June 18, 2025 • 49 mins
This is a very personal episode of In The Vet's Office because I recently had to make the extremely difficult decision to put my dog Biggie down. This episode, my husband Cody joins me and we talk about rescuing Biggie -- which actually led to one of our biggest fights. We talk about his crazy backstory before we got him, our favorite memories with Biggie, his diagnosis with heart failure which led us to have to make an impossible decision and his final moments.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Yeah, you're listening to In the Vets Office with doctor
Josie Horchak.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
All right, everyone, welcome back to in the Bets Office.
I am your host, Doctor Josie, and this week's episode
is going to look a little bit more different than
previous weeks. As some of you may know from following
me on social media, I recently euthanized my own dog, Biggie,
my little brown Chihuahua beagle Pomeranian mix. He was pretty
(00:39):
infamous on this podcast. I know a lot of you
messaged me saying that you felt like you knew him
from this podcast. He even was on it and bit
Bobby Bones in one of the episodes, so he made
a lot of a lot of wave for a little guy.
And I wanted to do this episode because I feel like,
(01:00):
you know, I've said this before, but every pet owner
will go through the loss of a pet at some point,
and it's something that you know as universal. It's devastating.
I think pet loss can feel really lonely, and so
I wanted to just kind of talk about our experience
and if someone else can relate to it, that's awesome.
(01:22):
This might just be one therapeutic episode for me, which
is also great, but I do like I said, I
think we all go through it, and so hopefully if
one other person feels not alone from listening to this,
then that makes me happy. I decided to bring on
as he's calling himself a guest of honor today. Welcome
to in the BETS office, my husband Cody Hrchak.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I am here. I am nervous. I don't do this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You I never see you nervous.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's let's get started.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
When I was talking to producer Morgan about doing this episode,
I well, I think I'll just do a solo episode.
I'll talk about Biggie. And she's like, well, why don't
you have Cody on And I was like, Okay, maybe
I will do that. And you know, you are amazing
dog Dad, and I feel like you got me through
so much of this with Biggie, so I really thought
(02:16):
it would be nice to have you here, if nothing else,
your moral support for me.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Glad to be here, my moment of stardom. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
All right. I really want to start by talking about
Biggie's adoption story. That is what a story. One of
the biggest fights that we have ever gotten in. And
every time I think about it. It makes me laugh. So
why don't you do? Would you like to actually all
(02:44):
start prefacing it and then you can take it away?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Please do?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I would like to hear your side, okay, and then
I will fill in all the major gaps.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Okay. So I was sitting on the couch with my
sister and at the time I only had one dog,
which was Luca are great Dane, and she was getting older.
What I didn't know is that just a few months
after that we were going to diagnose her with bone cancer.
So did not know that was coming. But I knew
she was getting older and I wanted a second dog.
(03:13):
We had just moved to Tennessee. We finally had a backyard.
I was like, now is the time. And so I
had mentioned to you, hey, we should get another dog,
and You're like, we just moved, we don't need another
dog right now. I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever you say.
So I get a link sent to me of this dog,
this little brown dog that was smiling. He's sitting on
(03:35):
a big chair. I take one look at him. I'm like, yep,
you're mine. And he was up for adoption through Proverbs,
which is another big rescue group here in Nashville. They
do a really good job. They're actually very They have
a pretty strict adoption process. Because I was applying and
they were like grilling me, like a rigorous adoption process.
(03:55):
I was like, guys, you know, I'm a veterinarian, right
doesn't matter. And honestly, I really like that. I think
that's good. We need to make sure that all these
owners are well vetted out. No pun intended to make
sure that these pets are going to great homes. So
they definitely vetted me out. They said, is there anybody
else that lives in the house. They said, yes, my husband.
They said, is he on board with this adoption? I
(04:17):
said absolutely, he is no doubt about it. Did I
ask Cody for permission? No, Cody has no idea I'm
adopting this dog. And what Proverbs does is they they
are all foster based, so they don't have an adoption center.
So on one Saturday a month, they set up a
tent outside of pet Smart and that is where people
(04:39):
who are adopting go to pick up the pet, get
their paperwork, et cetera. So the Saturday rolls around that
it's time for me to go pick up this dog,
and Cody says, I was gatfished. And I still haven't
told Cody yet what's happening. And I said, hey, when
(05:00):
we go to Pet Smart, I got to pick something
up for Luca and Timmy our horse, Like, we'll just
swing by really quick. So we get to Pet Smart,
we park the car, we're getting out of the car,
we're about probably ten steps away from the adoption tent
and he looks at me and he was like, wait
a second. And I have this like big grit on
(05:22):
my face and he was like no, and I was
like yes.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And at that moment, you looked at me and you said,
don't f this up. And I said, I knew we
weren't there for dog food.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I said don't. I don't know why. I said, I'll
kill you if you mess this up for me, something
along those lines. It wasn't nice. It was a threat.
It was a threat. It was a cold blood threat.
And I meant that because if you go up there
and you're at the adoption tent and not everybody in
the family's on board with the adoption, they will rip
the dog back, as they should, and they won't let
(05:56):
you go home with the pet. So I did. I
looked you in the eyes and I said, don't mess
this up for.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Me, and then I looked big in the eyes. I
was like, I really want to mess this up as
much as in that moment after the facts love him,
loved him, but at that moment, I was like, that
is a morbidly obese, smelly buttholeig.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
We get up there and he is, yeah, in the
arms of his foster, he is you guys. We score
body condition one out of nine, nine being the most obese,
one being severely mountainurished. He is a full throttle nine
out of nine. He was an eleven out of nine
if that could even exist. He is so fat, he's
(06:42):
like panting profusely stink. He really smelled like roadkill. Is
this don't day? Don't know why. I think he had
an infected like eye ducked, but he smelled like roadkill.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Either way.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Anyways, I walk up, I'm like, you're beautiful, you're perfect, icy,
You're perfect, You're mine, You're amazing. And so the adoption
the foster hands Cody the collar and says, this is
your new dog. His name at the time was baby Bear.
This is baby Bear. Do you want to put his
collar on him. Cody's holding the collars, standing there looking
(07:16):
at Biggie and he's like, this dog is so fat.
I don't know where his neck starts and stops.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And for clarification, I wasn't fat shaming this dog, but
I mean it was a roly polly.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, he was really puly. And the lady goes, well,
have you never put a collar on before? And I'm
looking at him, like, put the collar on. Put the
collar on. He goes to put the collar on, and
Biggie looks at him and goes er and try yeah,
and he bites you. And I was like, this is amazing.
This is so bad, amazing and so bad. So we snap.
(07:49):
I snapped the collar on really quick. I'm like, okay, perfect,
thank you so much, like goodbye, and we get in
the car.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I'm pissed, pissed.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Cody is not please. He's like this this was like
a major life decision. You haven't consulted me on this.
We get home, he's like, really not please. I think
you like grabbed a beer and you went out and
sit on the back patio and you sat back there
and like stared off into the distance for like hours.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Okay, No, I did not. I'm not mannic I stop that. No,
I did not grab a beer and go sit on
the back porch. That was after he tried to suicide
leap out of the house because he didn't want it either.
