to practise something called critical anthropomorphism.
Now, you know, you like me have probably been you know anthropomorphism is bad, you know, we mustn't sort of apply human human feelings to animals, but That's possibly went a little bit too far because we ended up really almost treating animals a bit like they were machines. And in fact, it is really important that we recognise that animals have feelings, good feelings, bad feelings. They can be happy, they can be sad, they can be bored, .
And it's really important that we do that, but the term critical means we do that. Understanding their species specific needs. So we don't assume that, you know, like us, a cat has got loads of friends, therefore, they'll be happy.
We understand that some cats are not so, and therefore, you know, they maybe don't want to hang out, you know, with loads of friends. So that's where the critical anthropomorphism angle comes from. So I've just done a few examples here around how we How we ask these questions, and again, This is not about you being able to do all of this in your 20 minute consultation.
It's about thinking, you know, what may be the key elements that I need to be concerned about here from a behavioural perspective, from an environment perspective. It's about ascertaining, you know, from, from reception, maybe from, you know, pre-questionnaires or, or just through the chatting and relationship you might have with your clients to understand, you know, what is the broader welfare of the animal looking like. And you know, there's lots, there's lots of questions that we can ask about the environment.
I think we do ask quite a lot about the environment, but I certainly can think back to my time in practise and maybe, you know, I had some cats. I know, no, you know, you know, lovely, well meaning, but probably was bordering on being a hoarder. And, you know, wanted absolutely everything done for her cats.
But actually, you know, they were probably not really living a, you know, a happy life at home. You know, it's something we see commonly at the RSPCA, but, you know, trying to understand a little bit more about what the home environment is. Obviously, particularly where, you know, there are conditions maybe like feline neurinary tract disease, where we've got a little bit of a hint to things not being that good.
And actually asking these questions and not just focusing on the on the physical, you know, treatment, but thinking about is there advice that we can give, you know, really, even, you know, should we be allowing this pet maybe on 4 different tablets and, you know, all of these different things to be going back in that environment. Is that actually the advice that we should be giving? Is it the best advice?
So that's environment. Behaviour, I know this is a tricky one for, for us, you know, we're not trained in behaviour. We shouldn't try and be many behaviourists, and, you know, I've learned so much through working with behaviourists.
I'd really encourage, you know, if you have got a local behaviourist, if there's a behaviourist you work with, you know, it's such a rewarding relationship, I think, and rewarding to understand more. But, you know, we talked about the the cat in the hoarding situation, you know, that is often gonna be a very challenging situation for a cat. And again, you know, we, we can start to try through some questions to try and understand a little bit about, you know, the social behaviour of animals, you know, are they able to express normal social behaviour?
How do they feel about their social situation? And then another element of the behaviour is a human interaction. You know, if you've got, you know, an animal with a very rewarding interaction with that owner, where the owner, you know, is able to calmly interact, knows how to behave appropriately with that animal, then that's obviously a much more positive situation than, you know, an owner who, you know, maybe isn't treating their their pet appropriately.
And I also think we do need to think more about the impact that our treatment recommendations have on this relationship. I think in the past, you know, I probably made recommendations. I could think of a number of cases where, you know, I made recommendations around giving maybe tablets to cats, you know, asking owners to, to, you know, do certain things, ear drops.
I think, you know, there are better choices in some circumstances now for us than they were then. But really understanding what our advice, what impact our advice is having on these, on these situations. And finally the environment, and I think this is really something to think about when we are thinking about, you know, restrictions after surgery, cage rest, for example, I do.
You know, I think back again to some of the advice that I was giving about cage rest without giving any, you know, advice on behavioural modification medications, for example, to maybe help that situation and perhaps being judgy of owners, who weren't able to core their dog. And, you know, If we're recommending treatment paths that are going to severely restrict the animal's environment, particularly for a long period of time, I think we need to think really, really carefully about that and understand what the impact on welfare would be and whether it is acceptable to go down that line, and if we go down that line, how do we mitigate that to keep the welfare as positive as we can. So it is a lot to consider, but there are, you know, it's about a way of kind of structuring thinking, questions and gathering the information you can to make sure that we're not taking a few purely health-based approach to our welfare decision making.
