Treating the animal patient as a "person" involves refining the capacity to see the patient as clearly as possible. Veterinary end-of-life care can usefully engage with the science of animal emotion and cognition to help bring the patient into 3-D. This article highlights 3 specific areas in which engagement with the ethology literature and more careful attention to the subjective experiences of animals could improve end-of-life care: (1) interpretation and management of pain, (2) assessments of quality of life, and (3) attention to the autonomy of animal patients.
Keywords: Agency; Autonomy; Emotion; Ethology; Pain; Quality of life.
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