Like him and I were on the same page. He
was like, I don't want to be here, and I
was like, I don't want you here, and we had
a good stare down.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
You had a stand off. Did he did try to
jump off a ledge when we first got home, But no,
you were pretty unhappy anyways. All that to say, I
do think, okay, listen, I think I might have learned
my lesson, like I will.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I don't know a thing is not to do because
we weren't even married at that point. We were dating,
we lived together, we were engaged, we were engaged. Yeah,
I mean, things you don't do early in an engagement
is like make life changing decision and bring responsibility.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And I want to say that I regret it, but
I don't. I definitely don't do it tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, I mean, I'm just I'm so confused to how
you you saw him in a photo and was like,
that's a cute dog. Don't get me wrong, like after
the fact, cute at could be, But in that moment,
I just I'm baffled by the fact. You're like, he's mine.
I just knew I can't go without him. I just
knew I had like a million I looked at the
(09:31):
photo and I was like, there's a million reasons not
to go this direction.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Well, he was so cute, and we got him home
and finally like, okay, so what's his name? And I'm like,
baby bear? But he only goes by baby And You're like,
all right, we'll keep the dogs.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Deal breaker, get me back in the car. We're going
back to Patsmorrow. We're not calling him baby bear.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You're like, I'm not calling this dog baby. I'm like, okay, well,
like that's what he knows and he's five now. So
we ended up saying what's the name similar that he
won't have to relearn it, and we ended up on Biggie,
which was fitting.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It was super fitting, tiny, tiny dog next to a
one hundred and forty pound Great Dane. It was like
Biggie and lou right, But his personality, I mean, the
biggest personality of any dog.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I've ever met one. I say this without fail, like
He is the bravest little dog. He would walk into
any air and be like, yep, I own this place.
And I always talk about on the podcast, and you know,
because we've rescued a lot of dogs. Now, it's like
dogs take three days to warm up, three weeks to
do this, three months and like you, your personality is like,
continue to come out now.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
He came into the house like a mafia boss. He's like,
this is mine now.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, he definitely walked in and he was like, no,
I own this place. He got into his bed, he
put all four paws up in the air, and I
think he like started snoring out loud.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Speaking of which, that was another thing. I'm really realizing
that maybe I'm just torturing you as your wife. But
you were like, he can't sleep in the bed. He
smells so bad, Like yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. But
he really wanted to sleep in the bed next to me.
He loved me, and so I was like, I'm just
gonna when you fall asleep, I'm just gonna pick him
up here. So every night he ended up in the bed.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
YEP. It's definitely torturous.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Finally, by the end of it, though, you bought him stairs.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I loved this dog.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It was definitely a hate relationship early on, like we
were just roommates, like the worst roommates ever, you know,
like when you're in college and you're like, hey, this
ain't working out.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
But then he grew on me.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
He did grow on you. And you would always say
that he was like so fickle that when I was here,
like I was his world. He would have followed me everywhere,
and then afterwards when I would leave, he was obsessed
with you.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, definitely, when Josie was here, it was her world,
he was focused on it.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
When she left, oh my god, he was just he
was glued to me.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
He was a little trader.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
He was a trader.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I also love. One of my favorite things is he
loves to look out the window. And he would always
like when I would leave, want to look out the window,
and he'd stay there until I got home. So it
first started you built him like this little Amazon box perch,
like one box, onto two boxes, onto three boxes where
he could climb up. Then finally I come home one
day and you're in there with like a drill and
(12:23):
a hammer, and I'm like, what is going on? And
you got on Wayfair, and you bought him a cat tree.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
That he could like he could so fitting that he could.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Like climb up into and then steer out the window.
Was so cute.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
He definitely he'd liked to be high, he'd like to
look out, and I mean he would be there for
eight hours, like you would leave and then he would
just sit there until you came back.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
He was so loyal and he was clockwork too, like
he I don't know how he dogs know, but like
the moment you were five minutes out, he knew you
were coming and I was like, all right, well this is weird,
and I guess your mom's on our way home.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
They HiT's like there they know when the sun is setting,
like they just are so yeah, intuitive, And he really
loved Sia. We got Sya. We got Biggie in August,
and we got Sia in October. So we went from
one dog to you being like, no, we can't get another,
and I got the second. And then we were on
vacation two months later and we found Sia. So next thing,
(13:19):
I know, which you were kind of on board with, Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
No, no no. That was also very similar. We're on
vacation and you see this dog going on the street.
Next thing I know, I'm in a vet clinic for days,
trying to figure out how to get a dog.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Home from Mexico during the pandemic. Yeah, no, I am.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I didn't talked to something about this. I mean we're
calling up better health tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Okay. But now you love Sia, Well I.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Love Sia, yeah, as much as you loved Biggie.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Game or best decision ever. And so we get Sia
a few months later, and him and Sia were like inseparable.
They loved each.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Other from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, but Biggie always
had that personality where he's like saw Luca hate her,
like they never got along. Ever, Sia comes in love Siah.
Now we have Oakley, but he hated Oakley. Yeah, I
always you know the joke that I always with Biggie.
If Bigie had a posable thumbs, eighty percent of the
people who walk through the door would be dead. Yeah,
(14:19):
like he would just shoot him. Like he didn't. He
didn't like people. He liked one person, Josie or anybody
who had cheese, which your nurse.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Ellen, Yeah, I mean they would you know.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
She'd come over with a pile of cheese. But he
hated everybody else.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Speaking of cheese, You guys, this dog could eat anything.
He had guts of steel.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
He would eat dry wall when we were rendoing our house,
like he would go around and pick up the piece
of the drywall and just like he was caveards.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
He loves drywall, which, by the way, I am fully
aware that I'm a veterinarian and should not condone animals
eating drywall, and I don't and I do not condone that.
I think that's very dangerous. But I could not, like
literally stop him. He would like be like a little
like vacuum cleaner. He loved lu huffed to eat everything.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Every crumb, it doesn't matter what it was.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, I know, And I would like to say that, yes,
we got him really fat, and he's still when he passed,
he still wasn't the smallest little guy in the world,
But damn did we try. We had him on a
pretty strict diet. He lost. He started at like eighteen pounds.
We caught him down to like thirteen or fourteen at
one point. Then towards the end, I was like, ah,
let's let him live a little.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Oh, this is mother's love. You know, you were, We're
like a healthy weight's eleven pounds, maybe twelve pounds, but
once he got to like fourteen, We're like, nah, we're
just gonna let him live.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, he was a cute, little round fourteen pounds.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Well, according to you, he was stocky.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
He was stuck.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
He's pretty chunky.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It was his bone structure.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It was not his bone structure. But we'll just we'll
roll with that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
What So, back in twenty twenty three, I believe is
when I was going to take him in for a
dental he had some stinky breath. I knew he had
a tooth that needed to come out, and the night
before his dental procedure, I didn't examine on him. I
listened to his heart. I had already run his blood work,
(16:11):
and I stuck my stethoscope on his chest and I
was like, whoa, he has a heart murmur that was
not there a couple months ago when I had listened
to him, and so I canceled his dental procedure. I
took him into our veterinary cardiologist here and had an
echo excuse me, an echo cardiogram performed, which is an
ultrasound of the heart. It lets you see all four
(16:34):
chambers of the heart. You can find out exactly why
your pet has a heart murmur, what's causing it, how
serious is it. Is it safe for them to undergo anesthesia?
And the cardiologist diagnosed him with degenerative valve disease. So
two of the valves in his heart were not closing
(16:55):
the way that they should, and so instead of blood
rushing forward and pushed forward in his heart like it's
supposed to, little amounts of blood would rush backwards because
those valves aren't closing all the way. And with time,
that causes the muscles of the heart wall to get
tired and become fatigued, and the heart itself will eventually
(17:17):
not be able to kind of keep up with demand.
And so, knowing that he had degenerative valve disease, he
was at the beginning, I would say, midway to the
beginning of the disease process. And it's really kind of
up in the air for how long pets do after diagnosis.