Now this is quite a detailed slide, but I'll leave it in there because it's quite a helpful way of just seeing how you can sort of ask the questions and understand the positives and negatives to allow to think about what the animal's overall mental state might be and whether that is actually providing the animal with a life worth living. And particularly when we're talking about, thinking about euthanasia. As opposed to maybe proceeding with treatment or surgery, it's really important that we're thinking about, we need to be ensuring that our treatment has the best chance of getting an animal to having a life worth living.
We do not want to be putting an animal through, you know, procedures and tests if the ongoing state is going to be a life worth avoiding, which is an overall balance of, of negative experiences and feelings. So really trying to focus on how we push the animal from negative experiences and feelings across the domains to positive. And that could even be like something you, you're suggesting a prescription diet.
But you're mixing it up with a little bit of enrichment, you're making sure there's a bit of wet food in a cog, as well as just a bowl of, you know, dry food that they may be not that interested in. So there are ways of, you know, pushing things towards the positive, which is really important. And this I, I like this.
This is the welfare worm. It just is an explanation really about how we're not unrealistic in this model of expecting everything to be hunky dory all the time. We all have negative periods of welfare in our lives.
You know, maybe we are feeling a bit stressed before we, you know, go into a surgery, but then the surgery is a success and we feel great, or even we might feel hungry at the end of that surgery, but then we eat and we feel happy. So, there is always going to be negative welfare experiences in our lives and in animals' lives, but it is about having agency. Choice to correct them, and it is also about the balance of positives and negatives and thinking about how can we make this a more positive situation for longer.
So, we've talked about the different contexts, focusing on the, the owner, the practise, and the animal. And now we can sort of have a think about, you know, how do we, you know, how do we actually make those decisions? What, what are the factors that we consider?
And what about if we get it wrong? So, you know, we talk about a day too early. I would describe that as the risk that we're putting an animal to sleep, euthanizing an animal when they could have lived with a good quality of life.
And it sounds a bit sort of counterintuitive and, you know, I don't have time to delve into the ethics here because it is a bit of a debate. But actually, you know, when you're dead, you don't have welfare. So, people argue that euthanasia is not a welfare issue.
And in fact, if an animal has got negative welfare, euthanasia is the one thing that you can do that you can guarantee will improve their welfare, because they go from negative to to neutral to none. But obviously, you know, we don't want to be gung ho about this because there is an ethical issue if we deny an animal of that opportunity for a life worth living. So it's really important when we're thinking about our treatment planning that we really have that aim to get to a life worth living.
Balance of positive experiences. And as well as, you know, the issue for the animal, we've got the potential of moral injury on ourselves and on our teams. If we're asking them to do things that go against their ethical beliefs about animals, you know, value and animals deserving a life worth living.
There can also be, you know, obviously the impact on the owner of losing their pet and the reputational impact potentially for the practise, or certainly for a, for a charitable organisation, you know, if you're putting to sleep without a good justification for that. But I think sometimes we do tend to worry a little bit too much about this side of the equation, or maybe not in balance, not too much, but not in balance. You know, we think about a day too early because, you know, euthanasia, the, the act is is is emotional, it's heavy.
It's, it's not easy. It's not always talked about. So we tend to focus on, you know, all these risks.
You know, what if we get it wrong? What if we do it too early? I think it it sits heavily on everyone.
But the flip side of that is actually, you know, what if we get it wrong like a day too late? Obviously, we never know when the exact day would be, that would be too easy. But when we say a day too late, I'm thinking about here that we don't put the animal to sleep, euthanize the animal when they have a poor quality of life.
And, you know, that then creates real issues for the animal because they will suffer. There will be a welfare issue, the animal will suffer if either the treatment is not available or the treatment is not provided by the owner. And it's really important that we're very realistic about what owners can achieve.
Well, actually, where the treatment that we've prescribed just doesn't actually resolve the quality of life issue, and we're keeping an animal alive in a suffering state. I think, you know, I think we've all done it. I've done it.
