11 Feb 2026
Kathleen Cooney suggested vets could be “a little bit more open to natural death” during talk at VMX 2026.
Chris Simpson
Job Title
Image: © freshidea / Adobe Stock
Veterinary professionals should prepare themselves for more clients pursuing natural death rather than euthanasia, an end-of-life care expert has said.
Kathleen Cooney, senior director of medical education for the Companion Animal Euthanasia Training Academy, spoke at VMX 2026 in the session “Emerging ethical issues in companion animal euthanasia”.
She told delegates: “There is an opportunity to learn more and possibly be a little bit more open to natural death as modern medicine gets better and better.”
Dr Cooney shared a video of the first patient she was asked to help with a natural death, a dog she helped to ensure was comfortable in its final days of life, and she added: “While natural death is not a common request from my clients and probably not from yours, it is increasing, so we at least need to be prepared.”
The vet urged fellow clinicians to present clients with multiple options.
She said: “I do believe that we have a responsibility to lay out alternatives to euthanasia besides just defaulting into it.
“It can be easier to default into euthanasia when we believe that someone in front of us has made the decision, but if we’re not sure if they’ve really explored all the possible outcomes [then] we can go there and bring those to light.
“It can be very challenging, it can be awkward, but ethically, I do think we have an obligation to do that on behalf of our patient.”
She continued: “The consideration here is that an animal that’s reaching the end of its life has different norms.
“They might have different behaviour that’s more dying behaviour than it is living behaviour; they might have disease, and they might have injury, and they might not be drinking anymore, eating anymore, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that death is warranted.”
Dr Cooney said she has “never been more challenged” than when caring for a dying patient because of the comorbidities and symptoms that present, but “I don’t want to use my lack of knowledge as a reason to euthanise too quickly”.
However, she also said vet students should be taught “euthanasia is never a failure, that it should be a tool in our toolbox”.
She concluded the human-animal bond should be “front and centre” to the future of companion animal euthanasia and align with what is best for patients and important for clients, adding: “The human-animal bond, as it continues to evolve, we will need to evolve with it.”