Every pet is different. Some pets can make it five
more years on average. On average, though, I would say
(17:40):
at the time of what Biggie had his diagnosis, you're
probably looking at like two to three years, and so
that kind of really started it all. And it's so interesting.
I guess we can kind of talk about having a
dog with a disease that you know eventually is going
to take them. And he really did great. I would
(18:01):
say for the first year of diagnosis, we put him
on one or two heart meds, he went under anesthesia,
he had his dental procedure. He did really well. And
I would say like probably like a year and a
half eighteen months after diagnosis is when I felt like
I really started noticing a big difference. He definitely couldn't
exercise as much as he used to without getting winded
(18:24):
more quickly. He started coughing quite a bit. Am I missing.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Anything even just tired?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, tired. Yeah. So we eventually, by the end of
his disease process, I had him on I don't know,
maybe six or seven different medications. I'm a veterinarian, so
and it was hard for me. I cannot imagine what
it's like for other owners out there that don't have
that background being a caretaker for a sick pet. I
(18:52):
just I have a whole new perspective on it and
empathy for my clients because it is a lot of work.
I had to like adjust my everyday schedule to be home.
If I didn't give him his mid day medications right
at one one point thirty, then that kind of set
him up for a really bad night full of coughing,
(19:13):
and that you know, fell onto your shoulders sometimes too
if I wasn't home. So we had to be really
strict about when we gave him his meds, what meds
to give him. I mean, it took me probably thirty
minutes in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the
evening to get his tablets split into the way they
were supposed to be split and all of the doses correct.
And I always had to like tinker around with his doses.
(19:34):
And some days he didn't want to take his pills,
some days he didn't want to eat his food. And
that was for me such an eye opener into how
much work it is, and like the burden of being
a caregiver. And there is something called caregiver fatigue where
you just start to you love your animal, you would
do anything for them. I would still. I would spend
(19:55):
three hours a day splitting his pills and doing whatever
I needed to do for him if it meant he
got to be be here with me, But it is
also true that it was definitely draining.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, I think that was the hardest thing in the
last few months, is especially with Biggie with such a
like progressive disease where he was getting worse and worse,
but he would have like moments of joy where he
would be like, oh, maybe he's not as bad as
we think he is, Like maybe he can live another
four or five six months, And then you know, you
(20:26):
find yourself at a crossroads where you're like, are we
doing it for us, are we doing it for him?
Or a combination of both. And you know, all I
ever had in my past to reference was Luca, which
was our great Dane who passed with bone cancer, and
she was just so much more progressive. Like one day
we just woke up and we're like, we saw this
(20:48):
golf sell golf size, golf ball sized tumor on her leg.
And then a few months later she couldn't walk up
and downstairs and she was like crying, and you're like, oh,
she's in pain. We gotta we gotta do what's right.
Biggie was like he'd have good days, you have bad days,
And it was really hard to disassociate with the fact
(21:08):
of was this for us or was this for him?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah, yeah, totally. So with euthanasia, I think that it's
such a double edged sword of like having that not
having it be an emergency, because there's some people where
they are like, oh my gosh, my pet is so sick.
I rushed them to the er. We have to euthanize,
there's really no other choice. That is devastating because you
(21:31):
don't get to say goodbye, but also in some ways
it's a blessing because you're not living with this six
months to a year of living in that kind of
gray area. And like you said, with Luca, it was
very clear with bone cancer. We got to a point
where we just couldn't keep her comfortable anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Pain.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah she was. She was definitely in pain. But Biggie
was like coughing a lot, but he still was like,
let me eat, let's do this, let's do that, and
so it was definitely, yeah, blagging his tail. So it
is definitely very, very difficult. And I just want to say, like,
I am lucky because I have you, Like, I think
(22:09):
you're very pragmatic and logical about these things, and I
am a veterinarian. So like I coach people through this
all the time, that's my job. But when it comes
to your own animal, no matter how practical pragmatic, if
you're in the veterinary field or not, like your sense
of reasonable thinking really goes out the window. And so
(22:29):
I would stress that if you feel like you're in
this time where you have to make this decision, you
shouldn't have to make this decision alone. And if you
don't have a partner that you can rely on, call
your veterinarian, take your pet in and go in for
just a quality of life visit. We do those all
the time, and it's our job just to help you
(22:49):
as an objective outsider, to help you make that decision,
because when it's your own pet, it feels impossible.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, especially when when you love animal as much as
we did, and we were part of our family.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
And I think what really drove that decision was.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
There were there were great days that were congruent, and
then there was like a bad night where he couldn't
sleep and he was coughing and he felt and you
could just see in his eyes he it was sad.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
But then he'd wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Be totally fine. He's like, where's my breakfast? Right? And
I think what ultimately helped us drive the decision was
the number of days he was good was getting less
before we had a bad evening or a bad day.
And the what I did was I set you down.
I was like, we're on the verge of something very
(23:42):
traumatic happening, where like he's incredibly scared and a lot
of pain. We're freaking out, Like we just need to
understand like if we keep progressing this, like if we
keep pushing this off until something really traumatic happens, it's
not good for us or good for him him hm.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
And it was just that was kind of the probable
the approach that I took, whereas.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
There's going to be a night where's he literally feels
like he's suffocating, and do we want him to get
to that point?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah? I think that's such a great point to make
because I do talk to owners about you know, we
can wait, but we're going to get to a point
just like you said, where it's an emergency, you're rushing
him into the er overnight and then maybe you don't
get a say goodbye on the terms that you want to.
And some people say I don't care. I'll wait till
the last second. But then also you have to think,
(24:31):
like your pet is probably suffering, And to us, it
was more important just to be able to say goodbye
in a peaceful way where he could eat a number
seven combo meal from McDonald's. He could crush it in
the backyard. He got all the love in the world.
He got super high, and we were able to say
(24:51):
goodbye at home. So I feel like that super high
that was helpful for us.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
We gave him the pre med and he definitely he
was seeing Lucy in the sky with diamonds. He was
he was having a good time.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
He ate it was amazing. He had a double cheeseburger mcflury.
He did have an oreo.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Mcflury had to have an entire box of.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
French fries and chicken nuggets.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
And now we know why he never got under fourteen
pounds never.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
He just loved it. I almost forgot why I want
to keep going and we're going to come back to this.
Almost forgot to say that when we adopted him, who
had owned him before. I think I've talked about this
on the podcast before, but he had a prior to
me being his mother. He had an elderly woman that
owned him, and she had let him out into the
(25:40):
backyard to go potty. She went back inside, sat down
on her chair and passed away. I don't know if
she had a stroke or a heart attack. The details
are vague, but yeah, the details are vague, but she
passed away. And eventually the neighbors a few days after this, realized, hey,
this little dog's been locked out in the backyard. I
think they saw him July. Right in July, they saw it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean, the guy stayed outside for five days, no food,
no aud.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
He had a lot of fat storage, I mean.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
And a lot of fur. Like heat stroke would have
been a real thing.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
No, I think he did. So Yeah, Finally they were like,
this is weird. They didn't know any family, so they
called the police. The police knocked down the door. They
found her passed away, and Biggie was locked in the backyard.
And I do think he went to a clinic for
heat stroke. I was treated for heat stroke. So yeah,
he was a fighter, and he loved food until his
very last breath. And I will say this because a
(26:33):
lot of people, and I know I've talked about this before,
but a lot of people will say, Okay, I'm going
to monitor their quality of life. When my pet stops eating,
that's when I'll know it's time. And I'm here to
tell you that, sadly, like that can't be the only
thing that we take into consideration, because Biggie's a perfect example.
