Emily Larlham is a respected and compassionate dog trainer who generously shares lessons on her YouTube channel “Kikopup.” I value her respectful and patient teaching style as her canine companion learns how to settle, have its nails trimmed or wiggles during a rewarding game. And I’m in awe when a video includes her calm, watchful […]
Category: Dog health
Lean on Me – DoberBuddy – Part Two
SABER Missing our dear Ramses and his presence in our lives and home, we learned of an adult, red male Doberman in our neighborhood. A young woman was going through a divorce and was brokenheartedly looking for a new home for her special boy. We visited her and her mother and eagerly welcomed Saber into […]
Lean on Me – DoberBuddy – Part One
“Ramses was a friendly, goofy boy who settled in nicely with the DoberGrrls and Surrey (the king cat).”
Dancer’s Taj
Our world travels followed a primarily unscheduled easterly path that began in England where we boarded a chilled Greek bus for a three-day ride to Athens. We experienced serious sensory muddlefecation in Egypt, marveled at the herd migrations across the Serengeti in Tanzania, embraced bouquets of taste, color and humanity in India and Nepal […]
Gypsy Grrl
I married just before my junior year at the University of Washington, and my husband and I lived in a small apartment a few blocks from the dorms where we had met. When I graduated, I worked for the university, which helped fund our traveling overseas. First to Europe for a few weeks, then a […]
Inherit the Heart
Home on summer break after my first college year across the state, I was anticipating my sophomore year in the fall closer to home at the University of Washington and the chance to explore a vibrant 70s Seattle. I had missed the island’s abundant greenness, the tangy salt smells from the beach and more tranquil […]
Duchess
I drove off the island crossing bridges and freeways to meet the black five-year-old Great Dane I was going to foster. Duchess’s guardian had reached out to the rescue group I volunteered with because she was traveling more for work and her twin daughters were away at college, and they wanted Duchess to continue to […]
Saying Hello to Goodbye – Introduction
“How do I know when it’s the right time to say goodbye to my dog?”
“Did I do the right thing?”
“Why doesn’t anyone understand my grief?”
“How can I ever love another one?”
I have numbly spoken these words, draped in sorrow. I’ve been on that roller coaster of uncertainty when, after calling my vet clinic to make the euthanasia appointment, my dog rallies and starts eating again or rediscovers her zest for life. I’ve sat at that table sobbing in front of silent coworkers after receiving a phone call about my dog’s kidney failure. I’ve cradled the bridle of my childhood equine partner.
Friends, clients and colleagues have shared their battles of indecision at the end of their animal companion’s life, and the deep absence when that spirit is gone. Losing our creature partner is an intimate and sometimes lonely experience. Often, people don’t understand our relationship with an animal or our grief when our companion has died.
I am sharing stories here of the love and loss of the dogs, cats and horses who have found me, and how their lessons have helped me make end-of-life decisions for my next animal loves. Especially, how their love has helped my heart stay open through grief, to welcome new hearts.
When those caramel eyes, that wiggling butt, the warm breath from a fuzzy muzzle, or a maestro purr joins our life, we also invite their goodbye. Their dependence is magnified when a canine companion is diagnosed with cancer, a senior horse is too weak to stand or a kitty’s thyroid begins to fail.
Sometimes they begin to wander, lost in their own home. They bark in a corner or flinch and pant at the beep of a dishwasher. They feebly rise from a five-hour nap, swaying on once sturdy limbs. We struggle to balance their quality of life with our reluctance to say goodbye.
We push the unspoken fear into a box, bind it tightly and shove it onto a high shelf. Out of our sight, it quietly collects dust. But one day we find the box at the breakfast table, the tape undone like our breaking heart.
If I sit down with my grief at the table, unbutton my jacket of composure and surrender to tears, the paralysis of fear leaves the room. I find comfort remembering and writing about my companion. Welcoming memories about the love that never leaves my heart.
When the animal I loved and who loved me is gone, I am not less. I am not broken. I offer my heart to an animal companion as that heart is offered to me. The gift is not diminished because it is temporary. Nor is the memory of the love when the animal is gone.
By sharing stories of love and loss I hope to encourage others to do the same. “Saying Hello to Goodbye” is my journey of opening my heart to love, and trusting the beauty of love will keep me whole when I say goodbye.
Wendy Dahl, MA, SAMT, CBATI
Animal Behavior Consultant and
Small Animal Massage Therapist
wendy@dahlbehavior.com
http://www.dahlbehavior.com
Saying Hello to Goodbye 