This is not an easy topic to discuss, but it is a subject that will cross the path of all pet owners. This article aims to help sugar glider owners with some more clear-cut guidelines when facing arguably the most difficult decision in sugar glider parenthood.
Euthanasia should be considered when a sugar glider’s quality of life is unacceptable or if the prognosis of an ailment is poor. It is best to seek veterinary advice for guidance on prognosis and quality of life.
We know they won’t live forever and agree that they do not deserve to suffer. Therefore, sometimes, it can be the greatest blessing to be able to spare our beloved pets the pain and suffering they don’t deserve. I know it seems strange to say that euthanasia can be a blessing, but ultimately, we as pet owners are responsible for the health and wellbeing of our pets. Therefore, if we can not ensure well-being, we consider ending their suffering only out of love.
How Do I Know It Is Time To Let Go?
There is no single golden rule to consider when thinking about helping your beloved sugar glider to cross the rainbow bridge. Every sugar glider will have unique considerations, and this is why it is crucial to have an end-of-life discussion with a trusted and caring vet.
Your vet can be your biggest ally when it comes to the hard decisions as we see these situations on a near-daily basis and will have a good idea of the prognosis and amount of discomfort your glider might be experiencing.
Unfortunately, not all sugar glider owners will have access to an experienced vet all the time, and the following few paragraphs aim to help guide you through this tough decision.
Important Considerations Before Deciding On Euthanasia
1. Quality Of Life
In basic terms, quality of life determines how good your sugar glider’s life is at the moment. Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut way to measure the quality of life. Still, there are a few things we can objectively look at to determine whether a sugar glider has a good or acceptable quality of life.
Are they able to do the things sugar gliders enjoy doing? Do they still interact with other gliders from the colony or their bonded humans, or do they shy away from interaction or even show aggression? Can they move around to forage? Do they come when treats are offered?
In old age, when the bad days start to outnumber the good days, it indicates poor quality of life.
The Rule Of The Five H’s And Two M’s
The 5 H’s and 2M’s are: hurt, hunger, hydration, happiness, hygiene and movement, and more. We sometimes use this to help us determine whether a pet has a good and acceptable quality of life by rating each of the categories out of 10 (with one being very bad and ten being very good).
If most of the categories are above a 5, your sugar glider has a reasonable quality of life, and you may choose to wait before considering euthanasia.
Hurt
Is your glider experiencing pain? Are they suffering from a condition known to be painful? If you are unsure, you can ask your vet and consider getting a prescription for pain medication.
Common signs of pain in sugar gliders include reduced appetite, unusual aggression, shivering and shying away from touch and interaction, and self-mutilation.
The signs of pain can sometimes be hard to identify, especially in sugar gliders that are not tame. If a chronic condition is causing the pain, the signs can easily be missed due to the slow and gradual onset of symptoms.
Hunger
Is your sugar glider able to eat by themselves? Do they still come when treats are offered? Do they refuse to eat food they used to love, and are they losing weight? Or do you have to hand feed them every time?
To read more about sugar glider feeding and how to do body condition scoring, click on the respective links. The body condition scoring is in an article about obesity in gliders, but the scoring system will apply no matter your sugar glider’s weight.
Hydration
Are they dehydrated? Sugar gliders that are eating poorly often become dehydrated.
You can check your glider’s hydration with the skin tent test by gently pinching and pulling on the skin on top of your glider’s shoulder blades. If the skin slides back into place within a second, they likely have normal hydration, but if the skin takes 2-3 seconds to return to normal or, worse, remains tented, your glider might be dehydrated.
It will be helpful to compare the skin tent test to other gliders in your colony and regularly check the skin tent to get a feel for what is normal for a particular sugar glider.
The skin tent test is not 100% accurate as many things can influence the skin tent. For example, overweight gliders will have a false decreased skin tent time. In contrast, geriatric sugar gliders will have a falsely increased skin tent despite normal hydration due to reduced skin elasticity due to aging.
Happiness
Is your sugar glider able to do the things that sugar gliders love doing? For example, can they climb and forage, and do they approach you when you offer treats?
If you know your sugar glider well, you can try to think of five things they enjoy doing. If they cannot do three or more of the five things, they likely do not have a very good quality of life.
Hygiene
Is your sugar glider able to groom themselves and keep clean? Or are there urine or fecal soiling around their bums, and does their coat appear unkempt and dull?
Urine and fecal soiling can cause skin irritation (dermatitis) which can be painful and may lead to infection. If you reach the point where you need to bathe your glider every day, it is a good indication that they have a poor quality of life.