He was in full throttle heart failure. He had a
fluid in his chest, medications weren't keeping up with that anymore,
(26:56):
and he crushed a number seven combo meal like he
would have eaten he would be eating forever and ever
and ever. But he didn't have a great quality of life.
Aside from that, he.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Had moments where you were like which made it very difficult.
But and I think realistically we probably could have delayed
it a little bit longer. But going back to the
whole catalyst of it was about to be really traumatic.
Not us, we can deal with us, but for him, Yeah,
(27:27):
he's waking up in the middle of night and feeling
like he's drowning. Yeah, like, that's who wants their dog
to go through that. So yeah, we're just like, let's
let's make the decision, knowing that he can't make the
decision for himself. But I do legitimately, at my core
feel like we made the right decision for him.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I agree. I also want to say that you will
never ever feel completely ready. I don't know a single person,
and maybe some people do, but I certainly can say that,
like I don't have many owners that ever feel one
hundred percent certain. You're always going to have some doubt.
There's always going to be oh, should I wait another day,
should I give it a little bit more time? Have
(28:07):
I done everything I could do? Did they know that
I love them? So you're you're gonna have a lot
of questions. You're never going to feel completely ready, And
so again I just can't stress how important it is
to rely on your veterinarian and rely on your partner,
have someone else help you making that decision. I do
want to talk a little bit about our specific euthanasia
experience with Biggie. I think everyone is different, and maybe
(28:31):
it's you know, I feel like we think it's kind
of tappy to talk about death and euthanasia, but like
I said, everyone experiences it. So we decided to euthanize
at home. Some people go into the clinic to euthanize,
some people will do it in their home. It's really
kind of wherever your most comfortable. I chose this for
him because he's most comfortable at home. He did not
(28:53):
like going to the vet clinic. And I'm even his vet,
so I don't know what that says. So we decided
to do it at home. Lucky in that one of
our best friends, Ellen, who also works with me. She's
my head nurse. She lives just around the corner, so
she was kind of able to come over and help
us through it. Usually what we do is will place
(29:15):
an IVY catheter in their arm. That way we have
access to their vein. In Biggie's case, he hates to
have his paws touched. We were we couldn't trim a
single tonail on this guy. I mean, he's the hands
down the worst dog I've ever had for a tonail trim.
And I'm not just saying my dog. I'm saying, like
(29:36):
all my patients, all the dogs I take care of.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Ever, Well, yeah, I love how you threw in that
caveat for a toenail trim. Like if he was twenty
pounds heavier, he wouldn't have made it as long as
he did. Because, once again, if you had a posable
thumbs to swear to God, eighty percent of the people
who walked through the door.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Would have been checked. Now he sounds so bad, Oh
he was. He was a bad boy, the best worst
dog ever heavier.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, there's no way he would have made it this long.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
But yeah, the guy had to fight.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
He had passion, passion, and god did he have some
grinch toes on his little fuzzy grinch toes. He hated
having his toes. So I was like, Okay, how in
the heck am I going to get an ivy catheter
in this dog? Because I have to hold their paw
and get the catheter in. So I'm like, this is
going to be really bad, and I don't want to
stress him out anymore, Like I need our final moments
(30:30):
to be peaceful together. So we decided to give him
some injectable sedation, which just makes them like a little drunk.
That way, they're not as stressed about when we're touching them.
So we give him, Yeah, relax them exactly. So I'm
holding him, you're feeding him in mcflurry. Ellen gives him
(30:51):
his shot in the butt and then he got on.
He won last bite.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
The last ten minutes of his life he drew blood again.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Oh yeah, he did get you a little bit. Ohah, no,
so you're gonna I don't want to say anything bad
about him. I want to remember him. He was very
he was perfect, and he got really drunk really quick.
Usually in an injection in the muscle, so like in
the butt can take anywhere from like five to fifteen
(31:20):
minutes to kick in. In his case, I think it
took like thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
That was the most traumatic part of it, because you
had stepped out to do something so injection. I was
feeding him the mcflurry. Josie walks out, and then like
fifteen seconds later, I was like, this guy is really
messed up, like falling over legs, going wide, couldn't even
keep his head up to eat the mcflurry. No, granted,
(31:45):
he was still eating it right like. He was like,
let's go to town on this head oreos and of course,
uh And then I called you. I was like, there's
something wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, So I came running back upstairs and he was
getting really dysporic. So I was like, okay, Wow, the
sedation's kicking in really quickly. I go to scoop them up.
We walk into the living room We're sitting in the
living room with him, and about sixty seconds later, you know,
I feel him taking some deep breaths. He's relaxing, the
(32:15):
sedation is working, and I look at you and I say,
I think he's gonna pass away from the sedation. And
we just sat there and stared at him. And thirty
seconds later he had passed away, which was for me, sorry,
go ahead, we're you gonna say something for me. I
have never I've worked in a VAT clinic for twenty years,
(32:36):
I have never had a patient pass from the pre meds.
We almost always will, you know, give them a little sedation,
put the IVY cathterin, then we push some propofall, which
is like going under anesthesia, and then from there we'll
give them. Once they're nice and under, we give them
the euthanasia and they, like, very peacefully drift to sleep.
(32:57):
We didn't even get a chance to put his catheterin
or give him proper vault or euthanasia. He passed from
his sedation, which for me was really twofold. I didn't
know how to feel about that. In the moment, I
was like, WHOA, Like I thought I had another twenty
minutes to like say a proper I mean I'd already
said goodbye, but you know, you just have this plan
in your head of like, oh, I have twenty more minutes,
(33:17):
I'm gonna say him goodbye, like I'm going to be
telling him goodbye as he's getting the euthanasia. And I
didn't get that, which is fine. It's not about me,
it's about him. It just you know, when you have
something in your head and it doesn't go to plan.
I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't super stressed,
and I don't think he was.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I don't think he was either, because you were holding
him and I was looking at him, and you were like,
I think he's going to pass. I was like, honey,
I think he already has or was in the process
of it. But the way I justified in my head
is he was just constantly fighting to breathe fighting to
(33:59):
become to and then he just.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Got a little edge where that edge was.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Like I can finally relax, and like in his eyes
at that time, he just like went to sleep, and
probably in a more peaceful way than putting in an IV,
putting more drugs into him, stressing him out. I think
he went out on his terms, and I think he
just was like, this is great. I'm gonna close my eyes,
I'm gonna stop breathing in true biggie fashion.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, all that to say, I just I think afterwards,
like maybe I'm desensitized it from it because I see
it all the time. But I do think that if
you leave your pets youth in Asia and you're like,
oh my gosh, like that didn't go as I expected,
or they yelped when they got the shot, or they
(34:45):
were fidgeting a bunch for their catheter, I guess you know,
it's never going to be one hundred percent perfect for
how we envision it, and I think you're always gonna
leave with a little bit of like, oh my gosh,
like did I make the right decision? Did it go okay?
I think it's normal have some level of like uncertainty,
and I just I am a veterinarian and I even
have that, you know, feeling after leaving it with him.
(35:07):
So I guess if you feel that, just you're not
alone in that at all, and feeling a little bit
of guilt potentially is very normal. And the other interesting
feeling that I have felt, or that I immediately felt
I would say that I was like, oh my gosh,
I can't believe I'm feeling this was a little bit
of relief, just knowing that, Okay, he's not suffering anymore.
(35:30):
We finally made the decision. Making the decision is so hard,
So making that decision once you've made it, and being like, Okay,
now he's at peace. So feeling a little bit of relief.
