Creating a Pet Quality of Life Scale for Your Practice

A recent American Pet Products Association survey revealed two-thirds of American households own pets. Dogs and cats live in over 110 million households collectively.

Your veterinary practice can help pet owners provide pets with the best lives possible. However, owners will eventually need to generate end-of-life plans. This process should include evaluating a pet’s life quality and deciding when to consider euthanasia.

Creating a pet quality of life scale for your veterinary practice can help an owner make the right decision, even if it’s still a difficult decision. It’ll enable them to come up with an objective assessment.

Discover how to test the quality of a furry friend’s life so you can deliver better end-of-life care for dogs and other pets.

What Is a Pet Quality of Life Scale?

A pet quality of life scale is designed to help a veterinarian and an owner assess a pet when making challenging decisions. It’s often used to provide assessments for senior dogs, but it can also benefit pets with chronic medical conditions or a terminal illness in another life stage.

Deciding to euthanize is one of the most difficult decisions ever. Assist those who trust your veterinary clinic to treat pets by creating a scale that analyzes pets’ lives and compares their good and bad days.

When pets have more good days than bad ones, owners can consider treating them with pain medications or a sedative prior to procedures. When they have more bad days than good ones, though, establishing a hospice plan may be a better option.

Either way, guide owners by evaluating criteria like:

• Physical condition
• Mobility
• Eating and drinking habits
• Hygiene
• Social interactions

Create a test to determine a pet’s happiness and help its owner during a very difficult time. Even if an owner doesn’t get the answer they want, this assessment can provide peace of mind during a sad situation.

Key Factors in Pet’s Quality of Life Assessments

While assessing a pet to evaluate its life quality, consider everything that can affect its outcome. Here are several important ones.

Physical Health

If a pet is suffering in physical pain, it may indicate their owner needs to think about euthanasia.

At the same time, suffering isn’t a surefire sign an owner needs to euthanize. A recent study found up to 80% of pets may deal with painful conditions, so pain alone isn’t enough to warrant euthanasia.

Instead, an owner should evaluate how pain affects their pet’s:

• Mobility
• Sleep
• Overall comfort

You can avoid this situation by encouraging owners to schedule regular veterinary check-ups. But even then, conditions like cancer, kidney disease, and arthritis can have a profound effect.

Emotional Well-Being

When a pet’s end-of-life quality suffers, it can affect them emotionally. Owners might spot signs of stress, anxiety, and depression, including:

• Lethargy
• Difficulty sleeping
• Loss of interest in normal activities

These things should play a part in the questionnaire you provide to an owner to see where the life of a pet stands.

Social Interactions With Family Members

Pets can’t talk, but they find ways to interact with family. A pet’s social interactions should factor into a test for a dog’s quality of life.

Owners might be concerned if they notice pets:

• Withdrawing from social situations
• Demonstrating aggressive behavior
• Vocalizing less

A lack of socialization with family members can negatively impact the quality of a pet’s livelihood.

How To Go About Creating Pet Quality of Life Scale Metrics

Different veterinarians have established different life scales to quantify the quality of a pet’s existence. The HHHHHMM Scale is one example.

You can use a scale like this, but you can also create a custom scale to test dog quality of life or another pet’s current quality of life. Simply take these steps.

Choosing Criteria

The HHHHHMM Scale earned its name by using these criteria:

• Hurt
• Hunger
• Hydration
• Hygiene
• Happiness
• Mobility
• “More good days than bad ones”

You can utilize this same type of criteria or generate your own. Just make sure it covers topics like appetite, mobility, pain, and hygiene. Understand that a dog’s quality of life could suffer if it requires assistance in the form of hand feeding or a feeding tube, stopping it from enjoying life.

Scoring System

You’ll need a complete scoring system for a good quality of life assessment for pets. Most operate on a 1-10 scoring system.

Figure out the appropriate scoring system and assign scores to criteria. After a dog owner has answered the questions in a life questionnaire, they should receive a final score and an explanation.

Documentation and Tracking

Contemplate how to record owners’ answers during dog and cat assessments and document patient history. The best option is spreadsheets. It’ll let you refer back to assessments if a pet’s condition worsens and their owner has to make difficult life decisions about palliative care that can weigh heavily on them.

Using the Scale

After investing time into creating a test to assess the quality of a pet’s existence, consider offering it to patients even when pets aren’t sick or aging. Monitor the quality of a pet’s livelihood over time to pinpoint changes.

Finally, decide how you’ll interpret test results and compassionately communicate findings to owners.

Weave’s Solutions for Veterinary Practices

Creating a pet quality of life scale can help you provide better care as a veterinarian. You can also do it by utilizing Weave’s suite of products. Start offering online scheduling, digital forms, reminders, and more.

Get a demo to see how Weave can transform your veterinary practice.