We Teach you to Love. We Prepare You for Another Pet. If You Want One.

It's a roller coaster ride. You fight with yourselves. "Should I get another pet? ...When should I get one? ... What kind should it be? ...Should I buy one or rescue one? ... Is it too soon? ...Maybe I can find my old pet,reincarnated! ...Maybe I shouldn't get another pet at all, I am so tired and weary and sad with grief..." 

Then you do it. You pick out another pet to fill the space I left behind ... and some of you experience a form of Buyer's Remorse. Once you've invested in the new pet you start to question everything. It can be very complicated because you can get mad at yourself for doing it too soon and then you hold your new pet accountable. You blame them when it isn't their fault at all. You make the mistake of comparing them with me when you must know that the new one will never take my place -- in your lives or in your hearts. It isn't supposed to. It is here to teach you different lessons than the ones I taught you. It's here to teach you a different kind of love.  

Don't you see? It's supposed to be this way. Relationships are assignments and when they end you are forced to graduate and move on to learn new lessons. But's it's hard. Kate used to cry when she looked at Immy (they got her 9 months after I passed) as if to say: 'Why can't you be more like Jack?'  Immy isn't Jack. She'll never be Jack. No one should expect Immy to be something she isn't. I taught you unconditional love and acceptance for a reason. 

It's all part of the learning -- to love again anew. Without judgment. Without comparison. It will be much easier when you have further healed from your grief. In the meantime, keep pushing through to the love and one day you'll find you love again -- but never ever the same way you did before. You may find that you are capable of loving even more than you ever dreamed. I say this because it was my task to come to earth to teach you love so that you could stretch and grow and become more than you ever were before.  

If you don't have a new pet yet, don't fret about it. If you are meant to have another, it will come into your life. You won't have to jump through hoops to find it. You will be inspired and the right one will come in one way or another. 

If you do have a new pet, take good care of the one who has come into your life. The one who trusts you for care and love. Be aware that quite possibly your old pet is their Guardian Angel and you don't want to make it difficult for them to watch your pain or your lack of acceptance. We often come into your life to help the new one, because we are looking for any excuse to be as near to you as possible. So when you are caring for them, you are partnering with us. We can do this together. Tears are okay as long as you are moving forward.  We love and support you in your decision. Hang in there.

When Your Senior Pet Stops Eating...

When a human being stops eating due to illness and decline towards the end of life, it usually indicates they are ready to give up the fight. When one is frail, disabled and infirmed, the only control one has is to clench their teeth and refuse the food. So many people who don't understand this. They force feed or think that the patient is being uncooperative or unreasonable. The patient is just communicating in the only way they know how. They are saying Enough Is Enough. 

Sometimes we just need to be diagnosed to find out if there is something physically wrong, but typically if we are older or if we have already struggled with various issues, us animals often do the same thing. This is one of the clues for you, of knowing when the time is coming to help us on our way.

Do Not Read This if You Aren't Serious About Healing

This post contains the key to all healing. Are you ready to accept it? Can you bear to read the truth when it is looking right at you? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps you will close this up with a grumpy "Huff!" and continue to do things the way you've always done them. What you do with this post is totally up to you.  If you are grieving you will understand a lot of it. If you have faith in something greater than you, will understand all of it. 

Over and over again I hear about it. The guilt. The shame. The feeling like you didn't do enough. Or maybe you even think you did too much!

Over and over I hear how you thought I was the only one. I was the only one who would comfort you and listen to you and watch you and stay with you and not judge you. You thought I was the only one who really truly unconditionally loved you. You didn't think anyone else could accept, and perhaps even love, your quirks the way I did. And now you feel you are alone with no one. Now that I am gone, you feel there is no one who loves you more than anything else on earth. No one who can watch you without judging you. No one who can listen to you without interrupting you.  No one who is there for you to comfort you and stay with you.

When you receive your first pet, no matter how old you are, you are being entrusted with a gift from God.  He is the one who arranges the gifts of life and love and He arranges this opportunity for you to live and learn to love and be loved. He sends you the greatest gift he has to give; the love of another being who loves you more than anything else in the world. This is the closest He will ever get to being in the physical realm with you.

When it's time for that pet to leave, it usually doesn't take too long to get another because when you learn to live with that kind of love, you come to believe that you cannot live without it. So you often dive in and get another pet and once more you learn to love and be loved unconditionally...in a different package with different lessons this time. But the bottom line is that the ultimate lesson is love. Life is the school, love is the lesson. The bottom line is always love.

