Two months ago I gave you an update on my grief journey two months after I kissed my sweet BooBoo goodbye for the last time, one day after her 15-1/2th birthday. As mentioned in that post, I had been navigating some challenges and promised an update on what was working and what wasn’t.
So here I am, four months into my grief. And, it’s definitely not a linear journey, much like dog training or many things in life. There’s good days and bad days. Grief comes in waves. I’ve also had some big things happen since my last update.
Boo’s sister, Sassy, the last of the litter, passed away just 3 days after my 2-month post, on June 13. While she wasn’t our dog, she was our surrogate dog. She would stay with us when her family traveled and we had very frequent meetups, hikes, pool parties and gatherings with her and her family. This was a loss for me and really retriggered my Boo grief, as it was only 9 weeks after losing Boo. Plus, it was the end of an era. Sassy was the last of the litter and her passing meant they were all gone. That hit me pretty hard for a while.
And then Boo’s Gotcha Day passed. I put together a video montage of all the pictures from previous Gotcha Days. That was a hard day, but I knew it would be. And that same week, I received word that a very special to me client dog was being euthanized. All my clients are special but for clients that have been with me for a long time, I’ve developed friendships with them and some have become a few of my close friends. So losing this one stung a little more than others, especially with all my other stacking grief triggers.
And then Barbo’s 2 year death anniversary happened August 3. That just seemed to tip me over. I was profoundly sadder than I 
had been and then it reminded me of when I talk to clients about Trigger Stacking in dogs, when they encounter multiple stress triggers and how they become less able to bounce back, because of elevated cortisol levels in their body. I was experiencing something like grief trigger stacking.
I also celebrated my 50th birthday recently, so that brought lots of emotions, not just about it being a milestone birthday but emotions from the change in routine of not having Boo here. John and I spent the day at a museum, a place we wouldn’t have gone if Boo was here, and had a nice dinner. Neighbors made me a vegan lemon cake and then several friends and neighbors all met up for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. And, I got a few lovely messages on IG from clients and associates about how grateful they were to have me around and how much I’ve helped them and their dogs, also remembering that Boo inspired that journey. It was happy, sad and emotional and served as a reminder that grief can rear its head even with seemingly unrelated activities or events. And that happy and sad can co-exist.
So, here’s the current recap of what’s helping and what’s not?
What’s helping?
I continue to feel uplifted by a community of support, including thoughtful gifts and tributes. People have checked in, though admittedly much less than earlier on. We’ve received
thoughtful gifts including a gorgeous custom vase, hand painted with images of Boo. Our neighbor also made us an incredible photo quilt, that represents images from Boo’s life start to finish, with appearances by Barbo, of course. And their dog, Chelsea, too! I’ve received a beautiful paw print necklace, framed art, a garden stone and many other cards and things from people letting us know that they are thinking about us.
As I mentioned in my 2-month post, I was waiting for my custom felted mini Boo from Etsy to arrive. She arrived and is beautiful. She sits about 5″ tall and I have her on my desk, so she can sit on my desk so when I’m doing my client sessions, Boo is still with me. Here is a short little video of it so you can see how beautiful she is.
I am also waiting for my cremation ring from Sugarberry Memorials to arrive. It’s being made with Boo’s ashes and Mr. Barbo’s ashes, alternating the stones. Hopefully for my next update it will be here and I can share it with you.
The big healing step was that John and I took a trip, a pilgrimage of sorts, to Vermont, to The Dog Chapel, to hang pictures in the Chapel of Boo, Barbo, our first dog Bandit, Boo’s siblings and a few friends’ dogs. You can see my short tour of the Chapel here. And of the pictures we hung here. We also spent some time visiting friends along the way, including my dog trainer friend, Maria, in Burlington VT and her wonderful training facility, Fetch The Leash. And we spent some time with Sassy’s family, which was both healing and sad, missing our girls being there together.
I continue to write about Boo and to her. I have a running Letter To Boo, that I’m using as sort of journal when there’s things I would love to tell her, if she were here. My memory still isn’t back to where it was before losing Boo, so I’ve been careful to write things down and use lists. I am also still listening to audiobooks and podcasts, because my focus for reading is not there yet. And I’m setting better boundaries for both my time and energy. I’m not good at saying no, but I’ve been trying to be better about this.
