by Kate LaSala | Apr 7, 2025 | Dog Training, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
In the days leading up to saying goodbye to BooBoo, a sweet friend who lives far away asked what I needed and I half joked “more tissues.” About an hour later, DoorDash arrived to deliver 15 boxes of tissues, seen in the picture above. It made me...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 10, 2025 | Dog Training, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
As you may know, my husband and I recently adopted Gertie, a little over 10 months after saying goodbye to my heart and soul dog, BooBoo. I’ve been chronicling my grief journey over the last year and thought it might be helpful, on this 11 month...
by Kate LaSala | Mar 3, 2025 | Dog Training, Dogs and Babies and Kids, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs, Resource Guarding, Separation Anxiety
Behavioral euthanasia is touchy topic and one that tends to bring out keyboard warriors. Euthanasia for any reason is a difficult decision but behavioral euthanasia is often not given the same understanding as a euthanasia for physical reasons like cancer or...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 24, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs, Resource Guarding
We recently adopted a new dog, Gertie, aka Gertrude Wigglebottom, a little over ten months after we said goodbye to our precious BooBoo. Surprisingly, adopting a new dog dredged up lots of grief feelings about Boo, which I’ll talk about another time. I wanted to...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 14, 2025 | Dog Training, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
In the last ten months since losing BooBoo I’ve struggled with knowing when, or if, it would ever be time to welcome a new dog into our home, beyond fostering. In the time since Boo died, we’ve fostered 11 dogs and I’ve introduced you to many...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 10, 2025 | Dog Training, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
Ten months ago I said goodbye to my sweet BooBoo. It boggles my mind how it’s been that long when some days it feels like it’s just a few weeks ago. Thank you to those who keep reading. My hope is that I continue to share my grief journey so others...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 5, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
I was recently honored to be a guest on Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys podcast, hosted by Dr. Pike and Dr. Learn, both board-certified veterinary behaviorists chatting about a variety of topics but most notably about my work as a companion animal death doula and...
by Kate LaSala | Feb 3, 2025 | Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
Doulas can provide a broad scope of services but my focus for death doula work is companioning through anticipatory grief (that period before your beloved animal dies but when you know it’s coming), proactive planning and helping clients navigate stigmatized...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 21, 2025 | Dog Training, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs
I was recently honored to be a guest on the The Resilient Animal podcast and had a lovely discussion about my companion animal death doula work and other dog topics. This was a more personal conversation than some of my other podcast appearances, talking about...
by Kate LaSala | Jan 20, 2025 | Dogs and Babies and Kids, Fear, Aggression and Reactivity, Pet Loss & Grieving, Rescue Dogs, Separation Anxiety
What is a death doula, or an end-of-life doula for pets? What do you do? These are common questions I get. Let’s start at the beginning. Most people don’t know what doulas are, or if they do, it’s in relation to birth doulas. The Greek word doula...