Mobility
Can your glider move easily, and can they still climb and jump? For a small prey species such as sugar gliders, the ability to get out of the way quickly is as fundamental to their wellbeing as it is for fish to be able to swim.
More
Is your sugar glider having more bad hours or more good hours? In other species, we often talk about good days vs. bad days when it comes to discussing the quality of life, but for sugar gliders, I feel that we are often just taking it hour by hour since their condition can change so rapidly.
If you are at the point where you are thinking about good and bad hours while your sugar glider is fighting an illness, you need to see a gradual increase in the number of good hours versus bad hours. If the bad hours are becoming progressively more, I urge you to get your sugar glider to the vet as soon as possible.
2. What Is The Treatment And Prognosis?
Treatment
This is a crucial consideration for sugar gliders as not all of them will tolerate daily treatment very well.
Will the treatment entail giving oral medication or injections on a daily basis and how well will your sugar glider cope with this? It may not be reasonable to subject them to stress daily when we know that they might not have many more days left.
Prognosis
What is the likelihood of your sugar glider completely recovering, and are you willing to take that chance?
It can be tough to face the facts, and again, this is where a trusted and experienced vet can be your biggest ally! You might also want to chat with other sugar glider owners.
If you feel you need a second opinion, you are absolutely entitled to get a second opinion, but avoid speaking badly about other vets with their colleagues. Ultimately both you and your vet’s main objective is to find a way to help your sugar glider. That being said, it is imperative for you to feel that you can trust your vet’s judgment.
Cost of Treatment
Another consideration we often try to avoid talking about is finances. Vet bills can get extremely expensive, and when it comes to choosing between feeding your family or gambling with the possibility of healing a sick sugar glider, the hard truth is that your family comes first.
Considering euthanasia due to limited finances is by no means failing as a sugar glider parent. If you have to choose between not treating at all and euthanizing, ending their suffering will win every time. The hard truth is that even if you can fork out all the money in the world for the very best treatments, your sugar glider might still not be saved.
3. Sugar Gliders Experience Suffering Differently From Humans
Unlike humans, animals live in the moment. Therefore, they will not necessarily be able to realize that there might be healing; they are simply living in the moment.
For a small prey species, their survival depends on their physical health. Wild sugar gliders live to be about five years old in the wild because of this. Being sick and undergoing treatment can be highly stressful to a small exotic animal.
4. Talk To Someone You Trust ANd Who Isn’t Emotionally Involved
They can help you look at things from an outside, objective perspective. Are you trying to hold on for your sugar glider or your own sake?
It might also be helpful to get the thoughts out of your head and discuss the pros and cons of the decision.
I often find that pet owners feel that euthanasia is ‘giving up.’ This is not true! This perspective can cause owners to wait too long before seeking advice about euthanasia. Speaking to someone you trust will be able to guide you through those emotionally-clouded thoughts.
How Is A Sugar Glider Euthanased?
I can assure you that the veterinary profession takes every care to ensure that euthanasia is as pain and stress-free as humanly possible. Sometimes this is the best and only thing we can do for our patients.
Your vet will most likely sedate or anesthetize your sugar glider before giving them the final lethal injection. They can sedate either by giving injectable sedation or by letting them breathe in gas anesthesia.
The lethal injection vets use is an overdose of injectable anesthesia that causes the heart to stop. The feeling can be compared to what you might feel when you are given anesthesia for surgery.
By the time their heart stops, they will already have lost consciousness and will not be aware or feel the pain of the process of dying.
Final Thought
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to choose the ‘right time.’ Instead, it should be seen as a time frame in which euthanasia will be the most compassionate option. Rather let them go while they still have some quality of life than let them suffer until the point that it becomes unbearable for you both.
But, on the flip side, do not beat yourself up if you did not take action and they ended up crossing the bridge on their own time. Death can be unpredictable and even more so in sugar gliders.
No matter the circumstances or cause of death, you did the best you could with the information you had, and that is enough.
Resources
- Banks, R., 2013. Exotic small mammal care and husbandry. Hoboken: John Wiley, pp. 157 – 168. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119265405
- Dierenfeld, E., 2009. Feeding Behavior and Nutrition of the Sugar Glider (Petaurus breviceps). Veterinary Clinics of North America: Exotic Animal Practice, 12(2), pp.209-215.
- Meredith, A. and Redrobe, S., 2002. BSAVA manual of exotic pets. 4th ed. Quedgeley: British Small Animal Veterinary Association, pp. 102 – 106 25. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240493099_The_BSAVA_Manual_of_Exotic_Pets_4th_edn
- Saunders, R. (2015, April). What is a sugar glider, and how do I nurse it?. In BSAVA Congress Proceedings 2015 (pp. 372-373). BSAVA Library.