When you find yourselves alone after your pet has gone you often are surrounded by people who don't understand what you have lost. There are many people who have not experienced love like this with a pet, or with anyone else, for that matter. These people are not capable of understanding. Sometimes they are even afraid of it! Meanwhile you are devastated. You have had love. You have loved beyond love. Now you are alone and you think the light of love is gone from your life because your beloved pet has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You are desperate for comfort. You long for that love.

Love is not gone at all.  The love you gave and received remains inside your heart for all time.  You know the love you felt for your best friend? Feel it now. Can you feel it?  You are probably crying now because your friend is gone and you think your love is gone too.  How can your love be gone?  It is YOUR LOVE you feel!  YOURS!  You can never lose that. EVER. It's yours.  What you are missing is the love you received in return.

No doubt you remember quite clearly the love your best friend gave to you.  Feel it now.  Can you feel their love?  Once again you are crying because your friend is gone from your sight and you think they took the love with them when they left.  They did not take the love with them. Their love remains inside your heart.

You've heard this all before no doubt.  But have you thought about this?  Do you believe in God?  Do you have faith in a higher power?  A universal life force?  God is the absolute force of love.  God is behind everything.  God sent you a pet to teach you how to love and be loved.  That pet was God Manifest in your life. God lives and breathes through everyone who loves you and through even those who don't love you because even they can teach you what love is and what love isn't.

You think when you lost your pet, you lost the love? You did not lose the love.  God gave you your pet to know what love is so that you would again seek love when love seemed to go away.  He is happy when you seek another loving pet to love.  He is particularly interested however, in the times when you have no pet at all, when you feel lost and lonely; abandoned and alone.  It is these times that are designed to remind you that He is there. He is there when no one else is there; when no one else understands. God is there in the lost and lonely moments and He offers you everything and more.

It saddens your pets and it saddens Him when you cry and wail and dwell on your loss and feel unloved because in reality YOU ARE NOT ALONE AT ALL.  He takes you to the bottom so that you are forced to look up. He allows you to drag yourself through the shadows of your tears so that you get so tired of crying that you will try to find the light again. It's totally up to you how long you stay in the shadows avoiding the light that is meant to be yours.

LOVE IS HERE. LOVE IS YOURS. God's unconditional love surrounded you before you ever came to this place and it will surround you when you leave and return to Him.  God's love is with you every step of the way and He designs your life so that you are reminded of this each and every day.  But some of you don't even think about Him. You don't remember Him. Some of you don't even believe in Him. You don't thank Him for anything. You gripe and grumble and cry and complain about what you have lost rather than looking at what you've been given. While you are seeking love when your best friend leaves you, He is waiting for you to seek Him and His love.

Try to get your Heart and your Head on the same page and everything will be Okay.  

Please think about this as you move forward. Listen to how you talk about your pet. Everything you are saying and feeling is what God wants you to be saying about and feeling for Him. The God-Dog reversal is no mistake.  It is all God's Grand Design to teach you how to love. He brings the gift of love into your life so that you will want to seek it again. You are not alone. You are never forsaken. You are loved unconditionally and without judgment.  He wants to give you everything! All He asks is for you to believe in Him, to notice Him, to make Him important to you too. Bring Him into your world and let Him love you and it will make no matter what happens on this earth... you will know you are loved and this knowledge will bring you the strength and faith to get you through anything and everything.

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe and God is love. When you feel love, you are feeling God. When you see the love pour out of the eyes of a person or pet that you love, that is God's love pouring forth.  He comes to you in your pet so that you will know how much HE loves you. HE.  He is the ultimate Lover!  He loves you. He wants you to notice him. He wants to rescue you. He wants you to adopt Him into your life. He wants your attention, your love, your care, your loyalty, your compassion. He will heal your heart and He will continue to bring you what you need if you can only keep your heart in the right place with faith that everything will be OK. Like a pet, He only wants your love.

This post is a response to those who grieve who keep dwelling and dwelling and dwelling on their "guilt" and their "shame".  Some of it comes from past life experiences that victimized them (then) and makes them believe that they are not worthy (now). If you learn what life is supposed to teach you, sometimes you find out that you not only learn, but you learn that you need to UNLEARN some of the things you learned the hard way. 

I have said it before and I will say again. I will keep saying it and saying and saying it until maybe you will believe it:

LETTER TO JACK: "I Feel Like I Let Her Down"

Thank you to our friends who ask their questions to help all of those who have similar experiences. You think my answers are helpful? Sometimes the questions are as helpful as the answers!  It is your question, but it is the question many others want to ask. 

Dear Jack,

My little girl has been gone three months. We had taken her to the vet and they ran all kinds of tests. I was told she was in good shape for what he called a 'old dog'. But she would not eat or poop... this vet had no compassion. I took her back again and he said "You need to think about putting her down." That was his answer to her problem. She was still so full of energy and my baby, the day after I took her to the vet for the second time, I found her dead in my hallway. When I called him he said, "I guess she made the decision for you." I feel like I let her down. I loved and still do love her so much.