I was obviously devastated, heartbroken, but also feeling a little
bit of that too. Yeah, I am The other thing
that people don't talk about that I think is so
interesting and maybe just this go around, because obviously with
(35:54):
euthanized Luca, but this go around, I've really been like
thinking about it a lot. Is that following day after
euthanasia feels to me like maybe the worst of it all.
I feel like the day of you're like making this
terrible decision, You're having to say bye, like you're I mean,
for me, I'm like crying hysterically. It's like a fever
dream kind of. Then you get home and then the
(36:17):
next day you wake up and it's almost like I
woke up the next morning and like for the first
few eyeblinks, I'm like, oh, yeah, everything's normal, Biggie, Like
my life is normal, Biggie's here, and then you just
remember like okay, yeah, Biggie's dead, and it's just like
this gut wrenching, like having to just like go on
with life, feeling this extreme grief.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, and just going back making a terrible decision. I
don't think we made a terrible decision. We made the
right decision.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
For him, A hard decision, a.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Hard decision for us. But the way he passed, the
way he was progressing in the disease, it was exactly
how it was supposed to be. But the next day, yes,
you just it hasn't sunk in yet. You're almost in disbelief.
You're in the stages of grief. Yeah you so I
(37:12):
saw that too.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah. I think it's like, Okay, it happens. It's like
this somewhat climac climactic event. And then it's the following
days that I find are the most challenging. And so
you wake up and his little stairs are by the bed,
and it's just like what do we do with the stairs,
Like do we throw them away? Do we move them?
Like his hairs are on my pillow. I go in
the morning to feed the dogs, and I grab three
(37:35):
bowls instead of two, Like just your whole life, this
like major part of your life. There's just this massive
void now. I mean it's just true and utter grief
and just having to navigate through it. It's horrible. I
definitely like have such a new empathy for my clients
that are single or don't have a partner in life,
(37:58):
or are widowed, whatever it may be. Because I relied
heavily on you, I would say, yeah, through that, you're
so strong, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
I think the other like, I don't know if it's
like super well set up on after that, because then
you have the they come and creamate in and then
the next day they're like delivering a box and like
everybody's sending flowers, which is like really generous and like
I very much appreciate that everybody did that, but it's
like kind of just a constant reminder.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
And then they're like so quick to give you the
ashes and.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
You're just like.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Maybe just wait a week, you think, yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And then they show up at the door and they're
like we're bringing big home. I'm like, oh, well, here
comes the water works. It happened and again I know.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I was like, just just give me a week.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I don't, but that's interesting. I feel like we could
ask the crematorium to do that. I think it's like
great service that they bring it to you the next day.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
I mean the nicest people.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, and they're like, you know, they're they come to
the door, they're crying. I'm like, and you, I did
it without you telling you when they were coming, because
I was like trying to like kind of shield that.
And they're like, we're here to bring biggie home.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I'm like, oh, I hate that. I can't even think
about it.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I just can please shut up?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Like I know you're so sweet and you're like you're
really thoughtful, but like I just I just need to
cry and.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Look yeah, like for a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, it is really sad. Some places, some VET clinics
will hold the ashes for you, which is nice. Yeah,
so it doesn't have to they don't have to come
home the next day, but yeah, the following days after.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
To me prints the paw princess and like, awful, his
hair is stuck to it.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I this might be weird. I don't know if this
is weird or not, but I have I can't bring
myself to put his pawprint like up on a shelf,
So it's sitting on my nightstand, my bedstand, right next
to my bed and like I'm a freak. Like every
night I just like put my little finger on the pall,
like tell him good night. And I know now I'm
(40:02):
like people are gonna think I'm so weird. I don't care.
He was the love of my life. And his little
hairs like somehow got into the clay Grinch toes.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I mean, we need to upload a photo of his
Grinch shoes.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Because they was cute. He was cute, like at first,
not cute, but like his toes, he was so beautiful, hideous,
Like if you the movie The Grinch, it's a perfect image.
Like if we could have died him green.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
He had such beautiful fur and hair.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Remember one time in the summer, this is when he
had first gotten diagnosed with heart disease and I'm such
a crazy dog mom, and our ac went out and
he was so high. It was August in Tennessee. He's
like kind of panting. I'm like, okay, like the AC's out,
I need to keep him cool, Like what the hell's
going on? And you're on a work call, and I
go back to the bathroom and I take clippers and
(40:53):
I give him a full throttle buzz cut. And this
dog had long, beautiful hair. And the next thing I
know is you're on your call and like, look at
what I did. And he's running by you. And his
head is like a fluffy ball like Maine, and the
rest of his body is like a naked mule rat.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Like a hot dog.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
He looked like in like an over.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Stuffed hot dog.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
You were like, oh my god, we're gonna have to
hide him for a while.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
He loved his haircut.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I think that was the same time. Then we would
take him out on walks and people would be like,
did you get a third dog? And we're like, I no, no, no,
he's been here longer than the other two.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
He's been here forever. He just doesn't like to walk
in the heat. He has heart disease. Okay, oh my gosh. Yeah,
he had such beautiful for anyways. Beautiful, Yeah, I guess,
like I do know other owners that like keep their
ashes in the earth. They never spread them. Like whatever
you need to do to feel good, If you want
to put that popprint on your nightstand and kiss it
good night every night. You do what you need to do.
(41:48):
Because I'm laughing right now. I'm like I was talking
to Morgan, I was like, am I gonna cry during
this episode? I feel like I'm like a little like
maybe dad inside right now, I don't know all my tears,
have no tears left. I cried so much, but yeah,
whatever you need to do to get through, because there's
really no worst grief in the world. And I've said
it once, I'll say it again. I have had so
(42:09):
many people say I didn't cry this much when my
mom died. I didn't cry this much when my grandma died.
And I'm telling you it's because they are like your
mom and your grandma don't get into bed with you
every single night like they are not It's such an
intimate relationship.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
I would have preferred Biggie not getting into bed with
us every night. But lost that fight too, you did.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And I'm sure there will be another before you know it.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, I mean he was, Yeah, he was constantly there.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
He was a shadow to you.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
He was always in your shadow, running around after you.
Your relationship with him was twenty four to seven and
my relationship with him was when you weren't around.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
So he was.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
He was full of life, he was a fighter. He
brought me a tremendous amount of joy. He also brought
me a tremendous amount of headache. But at the end
of the day, we made the right decision, and I
think the aftermath and the grief that came from it
(43:21):
was just the normal phases of grief, where if we
were to do it all again, I don't think we
would have changed the thing.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah, I agree. Everyone asked me, are you going to
get a third dog? Are you going to get a
third dog? Well, I won't be telling you before we do.
I'm just kidding. I don't know. I don't really even
feel like I am ready for that at all.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
It's a huge void to fill. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
He was the personality of the house and he was
the boss.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
He was. He was half the weight of Siah and
a tenth of the way of Oakley or a fifth
of the way of Oakley. And he he ran the household.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
He was the he was the mafia boss of this,
the total boss.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, and I think I need a breather.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah, And it's just you know, you're never going to
get a dog to fill that void. And I think
taking a few weeks months here, maybe a little bit longer,
we'll see, because we don't want to fill that void
because nothing will come close to him, like we'll have
to go so dramatically like another syah, right, she's perfect.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
I also think too, like I never really go seeking
them out too much. They tend to just find us.
