At BrightHaven Sanctuary
The sanctuary has been offering hospice care to its animal population for almost two decades and now wishes to share this experience and our philosophy with the community.
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Most of us are familiar with the term hospice care and associate it with being the compassionate end of life care of humans. The veterinary world has not yet fully embraced the work of hospice care for animals, as the gift of euthanasia has made end of life a different matter for many animals, and teaching has so far not been widely available in the art of hospice care.
BrightHaven’s holistic healing sanctuary has witnessed miracles of healing time and again with the use of classical veterinary homeopathy, raw food based diet and animal Reiki, amongst other avenues of alternative pet care. With these systems of holistic care, an animal has the opportunity to experience gentle and peaceful cycles of complete healing, during which times symptoms are not suppressed by quick fixes, bringing them to a place where alternative therapies, energy healing and love prevail and the comfort oriented nursing at end of life is akin to that of nursing a human.
We believe we have much to learn from the pioneers in the field of human hospice and would strongly encourage anyone interested in learning about animal hospice to first read more from the many available websites on the subject of death and dying, for instance, The NHPCO (National Hospice Care and Palliative Organization) www.nhpco.org and The Hospice Foundation of America www.hospicefoundation.org.
Hospice is actually a concept of care for the patient and the family – a team oriented affair that addresses the journey to end of life to make it as comfortable, peaceful and dignified as possible, with special attention to pain management and spiritual issues. BrightHaven has learned to follow that team approach as our hospice patients each have their own veterinarian on call, their BH family on duty 24 hours around the clock, other practitioners popping in, and volunteers at the ready to run errands. We have learned to embrace this special period of time with love and joy. We have learned that death is barely ever the same experience. It is individual for us all and we remain open to learning and change as we tend to our patients. Most of all we have learned to live in the moment more with our animals as they do with us. They have taught us well and wisely and we no longer fear the dying process or the words pain and suffering.
Within this paradigm of care, Euthanasia, an option that can be a gift in times of great need, is most times no longer necessary as animals are able to leave peacefully when their own time comes. Due to its high population of senior animals and holistic care, BrightHaven quickly developed to become a Sanctuary in which this practice has become possible and now provides the community with education in animal hospice.