But you know it It's not the right thing for the for the animal, and you know, we have this real privilege to be able to perform euthanasia. And I think it's really important that we think about this, you know, the, the risks if we don't do it, if we don't do it in a timely way. I've already talked about caregiver burden.
There's, you know, some really interesting papers about this, the, the real Emotional, psychological impact that having an unwell animal or, you know, a difficult animal can have on owners. I mean, I personally had a dog, she's actually here now. I have a dog who, you know, needed quite a lot of behavioural support when we first got her, for, for reactivity.
I was very fortunate. I could deal with that. I had great support from behaviourists, from trainers, you know, able to prescribe behavioural medication, and she's doing brilliantly.
But it was really hard for a while. We couldn't go on holiday to the places we would go to. You know, we couldn't go walking at the times that we used to.
We were continually on edge, looking out for a dog. And that was just for a short period of time, and I think it really did give me an insight into caregiver burden, you know, in a relatively small scale. But I think People say what would you do?
And I know that a lot of vets aren't uncomfortable with that question because, you know, our contexts are all really different. But I think. We should sort of put ourselves in, you know, we should put ourselves in shoes of owners and and try and understand a little bit more about their lives, because everyone's got a lot of stuff going on in their lives.
And sometimes, you know, that caregiver burden can just push things over the edge. I also think there is a reputational risk, you know, if you, if you don't put an animal to sleep, you know, and they, they continue to suffer and it is something that we do hear from, from our owners, I guess you do too, around a bit of regret about putting the continuing to put their animals through things. And you know, I think talking about getting in the habit of talking about euthanasia.
Early on, and it just being part of conversations is a good thing. So the owners almost know that they're allowed to talk about it, . I I think that's important and it's certainly something that we do hear from owners, as well.
We're gonna come on and talk about the Animal Welfare Act, so I'm not gonna go into that. But obviously, we've also talked about, you know, the, the dog bites, behavioural issues, and, you know, we do have to think about our responsibility to the wider public, . That is important.
So, you know, what can we do to improve end of life outcomes? What can we do as a as a practise as an individual to, well, I think the first thing to do is, is to talk about it more. You know, so.
To have maybe a, a, you know, if you still do lunch and learns or you have practise training sessions to put aside time to talk about euthanasia if you haven't, if you haven't done that already. To treat end of life as you would, you know, another interesting clinical condition, because it is actually the most common one that you're gonna see. And it surprises me we don't talk about it as much.
And, you know, talking about finding a way to talk about, you know, welfare in its broadest sense, to talk about ethics, and to make sure that people do understand the legal factors. I didn't properly understand the Animal Welfare Act until I joined the RSPCA, but it is such an important piece of legislation. So I'd really recommend everyone to, you know, go away and look at that and look at the RCVS code as well around the responsibilities for reporting and what to do when animal welfare is compromised because it's actually really helpful, it's actually really clear.
Client communication is obviously really critical in all of this. It's not really as much for today, but it is, you know, it is really, really crucial. And, you know, there are experts out there much, much more than me.
But I think if you've got your frameworks as a starting point, it does make it easier to, you know, talk to clients with more confidence. And, you know, having a kind of standard end of end of life sort of protocol or framework, which may include quality of life assessment tools. I know some practises are using those with a lot of success.
We'll come on to talk about those, you know, really clear euthanasia consent forms. When did you last review them? You know, you're happy with the, with the wording.
And, you know, having resources available for pet owners, and there are some really good resources out there. This is not, you know, I'm not saying this is a complete list, but, you know, the Blue Cross, I've had excellent feedback, having referred people to their, their pet loss support. Cats protection also provides services.
The Ralph has a really good website with blogs that delve into all sorts of kind of different contexts, different challenges, you know, from when they may have been a traumatic loss through to when there may have been a loss of a, a difficult pet. There's really fantastic resources out there, you know, drawn up by people who are real experts in this, because, you know, we With vets, we can't be expected to to be experts in this, but we should know where to signpost. And Compassion Understood also provides really insightful information to pet owners around kind of end of life.
So I definitely recommend having a look at all of those. So why use assessment tools. I think I just do like to have a bit of structure to this, you know, we have our, grading systems for iris, renal, for murmurs, for cardiac disease.
