•  International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care - The IAAHPC promotes comfort care that addresses the physical, psychological, and social needs of animals with chronic and/or life-limiting diseases. We promote physical, emotional, and spiritual support for caregivers. We also educate professionals and advance research in the field of animal hospice and palliative care.  A lot of excellent information on this site!

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• 2016 AAHA/IAAHPC End-of-Life Care Guidelines  - Abstract: End-of-life (EOL) care and decision making embody the critical final stage in a pet’s life and are as important and meaningful as the sum of the clinical care provided for all prior life stages. EOL care should focus on maximizing patient comfort and minimizing suffering while providing a collaborative and supportive partnership with the caregiver client. Timely, empathetic, and nonjudgmental communication is the hallmark of effective client support. Veterinarians should not allow an EOL patient to succumb to a natural death without considering the option of euthanasia and ensuring that other measures to alleviate discomfort and distress are in place. Animal hospice care addresses the patient’s unique emotional and social needs as well as the physical needs traditionally treated in clinical practice. An EOL treatment plan should consist of client education; evaluating the caregiver’s needs and goals for the pet; and a collaborative, personalized, written treatment plan involving the clinical staff and client. Primary care practices should have a dedicated team to implement palliative and hospice care for EOL patients. How the healthcare team responds to a client’s grief after the loss of a pet can be a key factor in the client’s continued loyalty to the practice. Referral to professional grief-support counseling can be a helpful option in this regard. (J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 2016; 52:341–356. DOI 10.5326/JAAHA-MS-6637)

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• ​What is Hospice Care:  AAHA Trends Magazine, April 2014 - A nice article on some of the veterinary options for hopspice care.

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• https://www.ahelpproject.org/ - The website for the AHELP project which is the Animal Hospice, End-of-Life and Palliative Care Project. This is a community that honors the journey of lifetime loving care for your animal family members. We are here to help you and your family with guidance and support to follow the veterinary care plan.

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• IAAHPC Animal Hospice and Palliative Care Guidelines.pdf - Written in 2013, revised in 2017, this 50-page document was written to provide guidance to those new to the concept of animal hospice and to offer advancement to those who have practicing it for years.

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