{"id":820,"date":"2026-06-30T17:51:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/?p=820"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:52:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:52:38","slug":"ahpc-study-finds-veterinary-communication-shapes-pet-caregivers-end-of-life-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/ahpc-study-finds-veterinary-communication-shapes-pet-caregivers-end-of-life-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"AHPC Study Finds Veterinary Communication Shapes Pet Caregivers&#8217; End-of-Life Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cabidigitallibrary.org\/doi\/10.1079\/hai.2026.0023\">A study<\/a> published in Human-Animal Interactions by <strong>Lori Kogan, PhD, AHPC co-director,<\/strong> and <strong>Kathleen Cooney, DVM, CHPV, CPEV, <\/strong>demonstrates that the quality of communication between veterinary teams and pet caregivers plays a critical role in shaping end-of-life (EOL) experiences. Surveying 802 U.S. dog and cat caregivers who had recently participated in EOL decision-making for a companion animal, the researchers found that communication quality was one of the strongest predictors of caregiver satisfaction and decisional regret.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Caregivers consistently preferred earlier conversations about EOL care, and discussions that occurred before a pet&#8217;s condition reached a crisis were far more likely to be viewed as appropriately timed. Conversations about caregivers&#8217; goals, emotional concerns, quality of life, pain management, and when to begin considering end-of-life decisions were associated with significantly greater satisfaction with care.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Importantly, the study found that communication quality, rather than the specific end-of-life pathway, was the strongest predictor of caregivers&#8217; long-term experiences. The findings suggest that proactive, compassionate communication should be considered a core clinical skill and integrated throughout veterinary education and practice.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Citation<\/strong>:<br>Kogan, L., &amp; Cooney, K. (2026). Pet caregiver experiences of companion animal end-of-<br>life care: The role of veterinary communication quality in satisfaction, burden, and<br>decisional regret. Human-Animal Interactions, 14(1), 0023.<br><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1079\/hai.2026.0023\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1079\/hai.2026.0023<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study published in Human-Animal Interactions by Lori Kogan, PhD, AHPC co-director, and Kathleen Cooney, DVM, CHPV, CPEV, demonstrates that the quality of communication between veterinary teams and pet caregivers plays a critical role in shaping end-of-life (EOL) experiences. Surveying 802 U.S. dog and cat caregivers who had recently participated in EOL decision-making for a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-projects","tag-companion-animal-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu\/animalhumanpolicy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}