So why wouldn't we have some similar things to provide structure around end of life and euthanasia. There are a number out there. There's I'm just gonna sort of discuss a few.
There's a bit of a, a list here and the references are included on the slide deck. But there's one that I'm going to focus on, which is for vets and one that I'm going to focus on, which is for, clients. So, the vet tool, I really like, it was created by some individuals, Polly Taylor was one of the lead people in this, you may have heard of, the the anaesthetist, but it was created out of the European College of Veterinary anaesthesia and Analgesia.
And they basically have looked into the ethics of how, difficult cases are approached within a vet practise. And I kind of describe this as the just because you can, does it mean you should to. It really sort of delves into, are you providing this treatment for the right reason?
And if you haven't looked at it, I'd really recommend doing so. There are various components to it, and, you know, we've already really discussed these. The animal centred factors, so is what I'm gonna do in the patient's best interests, will actually improve their health.
And I would add, really importantly, just make sure you're considering the five domains. But it also brings in those clinician factors and the client owner factors, and it's quite I think clever around the clinician factors and quite aware of some of those factors that can influence us. You know, subconsciously, even if we know they shouldn't, you know, we've got, we've got a new piece of kit.
I've just been on some training and I'd really like to, you know, have a go at this procedure. We are influenced by those things, we're human, and I think it's really helpful. And it's basically just a table that you sort of fill in and it and it gives a kind of colour coded outcome.
And it really makes us think about our professional responsibility. So I really like the idea of the vet tool. It's a really interesting paper and at the end of it, there's there's a quite a simple table.
So I'd really recommend having a look at that. So that's more for vets, and then this from the Ohio State University, it's freely available online. It's more for the owners to use.
You know, you get, have those owners coming in, we've all had them, you know, how do I know when it's time? How do I know when it's time? You know, they don't want to wait a day too late.
And it, it has some guidance, it has, you know, there's a fact sheet behind it. And it's really, it looks quite long, . It's fairly straightforward, in terms of just asking the owner to sort of circle a score against, you know, a number of questions.
And the idea is that it's not to be used once, although they may be if everything's bad, it should just be used once. But it does allow owners to track. The progress or or rather than, you know, probably the deterioration in their pet so that they can actually sort of, you know, objectively see that their pay is deteriorating, that they're not gonna get any better, and that it is, you know, as we say, better to make that decision a day too early than a day too late.
So, this just gives an idea of of how it works. This is just, you know, two of the questions that you can see. My pet does not want to play, does not respond to my presence in the same way as before, and there's just a, a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
And I know practises, quite a few practises who are using this, who really, have found it very helpful. It's obviously, you know, not gonna be for, for every client, but, you know, we've had some really good feedback on it and it is freely available. And then, you know, if you are working with a shelter, you may, just, you know, we've been trying, we've been building a shelter tool for the RSPCA based on the animal voice.
It's very much focused on being a quality of life tool. That we use to try and capture all aspects of welfare with an aim that it helps us actually take action to improve welfare rather than just, you know, in a kennel, you know, giving us antibiotics, let's wait and see. It's actually about we really proactive thinking about can we improve their environment?
Can we improve their their behavioural opportunities? Can we improve their agency? And importantly for us in this, in the shelter environment, it ties in with rehomeability and that length of stay, because we don't believe that welfare generally, particularly for dogs and cats, can be maintained by living long term in a shelter environment.
So we always have to be focusing on rehomeability of the animal and reducing the length of stay. And if you do work for the RSPCA, then, you know, we certainly, you, you should start to hear more about this, if you work for the branches, then, you know, there'll there'll be some trade branches or animal centres, there'll be some some training coming up, and we will ultimately be looking to share this out across all aspects of our work. And finally, last but by no means least, it is really important to understand the law in this area, because the Animal Welfare Act is, is really clear that, you know, animal suffering unnecessarily, allowing an animal in your Ownership or or care an animal that you're responsible for, allowing them to suffer unnecessarily is a crime.