So whatever, if an animal that needs a home that
nobody else wants, I'll take it. We'll wait and see
what that is and when it's meant to be in
our life. I will say, if you only have one.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Pet, that would be hard.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
You've got to take it back on the wagon or
just like get a second one, because I not if
I didn't have my other two to like be there
with me to get me through this. I don't know.
I don't know how people with one pet do it.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yeah. Yeah, that was a weird revelation too. After Biggie passed,
I was like, all right, let's bring the other dogs
so they can say they're goodbye. And at that exact moment,
I looked at you and I was like, I have
just come to the revelation that dogs cannot critically think
like they cannot recognize that he's not alive, and they.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Were just like totally unfazed, Right, where's the string cheese?
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Totally unfaced, which is which is a great.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Bounce back from the trauma of letting go of a
pa of a dog, because Si would come up and
she'd be like what changed. She would be like a
grounding force where she's like, like, we would be sad,
but she's like I'm still here.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
She's like, it's okay, I'm here. Yeah, I think it's
I like to give other pets the opportunity to say
goodbye to the animal. With that said, I don't know
that they should always be present for the euthanasia themselves.
You know, your pet's better than anyone, so if you
feel like they need to be present, of course, in
my experience, like I want my I want to have
(46:04):
one on one time with my pet, but I also
like to give my other pets the opportunity to at
least sniff them, like if they can even interpret that
we have determined that anxia in Oakley, we're unfazed. But
you know, I think it's nice at least like give
them the opportunity. But yeah, they certainly do not critically
think like humans do, and that is why we love them.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, no, it's very very pure. That's I was actually
just about to say that. I was like, that was
one of the more pure moments that I've seen because
they have spent years with Biggie, they love Biggie. And
then Biggie wasn't moving and they physically couldn't recognize it,
and they just went on with their day. They went
over the couch and got on it and fell asleep. Yeah,
(46:47):
was like, and I was at that moment, I was
like upset. I was like, you guys, this is your brother,
come say goodbye. It wasn't actually upset, but I was.
I was trying to digest it. And then I was like, well,
this is what's so pure about animals is yeah, they
might get a shot in the butt and yelp like
Biggie did, but thirty seconds later or three seconds later,
(47:10):
it was yeah, it was there and gone.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yeah they're half glassful all the time.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, all the time. So that was that was peaceful.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Okay. I want to end this episode with an excerpt
that I read online. I can't I even put it
into chat GPT, which you know knows everything and I
can't find who the author is. So if you're the author,
let me know. It's been floating around. It's called you
do it anyway. I have to pull it up here,
(47:41):
and is this about Biggie No, no, no, no, no, no, okay,
it's an excerpt. You'll see what it is. It's I
don't know the exact context. I think I like to
envision it as it's a parent talking in the first person.
The parent is speaking to their child, Okay, and it's
called you do it anyway. Okay, ready, So you're going
to give them a lecture the listeners right now.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
No, no, no, nogie, Biggie spirit, you're gonna lecture.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
No, no, no. This is just like a it's about
like loving a pet and euthanasia.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Pipe down over there.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
So this is in the perspective of the appearan. It's
a risky thing, giving your heart to a dog, I said,
staring at the leash still hanging by the door, because
you know right from the start that they won't stay forever.
You sign up for an ending before you even begin.
She shifted in her chair, waiting. So I kept going.
But you do it anyway. You let them in. You
(48:36):
let them take up space in your home and your
routines and the parts of you that you didn't even
realize needed filling. And before you know it, they've got
a piece of you, one you won't ever get back,
even long after they're gone. I ax healed, shaking my head.
The funny thing is you never regret it, not even
when the end comes, not even when it recks you
in ways you weren't ready for, because somehow the love
(48:58):
they give outweighs the pain every single time. She nodded,
a small, knowing smile crossing her face. So you do
it anyway, she said, Yeah, you do it anyway. I
think that's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
It is very sweet.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
So on that note, smart, thank you.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
I think that's the first time I've ever remitted that.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
You're glad I picked. I love that, and I'm glad
I have you. Not to get too sappy, but thanks
for being here, being there for me, being a great
dog dad and being on today's episode. Thanks for inviting me,
all right, And that's a rap.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
As always, be sure to rate, review, subscribe. You can
find me at doctor Josivette on Instagram. Send me a
DM let me know what you thought of today's episode,
and we will be back, same time, same place next week.
Yeah, you're listening to In the Vets Office with doctor
Josie Horchak.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
All right, everyone, welcome back to in the Bets Office.
I am your host, Doctor Josie, and this week's episode
is going to look a little bit more different than
previous weeks. As some of you may know from following
me on social media, I recently euthanized my own dog, Biggie,
my little brown Chihuahua beagle Pomeranian mix. He was pretty
(00:39):
infamous on this podcast. I know a lot of you
messaged me saying that you felt like you knew him
from this podcast. He even was on it and bit
Bobby Bones in one of the episodes, so he made
a lot of a lot of wave for a little guy.
And I wanted to do this episode because I feel like,
(01:00):
you know, I've said this before, but every pet owner
will go through the loss of a pet at some point,
and it's something that you know as universal. It's devastating.
I think pet loss can feel really lonely, and so
I wanted to just kind of talk about our experience
and if someone else can relate to it, that's awesome.
(01:22):
This might just be one therapeutic episode for me, which
is also great, but I do like I said, I
think we all go through it, and so hopefully if
one other person feels not alone from listening to this,
then that makes me happy. I decided to bring on
as he's calling himself a guest of honor today. Welcome
to in the BETS office, my husband Cody Hrchak.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I am here. I am nervous. I don't do this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You I never see you nervous.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's let's get started.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
When I was talking to producer Morgan about doing this episode,
I well, I think I'll just do a solo episode.
I'll talk about Biggie. And she's like, well, why don't
you have Cody on And I was like, Okay, maybe
I will do that. And you know, you are amazing
dog Dad, and I feel like you got me through
so much of this with Biggie, so I really thought
(02:16):
it would be nice to have you here, if nothing else,
your moral support for me.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Glad to be here, my moment of stardom. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
All right. I really want to start by talking about
Biggie's adoption story. That is what a story. One of
the biggest fights that we have ever gotten in. And
every time I think about it. It makes me laugh. So
why don't you do? Would you like to actually all
(02:44):
start prefacing it and then you can take it away?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Please do?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I would like to hear your side, okay, and then
I will fill in all the major gaps.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Okay. So I was sitting on the couch with my
sister and at the time I only had one dog,
which was Luca are great Dane, and she was getting older.
What I didn't know is that just a few months
after that we were going to diagnose her with bone cancer.
So did not know that was coming. But I knew
she was getting older and I wanted a second dog.
(03:13):
We had just moved to Tennessee. We finally had a backyard.
I was like, now is the time. And so I
had mentioned to you, hey, we should get another dog,
and You're like, we just moved, we don't need another
dog right now. I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever you say.
So I get a link sent to me of this dog,
this little brown dog that was smiling. He's sitting on
(03:35):
a big chair. I take one look at him. I'm like, yep,
you're mine. And he was up for adoption through Proverbs,
which is another big rescue group here in Nashville. They
do a really good job. They're actually very They have
a pretty strict adoption process. Because I was applying and
they were like grilling me, like a rigorous adoption process.
(03:55):
I was like, guys, you know, I'm a veterinarian, right
doesn't matter. And honestly, I really like that. I think
that's good. We need to make sure that all these
owners are well vetted out. No pun intended to make
sure that these pets are going to great homes. So
they definitely vetted me out. They said, is there anybody
else that lives in the house. They said, yes, my husband.
