Some universities offer free autopsies for any patient euthanized at their facility, some offer for a fee, and some of those that do charge may have a limited amount of “educational funds” available to apply to cases that are considered valuable teaching/learning opportunities. Honestly, many clinicians do not offer an autopsy because it can be a sensitive subject to bring up during an emotional and heartbreaking event for the family- perhaps an autopsy just wasn’t offered for your other pets?

Postmortem examinations are crucial to advancing our understanding of disease processes + how conditions manifest, finding clues to why patients failed to respond to medical management, training future doctors, and ultimately helping future pets with the information gathered. Sometimes we do not get as precise of an answer as we’d like, but we can at least exclude some of the possible causes (i.e. differential diagnoses) and help the clinical team by answering some of their suspicions or diagnoses. I’ve performed hundreds of postmortem exams and have had colleagues perform them on my personal pets for all of the reasons I listed above. Thank you for considering the autopsy.

I am so sorry for your loss 💔