Dear One, 

You did not let her down. You did what you could do. She did not want to be at the vet clinic in her final hours. None of us want to be in a vet clinic, even when we just go for shots! She wanted to be home ...believe it or not, she was in control of her own destiny. 

I can see where you were frustrated with the vet's in/attention, however again, she did not want to go through a bunch of tests and treatments. She was actually very glad that he was not aggressive about it! She knew that her time was coming. I did hospice work with Kate for many years and we learned that no matter how sick or even unconscious someone happens to be, they can have a certain element of control in their final hours and moments, when they can pass naturally. Your girl also did not want you to witness her passing, which is why she did it in the hallway when you were not there. By the time you saw her, she must have been at peace and she gave you this as her final earthly gift.  

I have looked her up here at her new Rainbow Address and I will be sure to keep a special watch over her. Bless you as you continue to heal.  

The Gift of ONE MORE DAY

How many of us have watched someone we love suffer for too long? They have spent weeks, months, years, declining and then, right after we make the decision to let them go, they surprise us by having a really good day?! It can throw us for a loop.   

One night Grady pee-ed all over our bed.  Our bed was also our "den," and any dog knows you don't dirty your den. This is how sick she was, to not be able to honor that. She was 14.  She had been incontinent(and arthritic and going blind and deaf over the years). Kate said to her that night, "I can't keep doing this." Kate was so tired from cleaning up after her and carrying her everywhere. Nonetheless, she did it for another two years.  It was all because she was waiting for God to call for Grady because she didn't want to have to make The Decision. 

She ultimately contacted the vet and scheduled euthanization for Monday. Sunday night we all slept on the floor with Grady instead of bringing her up onto our bed like we always did. It was the first time in many nights that she didn't get up every hour. She slept the whole night through! She got up in the morning, went outside with me with a wag in her tail! She gave a playful little awkward jump when I teased her... and she ate all of her breakfast! We couldn't believe it. Our hearts were full. 

It would be easy to second-guess whether we were doing the right thing, to move forward with the plans for the day. Maybe if we just slept on the floor with her every night she'd sleep through the night.... maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe...

Fortunately, our experience working with people on hospice reassured Kate. We had seen it over and over again in our therapy work. Many times people linger on their deathbeds; their breath is slowing, their feet are turning blue... and then all of a sudden one day, they rally back! Where they were confused they are now lucid. Those who were lethargic are miraculously alert and clear for the first time in a long time. They give us the impression that they are not dying after all! Oh everyone is so excited! They are clearly turning a corner and they will be well again! Our prayers have indeed been answered! 

Then, in 12 or 24 or more hours, they pass peacefully. It is not this way for everyone, but this has happened often in Kate's thirty years of experience. It matters not the age or the condition or the setting. I think perhaps it is one final chance for the body to have its Swan Song. When we know we can never do something again that we've always done, we always want to do it one more time. Sometimes that's what the final day is for. It gives us a chance to have one more time around before we transform into something else.   

"One more day

One more time

One more sunset, maybe I'd be satisfied..." 

(Click Here to listen to the song by Diamond Rio) 

Dear Jack: How Do I Know When to Put My Pet to Sleep?

"Tomorrow I'm sending my dog to rainbow bridge. I'm so hurt, confused and guilty. Yesterday morning he could hardly walk. His arthritis is bad. Been on pain killers for years. He also has prostate cancer and a tumor on his adrenal gland...They gave him morphine at the vets. What a heart breaking evening and night. He cried so much. Confused from the morphine. But today he is great. Walking playing eating. He hasn't been this way in days. I know it's because he's not in pain but it'll wear off. Is it worth giving him more morphine and putting him through nights like last night again just to keep him around? I don't know what to do.... He's up every hour crying to go out to pee, difficulty pooing... Oh God I guess I'm looking for someone to say it's time that I'm doing the right thing. This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life." 


Dear One: First of all, you can FEEL guilty, but YOU ARE NOT GUILTY. He has struggled for a very long time and weighing his quality of life with his pain and his condition is imperative. Do not hold him to you with your love because the love won't die when he does. You need to look at everything else that is going on. How would you feel if you were him?  

It is such a hard decision but the loving thing to do is let him go. Our Grady suffered for several years with chronic pain and was deaf and blind. We made the appointment to put her to sleep on a Monday, and Sunday night and Monday morning she was better than she had been in many months. We thought of it as a final gift for all of us. Later when it was over, we wished we had done it sooner for her. She was so at peace. You will see and you will know then that you did the right thing. Wishing you strength between here and there. <3 

Love, Jack