That entire 3 months process? It could have been a single informal paper that says "the animal is terminally ill, my judgement call is that this is unlikely to

That entire 3 months process? It could have been a single informal paper that says "the animal is terminally ill, my judgement call is that this is unlikely to cause excessive suffering and might help instead, even if the chances are low, and if my judgement is proven wrong and this appears to cause excessive suffering the animal will be put down humanely". Signed by the veterinarian and the owner. Because the system is high speed low drag, and trusts the veterinarian and the owner to make reasonably good calls about pet health and suffering - unless proven otherwise by overwhelming evidence. The system trusts people by default, and that 3 months long process and an ethics board come into play when there's a suspicion that this trust may have been abused. Of course, that's not the world we live in. Which is why we're having this conversation.