I’ve been careful about not overcommitting myself. I have blocked out times and days in my calendar when I know to expect I will be sad or have rough days. I’ve blocked out time on my work schedule to ensure I’ve got enough time between sessions to give myself a break and to make sure I have enough time to do all the tasks I need to do. Because grief affects your brain, it takes me longer to complete tasks. It used to only take me about 20 minutes to do my client follow up notes but now it can take me 1-2 hours.
I’ve also needed to limit interactions with some people in my life that just aren’t supportive. I’ve purged my personal Facebook friends list, removing anyone who didn’t in some way acknowledge Boo’s passing. Some may see this as a pretty harsh approach but to me, if you are my friend and care about me then you knew how important Boo was to me. To not acknowledge that in any way, not even a simple “I’m sorry for your loss,” is a complete insult and slap in the face to me and my deep relationship with her. And anyone like that is not really a friend in my view. Grieving people need to be seen and heard and their grief needs to be acknowledged, so even if death and grief make you uncomfortable, remaining silent isn’t acceptable.
I continue to meet with Angela, my wonderful pet loss grief counselor for sessions, though I’m starting to stretch the frequency of my sessions out a bit, seeing her on average every other week now instead of every week. Maybe that’s a sign of progress? Anyway, I can’t sing her praises enough and have referred several other people to her and I know some of you have probably reached out to her as well. It is so important to have a really good support system and even though as a pet death doula myself, I need that extra professional support. Not everyone is going to understand or be compassionate about your pet loss grief, so I do urge a little caution about who you open yourself up to in these vulnerable, fragile moments.
I’ve continued to participate in the Dakin Humane Society support group each month. It’s free and helpful to connect with others having a similar experience and many people who attend lost their animals years ago. I think it’s great they keep coming back for continued support and just goes to show how long this grief process truly can be. I recently listened to this episode on Prolonged Grief and Megan’s perspective was great. Now that Prolonged Grief is considered a clinically diagnosed disorder, it’s like the medical field is putting a timeline on grief, and that just doesn’t sit well with me.
One of my favorite quotes about grief is this:
“Those we have loved are worthy of our grief.”
– unknown
Everyone’s journey is different and to put a timeline on it seems wrong.
Supporting others, whether attending and participating in group sessions or talking with friends that are also grieving, has been helpful. When Sassy passed, it was really important for me to support Sassy’s humans, not just because of our mutual connection with our dogs being siblings but because our losses were so close to each other – only 9 weeks apart. My grief was so fresh and I felt like I could help provide a little roadmap about what they might expect and I could definitely provide resources that I found to be helpful. That’s why I am writing this blog. Information is power. And part of why I became a doula was to help people navigate their losses, whether from behavioral euthanasia or normal aging or illness. I do have to be a little careful to not extend myself beyond my limits (see setting boundaries above) but in general, supporting others has been helpful to me.
Lastly, for my 50th birthday, I held a Facebook fundraiser for Mercer Humane Society, the KY humane society that helped bring Boo to us. They are desperate for funds and when I told them I was running this fundraiser to honor Boo, they told me “Thank you so much. We are so in need right now!! Our donations have dropped off to almost nothing and it has really impacted our ability to provide help to the animals. You really are providing a tribute to Boo!” And that helped me feel so good. Not only did Boo help save dogs in her life, but now even after her life, she’s able to help inspire donations to help other dogs and I know sharing my grief journey publicly has helped others, so in a way, her death has helped others. And that to me, is yet another part of her incredible legacy. I raised over $1100 for them.
What’s not helping?
Listening to random, even well-meaning people. One of the most common pieces of advice people give grieving people is to stay busy or distract yourself. I do not find this helpful, at all.
I’ve been very deliberate to allow myself to feel whatever I’m feeling. Sometimes that means I’m crying and laughing while looking at pictures or videos. And that’s OK. One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is that happiness and sadness can exist in the same realm. I need to give myself space to feel my feelings and be sad when I am and not try to block out those feelings or stay so busy to try to ignore my grief. And I can cry and smile in the same moment. But denying your feelings, just trying to keep busy or stay distracted, is just not healthy and eventually, those feelings, that grief and all your emotions will catch up with you. Just like you can’t will a toothache to go away, no matter how much you don’t want to go to the dentist, you can’t will your grief to go away. You have to feel your loss and maybe talk to someone about it, to fully process it. Dr. Gabor Mate says “understanding your grief is the key to being (or becoming) a healthy human being.” You can listen about this topic here.
