Advocating sedation pre-euthanasia in small animal practice

The euthanasia consultation is an emotionally charged situation that small animal practitioners deal with on a daily basis. Strategies that help reduce anxiety for the animal, its owners and the veterinary team are desirable. All parties wish for the end of life to be painless, peaceful and timely, but this places a heavy burden on the clinician to consistently achieve all of these goals. In the UK, there is considerable training on handling bereavement and client care during and after euthanasia, but there is less consideration toward adding sedation for the animal to the procedure routinely.

The British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) guidelines for euthanasia recommend injection of an overdose of a barbiturate solution, using pre-medicants for frightened or vicious animals (BSAVA, 2020a). Routine sedation with pre-medication drugs before euthanasia is advocated for by many clinicians, although the publications recommending this approach are mostly from the USA. The American Animal Hospital Association's euthanasia policy advises sedation first (Bishop et al, 2016). The Lap of Love group, cofounded by Drs Gardner and McVety in the USA (https://www.lapoflove.com), has produced a large body of work for the veterinary profession on how to competently manage euthanasia with extra compassion. They present sedation as a standard tool to ease the euthanasia process, comparing it to a veterinary anaesthetist preparing for general anaesthesia.