It was about 18 months ago that Helen Ord realised one of the elderly members of her family was “living on borrowed time”.
“Ruby had a bad heart and was suffering seizures. As time progressed they were getting more frequent, lasting longer, and these seizures were terrifying to her. My biggest fear was that she would die home alone in that frightened state.”
After the 14-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel suffered a particularly bad turn recently, Ord resolved to have her euthanased so she called out Vet Angel Michelle Williams.
Ruby drifted gently into that long good night in the back of the ute in which she and Ord’s three other spaniels had travelled so many happy miles together.
“It was a place where she was perfectly familiar and relaxed and we did what we had to do,” Ord says.
“To do it this way was so much better for her. People hang on to pets for their own reasons, but you have to understand there is a right time for them and it was time for Ruby. She died peacefully, gently. Put in the same position, I wouldn’t mind seeing a vet myself.”
As Australia’s population ages so do our pets, and increasingly they are sharing the same diseases: obesity, cancer, heart disease and thyroid disorders. But although people are spending increasing amounts of money on their pets’ health and well-being, their lives, like ours, have limits.
With about a third of the nation’s estimated 7.5 million pet dogs and cats older than seven, there are a lot of senior animals facing fatal problems such as Ruby’s congestive heart disease.
Knowing when and how to say goodbye to a pet has become more complicated as animals have wagged their way ever higher in the household hierarchy. A recent survey found 90 per cent of pet owners consider their dog or cat as part of the family and treat them to luxury food, gifts and pampering.
The Pet Ownership in Australia 2013 report found people spend $8 billion a year on pets, pet care products and services.
Vet Angel is a Macedon Ranges-based service that has grown from people’s desire to treat their pets as humanely as possible. After working in private practice for more than 10 years, Dr Williams could see a need for an in-home palliative care and euthanasia service.
“One of the reasons I chose to do this was because, quite often, working in a clinic setting, you will see animals that should have been brought in weeks earlier to save them from distress,” she says.
“People will say, I know I should have done this earlier but I just didn’t want to bring the animal into the vets to do it. They couldn’t bring themselves to physically take their pet somewhere with the purpose of having it put to sleep. This way I thought people might choose to do it sooner because they do leave it too long sometimes.
“You can’t make people put their animals to sleep when they are suffering; all you can do is advise. I say if it was you, put yourself in their paws. Would you like to be your dog or cat right now, vomiting, weak, lethargic, in pain?”
Euthanasing an animal at home is also gentler on the owner, particularly as Dr Williams sedates the animal first, which rarely happens in clinical settings. “I use a combination of an opiate, tranquilliser and muscle relaxant and they just go into this nice smooth sleep which – if they have been on edge – is often the best sleep they’ve had for a while. I don’t have to be in people’s faces. They can be cuddling their pet and it is just snoring away and I give it the last injection. It doesn’t feel a thing.”
The Vet Angel service extends to arranging for burial or taking the pet away for cremation, with the ashes returned to the owner’s door so “they don’t have to do anything except wait for their pet to come”.
These days it is not uncommon to find Grandpaw in the urn on the mantel, says Lance Stringer, a second-generation pet crematorium operator. Stringer and wife Madeleine opened Edenhills Pet Crematorium at Bacchus Marsh in January and are now cremating, individually, 30 pets a week at a cost of $300 to $500 each. The fee depends on the extent of service, which can include everything from a standard niche box to engraved urns, photo boxes and door-to-door delivery.
“If you had a dog or cat cremated in the ’80s, people would go, ‘Oh, really – it’s just a dog or a cat’, whereas now attitudes have really changed,” Stringer says. “The whole social dynamic has changed so the pet really is considered part of the family.”
Edenhills offers cremation for any pet from a budgie to a horse; horses represent a major logistical exercise costing some $1800. With farewell rooms and state-of-the-art software, this is an operation that offers pets owners real peace of mind.
» Vet Angel: 0408 506 836
» Edenhills: 5367 0556 or edenhills.com.au