I am an achiever. I like to check things off as “accomplished” but I’ve learned grief isn’t something I will be able to check off as ever being done with it. Viewing grief as something to get over as quickly as possible, whether from my own expectations or from other people suggesting it, has not been helpful. Will I have good days and be happy sometimes? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m “over” Boo or have “acceptance” or “dealt with” my grief. Grief is part of me now and forever. Loss is part of life and living with those losses are part of me. Thinking that if enough time passed that I’d stop grieving or setting arbitrary dates to “get over it” have not been helpful. My grief isn’t just a detour from my normal, happy life and I’ll get “back on track” when it’s over. Grief is part of love. It’s a natural extension of love.
As I’ve said before, grief invites us to remember, not to forget. And I intend to remember forever.
The other thing that hasn’t helped at all, is pressure from others, whether encouraging me to “move on,” “get over it” or, as you’ll see below, to get another dog or foster fail. Especially with pet loss, people seem to think you should “be over it” after a few weeks and certainly by 4 months in. Pet loss is a disenfranchised grief and people just don’t understand it or give it them weight as human loss. They just don’t.
So, I’ve stopped listening to people who don’t understand. I don’t need to be cheered up. You’re not going to cheer up a grieving person. What helps them? Talking about their loss and being heard. That keeps their loss alive.
If you know someone struggling with pet loss, please hear me loud and clear. Pressuring them to get another animal DOES NOT HELP. I know people are well intentioned and they want to see us with another dog but this needs to be on our time and pressuring us, guilt tripping or even just sending posts of dogs in need or asking “are you getting another dog?” are not supportive. BooBoo cannot be replaced like a car. It’s not that my car died and I’ll just go get another one. Well intentioned or not, asking questions about our timeline or trying to pressure us is the opposite of support and diminishes the relationship I had with Boo and your understanding of it.
Lastly…
John and I had another foster dog stay with us. Capybara, “Cappy” for short, was at the top of the euth list after having been at a county shelter for over a month. They were out of space and we decided to step up and foster, even though our last foster experience two months ago wasn’t the best. BooBoo and Barbo helped our family foster over 50 dogs. Cappy, our 56th foster, turned out to be an awesome dog.
John kept asking her “are you the best dog alive?” She was super prosocial with people, loved John and gave us a lot of laughs while she was here. She had a lot of Boo behavioral traits, which was both good and bad. I could see some facial expressions that were similar to Boo in Cappy. Cappy was snuggly and sweet, just like Boo. And behaviorally, she was practically perfect.
It was good for me to see that dogs can be happy and behaviorally sound, since I’m surrounded by dogs with behavioral issues in my work. I think I forget there are prosocial, non-resource guarding, happy dogs out there. Not every dog has fear issues, stranger danger issues or resource guarding.
John would have kept her, but my heart just isn’t ready to love another dog yet. I could recognize she was a great dog, but I’m not quite ready yet for a permanent resident. But it was nice to have a dog sleeping in bed with us and to take out to dinner for al fresco dining. Navigating all those feelings, both about letting a perfect dog go and knowing that John really would have wanted her has also been challenging but I just remind myself, I’m still grieving and that’s OK.
She had an amazing 2-1/2 week vacation with us and we brought her back, giving the shelter a lot of great information, pictures and videos. This was my adoption video for her. I knew she would get a great home because we helped give her a little break and gave her adopters more information on what to expect. She was adopted just last week and has her own little boy and two little girls to keep her busy! I’m so happy for her! And she’s a strong reminder that fostering saves lives. If you’re curious about fostering, you can watch my Facebook live Q&A on it here.
Thanks for reading, if you’ve gotten this far. Remember, as part of my doula services, I’ve got this resource page which I update regularly. I also have my free Advance Care Directive worksheet available for download to help prompt you to have conversations and think through some things, before your dog is sick or old. Thinking ahead and having conversations with your family before you’re in a heated emotional moment can really make a big difference and reduce stress or resentment or guilt later on.
If you missed it in my first post about Boo, you can watch this memorial video of Life of Boo, with music composed by my husband, John. Watch to the end. And, if you are preparing for the loss of your own dog, remember I offer my doula services here. And of course I’m here for your training needs.
Give your pups some extra treats from me and BooBoo, for free…don’t make them work for it, in honor of her four month passing. If you record it, please share it with me! Free Treats In Honor Of BooBoo!
And thanks for still being here.