And you know, I know in the past, it's been suggested that vets, if, if owners decline treatments or, you know, euthanasia and allow animals to suffer, you can sign a disclaimer and just send them on their way. I mean, I would really, really question that very strongly because you are then complicit in a crime. And, you know, as professionals, I really don't think that's the place that we should be sitting, particularly with our oath for the animals in our care, to put their welfare first above all else.
So the law is clear, and Section 183 of the Animal Welfare Act, allows vets to euthanize animals without the owner's consent when they are suffering. It has to be done alongside the police, involving the police. But, you know, I just would say.
Look at the act and then look at the RCBS code. Because it is set out what you should do if there's a suffering animal or or, you know, a non accidental injury can be a neglect case that the owner isn't treating, you know, there there really isn't any excuse to. Ignore animal suffering.
And if people sort of, particularly, you know, maybe managers or more senior vets or sort of use GDPR and confidentiality as excuses. They're not excuses. The RCVS code is really clear on this.
You know, GDPR, If there is a crime potentially being committed, then, you know, you have You're allowed to, you know, share information. The same with confidentiality, you really can't be turning a blind eye to, to, you know, criminal activity. GDPR and confidentiality are not excuses for that.
But the RCBS code is very strong on this. And I'd, you know, it's something that we hear quite frequently is very frustrating because the the code is clear, on what you should do. And there's also a really good webinar from the RCBS as well around what around reporting.
So I'd really recommend you have a look at that. But yeah, so this is actually the the wording of of 183 of the Act, which is the part around euthanasia. It's obviously sort of legal speak.
But, you know, a vet can certify that, you know, if it is in the animal's own best interest to be destroyed, then that can be done. But It can be done with a local authority inspector or a constable, so it's the police involved. It's not an RSPCA inspector, but what you'll often find is that the police are not necessarily very au fait with this law.
So usually the way to move this forward, when you can call the police directly, hopefully they'll help you. But Often the RSPCA are are the ones who would help facilitate this, because of our role in animal crime related prosecutions. So, you can call the RSPCA vet line and, explain the situation, and we should usually be able to help.
But you don't have to have the RSPCA involved. It can just be helpful. And, you know, the RSPCA are recognised by the college as an appropriate place for, for you to report to.
. So definitely have a a bit of a read up on that because that would almost be like a whole webinar in itself. But I think, you know, I, I think we can probably all think about, you know, animals that we probably let go out the door, that we were really uncomfortable about and, you know, the feeling that that leaves you with. And although this is, this is difficult and tricky, it is there in case you need it.
But of course, it's always better to work with clients wherever you can. You know, calling the RSPCAA is not something that practises should need to do very often because, you know, we really do want to work with our clients. We want them to, to understand, to understand animal welfare, to to understand our obligations.
To understand our role, to understand that, you know, we, we can't turn a blind eye and to try and explain and to try and work with them. So it's almost like use the law in, in your back pocket or to give you a bit of a bit of strength, you know, knowledge is power. But, you know, it, it's really about.
It's really important you understand the law, so that you can then, you know, use that and apply that to to help your clients come to the, to the right decision. So this is all, you know, it's very easy to talk about. I'm really aware of that, you know, I think it's really important when you work in a senior role in a shelter as well.
It's, it's, it can be easy to talk about this. It's much harder to do it, you know, when you've got the animal there in front of you, when you've got a really emotional owner there in front of you. But I do think the more we talk about it and the more structures we put in place, the easier it will become.
But, you know, in the meantime, it's really important to, you know, remember that help and support is available. It is difficult. And, you know, that life, you may have a lot of, you may have support through your, through your practise.
There's a lot of kind of employee assistance schemes that often have good support, counselling, etc. But also just to remind everything of the kind of support that comes through, through that life, and, you know, highlight that, and it's certainly something, make sure you've got the posters, you can have big stickers on the back of the toilet door and everything. Because this is something they're there for the whole team, and the whole team can become impacted by this, by this, you know, challenging issue.
So I hope that that has been helpful. It's really just pushing, starting a bit more of a conversation around, around euthanasia. I hope that there'll be some helpful things that you can, you know, take back into your practise, maybe some tools that you can consider, trying some conversations that you can start.
So thank you everyone for listening.