They said, is he on board with this adoption? I
(04:17):
said absolutely, he is no doubt about it. Did I
ask Cody for permission? No, Cody has no idea I'm
adopting this dog. And what Proverbs does is they they
are all foster based, so they don't have an adoption center.
So on one Saturday a month, they set up a
tent outside of pet Smart and that is where people
(04:39):
who are adopting go to pick up the pet, get
their paperwork, et cetera. So the Saturday rolls around that
it's time for me to go pick up this dog,
and Cody says, I was gatfished. And I still haven't
told Cody yet what's happening. And I said, hey, when
(05:00):
we go to Pet Smart, I got to pick something
up for Luca and Timmy our horse, Like, we'll just
swing by really quick. So we get to Pet Smart,
we park the car, we're getting out of the car,
we're about probably ten steps away from the adoption tent
and he looks at me and he was like, wait
a second. And I have this like big grit on
(05:22):
my face and he was like no, and I was
like yes.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And at that moment, you looked at me and you said,
don't f this up. And I said, I knew we
weren't there for dog food.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I said don't. I don't know why. I said, I'll
kill you if you mess this up for me, something
along those lines. It wasn't nice. It was a threat.
It was a threat. It was a cold blood threat.
And I meant that because if you go up there
and you're at the adoption tent and not everybody in
the family's on board with the adoption, they will rip
the dog back, as they should, and they won't let
(05:56):
you go home with the pet. So I did. I
looked you in the eyes and I said, don't mess
this up for.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Me, and then I looked big in the eyes. I
was like, I really want to mess this up as
much as in that moment after the facts love him,
loved him, but at that moment, I was like, that
is a morbidly obese, smelly buttholeig.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
We get up there and he is, yeah, in the
arms of his foster, he is you guys. We score
body condition one out of nine, nine being the most obese,
one being severely mountainurished. He is a full throttle nine
out of nine. He was an eleven out of nine
if that could even exist. He is so fat, he's
(06:42):
like panting profusely stink. He really smelled like roadkill. Is
this don't day? Don't know why. I think he had
an infected like eye ducked, but he smelled like roadkill.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Either way.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Anyways, I walk up, I'm like, you're beautiful, you're perfect, icy,
You're perfect, You're mine, You're amazing. And so the adoption
the foster hands Cody the collar and says, this is
your new dog. His name at the time was baby Bear.
This is baby Bear. Do you want to put his
collar on him. Cody's holding the collars, standing there looking
(07:16):
at Biggie and he's like, this dog is so fat.
I don't know where his neck starts and stops.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And for clarification, I wasn't fat shaming this dog, but
I mean it was a roly polly.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, he was really puly. And the lady goes, well,
have you never put a collar on before? And I'm
looking at him, like, put the collar on. Put the
collar on. He goes to put the collar on, and
Biggie looks at him and goes er and try yeah,
and he bites you. And I was like, this is amazing.
This is so bad, amazing and so bad. So we snap.
(07:49):
I snapped the collar on really quick. I'm like, okay, perfect,
thank you so much, like goodbye, and we get in
the car.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I'm pissed, pissed.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Cody is not please. He's like this this was like
a major life decision. You haven't consulted me on this.
We get home, he's like, really not please. I think
you like grabbed a beer and you went out and
sit on the back patio and you sat back there
and like stared off into the distance for like hours.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Okay, No, I did not. I'm not mannic I stop that. No,
I did not grab a beer and go sit on
the back porch. That was after he tried to suicide
leap out of the house because he didn't want it either.
Like him and I were on the same page. He
was like, I don't want to be here, and I
was like, I don't want you here, and we had
a good stare down.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
You had a stand off. Did he did try to
jump off a ledge when we first got home, But no,
you were pretty unhappy anyways. All that to say, I
do think, okay, listen, I think I might have learned
my lesson, like I will.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I don't know a thing is not to do because
we weren't even married at that point. We were dating,
we lived together, we were engaged, we were engaged. Yeah,
I mean, things you don't do early in an engagement
is like make life changing decision and bring responsibility.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And I want to say that I regret it, but
I don't. I definitely don't do it tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, I mean, I'm just I'm so confused to how
you you saw him in a photo and was like,
that's a cute dog. Don't get me wrong, like after
the fact, cute at could be, But in that moment,
I just I'm baffled by the fact. You're like, he's mine.
I just knew I can't go without him. I just
knew I had like a million I looked at the
(09:31):
photo and I was like, there's a million reasons not
to go this direction.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Well, he was so cute, and we got him home
and finally like, okay, so what's his name? And I'm like,
baby bear? But he only goes by baby And You're like,
all right, we'll keep the dogs.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Deal breaker, get me back in the car. We're going
back to Patsmorrow. We're not calling him baby bear.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You're like, I'm not calling this dog baby. I'm like, okay, well,
like that's what he knows and he's five now. So
we ended up saying what's the name similar that he
won't have to relearn it, and we ended up on Biggie,
which was fitting.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It was super fitting, tiny, tiny dog next to a
one hundred and forty pound Great Dane. It was like
Biggie and lou right, But his personality, I mean, the
biggest personality of any dog.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I've ever met one. I say this without fail, like
He is the bravest little dog. He would walk into
any air and be like, yep, I own this place.
And I always talk about on the podcast, and you know,
because we've rescued a lot of dogs. Now, it's like
dogs take three days to warm up, three weeks to
do this, three months and like you, your personality is like,
continue to come out now.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
He came into the house like a mafia boss. He's like,
this is mine now.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, he definitely walked in and he was like, no,
I own this place. He got into his bed, he
put all four paws up in the air, and I
think he like started snoring out loud.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Speaking of which, that was another thing. I'm really realizing
that maybe I'm just torturing you as your wife. But
you were like, he can't sleep in the bed. He
smells so bad, Like yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. But
he really wanted to sleep in the bed next to me.
He loved me, and so I was like, I'm just
gonna when you fall asleep, I'm just gonna pick him
up here. So every night he ended up in the bed.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
YEP. It's definitely torturous.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Finally, by the end of it, though, you bought him stairs.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I loved this dog.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It was definitely a hate relationship early on, like we
were just roommates, like the worst roommates ever, you know,
like when you're in college and you're like, hey, this
ain't working out.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
But then he grew on me.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
He did grow on you. And you would always say
that he was like so fickle that when I was here,
like I was his world. He would have followed me everywhere,
and then afterwards when I would leave, he was obsessed
with you.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, definitely, when Josie was here, it was her world,
he was focused on it.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
When she left, oh my god, he was just he
was glued to me.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
He was a little trader.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
He was a trader.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I also love. One of my favorite things is he
loves to look out the window. And he would always
like when I would leave, want to look out the window,
and he'd stay there until I got home. So it
first started you built him like this little Amazon box perch,
like one box, onto two boxes, onto three boxes where
he could climb up. Then finally I come home one
day and you're in there with like a drill and
(12:23):
a hammer, and I'm like, what is going on? And
you got on Wayfair, and you bought him a cat tree.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
That he could like he could so fitting that he could.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Like climb up into and then steer out the window.
Was so cute.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
He definitely he'd liked to be high, he'd like to
look out, and I mean he would be there for
eight hours, like you would leave and then he would
just sit there until you came back.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
He was so loyal and he was clockwork too, like
he I don't know how he dogs know, but like
the moment you were five minutes out, he knew you
were coming and I was like, all right, well this is weird,
and I guess your mom's on our way home.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
They HiT's like there they know when the sun is setting,
like they just are so yeah, intuitive, And he really
loved Sia. We got Sya. We got Biggie in August,
and we got Sia in October. So we went from
one dog to you being like, no, we can't get another,
and I got the second. And then we were on
vacation two months later and we found Sia. So next thing,
(13:19):
I know, which you were kind of on board with, Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
No, no no. That was also very similar. We're on
vacation and you see this dog going on the street.
