Dysthanasia (animal)

A geriatric mastiff with multiple tumors is being prepared for paliative surgery.

Animal Dysthanasia (from the Greek, meaning “difficult death”: dys (bad; difficult) + thanatos (death)) refers to the practice of prolonging the life of animals that are seriously or even terminally ill and that are potentially experiencing suffering. Animal dysthanasia is a recent concept, emerging from changes in the social perception of animals and from advances in veterinary care.

Context

Animal dysthanasia is particularly relevant in the context of small animal practice. For centuries, domestic animals in Western societies used to be mainly farm animals. With the industrialization process, humans become increasingly concentrated in urban areas, having preferential contact with companion animals, namely cats and dogs. While farm animals are widely seen as property, companion animals are perceived as family members with whom humans keep close bonds and develop strong emotional relationships.

At the same time, scientific advances in veterinary medicine enable practitioners to reach accurate diagnosis faster and reliably than before, allowing life-threatening illness to be identified in the early stages of their development. Additionally, more advanced treatments are now available that are used to prolong animals' lives as much as possible regardless of its quality .

Causes

Decision upon animal euthanasia often takes into account the relief of pain and suffering. Animal dysthanasia occurs because there is no agreement upon the acceptable and recognizable endpoints of the lives of companion animals. This is due to several reasons. The keeper (guardian; owner) may wish to extend the animal’s life because he rejects euthanasia as an acceptable solution. On the other hand, the veterinarian may have a scientific interest on studying the progress of a specific illness or even a financial interest in keeping the patient alive . The keeper and the veterinarian may also want to make use of all possible treatment resources before making the decision of euthanasia. Genuine belief on the animal’s recovery and emotional attachment can also interfere on the decision-making process of euthanasia. Situations like these can be specially problematic in some veterinary specialities like small animal oncology.

Ethical considerations

Dysthanasia involves an intractable conflict between the value of the animal’s life and the termination of the experienced suffering. In order to keep the animal alive we are necessarily impairing its welfare. Since it is no longer possible to provide some quality of life to the individual, the only way to prevent the animal from suffering is by putting an end to its life.

When the keeper refuses euthanasia to be performed in his animal, three justifications can underlie it: 1) euthanasia can be seen as a violation to the animal’s integrity ; 2) the keeper might not believe in the severity of the clinical prognosis and 3) although he understands the situation as irreversible, he refuses to detach himself from a loved one.

From the veterinary viewpoint he can accept dysthanasia if he believes to have a prima facie moral obligation to defend the lives of animals. But the relief of animal suffering and welfare considerations are also part of the ethical analysis and often veterinarians are reluctant to use their authority (what the philosopher Bernard Rollin calls the Aesculpapian Authority) in advising the use of euthanasia .

We can also take into consideration the veterinarian’s responsibilities towards the interests of the owner and those of the animal: a veterinary surgeon is expected to attend simultaneously to the animal’s needs and to the client’s expectations which results in an ethical dilemma. This is reinforced by the fact that the social role of veterinarians has been increasingly questioned from being not only animal healers but also animal protectors.

See also

• Animal euthanasia
• Animal loss
• Animal welfare