Next thing I know, I'm in a vet clinic for days,
trying to figure out how to get a dog.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Home from Mexico during the pandemic. Yeah, no, I am.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I didn't talked to something about this. I mean we're
calling up better health tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Okay. But now you love Sia, Well I.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Love Sia, yeah, as much as you loved Biggie.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Game or best decision ever. And so we get Sia
a few months later, and him and Sia were like inseparable.
They loved each.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Other from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, but Biggie always
had that personality where he's like saw Luca hate her,
like they never got along. Ever, Sia comes in love Siah.
Now we have Oakley, but he hated Oakley. Yeah, I
always you know the joke that I always with Biggie.
If Bigie had a posable thumbs, eighty percent of the
people who walk through the door would be dead. Yeah,
(14:19):
like he would just shoot him. Like he didn't. He
didn't like people. He liked one person, Josie or anybody
who had cheese, which your nurse.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Ellen, Yeah, I mean they would you know.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
She'd come over with a pile of cheese. But he
hated everybody else.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Speaking of cheese, You guys, this dog could eat anything.
He had guts of steel.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
He would eat dry wall when we were rendoing our house,
like he would go around and pick up the piece
of the drywall and just like he was caveards.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
He loves drywall, which, by the way, I am fully
aware that I'm a veterinarian and should not condone animals
eating drywall, and I don't and I do not condone that.
I think that's very dangerous. But I could not, like
literally stop him. He would like be like a little
like vacuum cleaner. He loved lu huffed to eat everything.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Every crumb, it doesn't matter what it was.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, I know, And I would like to say that, yes,
we got him really fat, and he's still when he passed,
he still wasn't the smallest little guy in the world,
But damn did we try. We had him on a
pretty strict diet. He lost. He started at like eighteen pounds.
We caught him down to like thirteen or fourteen at
one point. Then towards the end, I was like, ah,
let's let him live a little.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Oh, this is mother's love. You know, you were, We're
like a healthy weight's eleven pounds, maybe twelve pounds, but
once he got to like fourteen, We're like, nah, we're
just gonna let him live.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, he was a cute, little round fourteen pounds.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Well, according to you, he was stocky.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
He was stuck.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
He's pretty chunky.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It was his bone structure.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It was not his bone structure. But we'll just we'll
roll with that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
What So, back in twenty twenty three, I believe is
when I was going to take him in for a
dental he had some stinky breath. I knew he had
a tooth that needed to come out, and the night
before his dental procedure, I didn't examine on him. I
listened to his heart. I had already run his blood work,
(16:11):
and I stuck my stethoscope on his chest and I
was like, whoa, he has a heart murmur that was
not there a couple months ago when I had listened
to him, and so I canceled his dental procedure. I
took him into our veterinary cardiologist here and had an
echo excuse me, an echo cardiogram performed, which is an
ultrasound of the heart. It lets you see all four
(16:34):
chambers of the heart. You can find out exactly why
your pet has a heart murmur, what's causing it, how
serious is it. Is it safe for them to undergo anesthesia?
And the cardiologist diagnosed him with degenerative valve disease. So
two of the valves in his heart were not closing
(16:55):
the way that they should, and so instead of blood
rushing forward and pushed forward in his heart like it's
supposed to, little amounts of blood would rush backwards because
those valves aren't closing all the way. And with time,
that causes the muscles of the heart wall to get
tired and become fatigued, and the heart itself will eventually
(17:17):
not be able to kind of keep up with demand.
And so, knowing that he had degenerative valve disease, he
was at the beginning, I would say, midway to the
beginning of the disease process. And it's really kind of
up in the air for how long pets do after diagnosis.
Every pet is different. Some pets can make it five
more years on average. On average, though, I would say
(17:40):
at the time of what Biggie had his diagnosis, you're
probably looking at like two to three years, and so
that kind of really started it all. And it's so interesting.
I guess we can kind of talk about having a
dog with a disease that you know eventually is going
to take them. And he really did great. I would
(18:01):
say for the first year of diagnosis, we put him
on one or two heart meds, he went under anesthesia,
he had his dental procedure. He did really well. And
I would say like probably like a year and a
half eighteen months after diagnosis is when I felt like
I really started noticing a big difference. He definitely couldn't
exercise as much as he used to without getting winded
(18:24):
more quickly. He started coughing quite a bit. Am I missing.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Anything even just tired?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, tired. Yeah. So we eventually, by the end of
his disease process, I had him on I don't know,
maybe six or seven different medications. I'm a veterinarian, so
and it was hard for me. I cannot imagine what
it's like for other owners out there that don't have
that background being a caretaker for a sick pet. I
(18:52):
just I have a whole new perspective on it and
empathy for my clients because it is a lot of work.
I had to like adjust my everyday schedule to be home.
If I didn't give him his mid day medications right
at one one point thirty, then that kind of set
him up for a really bad night full of coughing,
(19:13):
and that you know, fell onto your shoulders sometimes too
if I wasn't home. So we had to be really
strict about when we gave him his meds, what meds
to give him. I mean, it took me probably thirty
minutes in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the
evening to get his tablets split into the way they
were supposed to be split and all of the doses correct.
And I always had to like tinker around with his doses.
(19:34):
And some days he didn't want to take his pills,
some days he didn't want to eat his food. And
that was for me such an eye opener into how
much work it is, and like the burden of being
a caregiver. And there is something called caregiver fatigue where
you just start to you love your animal, you would
do anything for them. I would still. I would spend
(19:55):
three hours a day splitting his pills and doing whatever
I needed to do for him if it meant he
got to be be here with me, But it is
also true that it was definitely draining.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, I think that was the hardest thing in the
last few months, is especially with Biggie with such a
like progressive disease where he was getting worse and worse,
but he would have like moments of joy where he
would be like, oh, maybe he's not as bad as
we think he is, Like maybe he can live another
four or five six months, And then you know, you
(20:26):
find yourself at a crossroads where you're like, are we
doing it for us, are we doing it for him?
Or a combination of both. And you know, all I
ever had in my past to reference was Luca, which
was our great Dane who passed with bone cancer, and
she was just so much more progressive. Like one day
we just woke up and we're like, we saw this
(20:48):
golf sell golf size, golf ball sized tumor on her leg.
And then a few months later she couldn't walk up
and downstairs and she was like crying, and you're like, oh,
she's in pain. We gotta we gotta do what's right.
Biggie was like he'd have good days, you have bad days,
And it was really hard to disassociate with the fact
(21:08):
of was this for us or was this for him?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah, yeah, totally. So with euthanasia, I think that it's
such a double edged sword of like having that not
having it be an emergency, because there's some people where
they are like, oh my gosh, my pet is so sick.
I rushed them to the er. We have to euthanize,
there's really no other choice. That is devastating because you
(21:31):
don't get to say goodbye, but also in some ways
it's a blessing because you're not living with this six
months to a year of living in that kind of
gray area. And like you said, with Luca, it was
very clear with bone cancer. We got to a point
where we just couldn't keep her comfortable anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Pain.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah she was. She was definitely in pain. But Biggie
was like coughing a lot, but he still was like,
let me eat, let's do this, let's do that, and
so it was definitely, yeah, blagging his tail. So it
is definitely very, very difficult. And I just want to say, like,
I am lucky because I have you, Like, I think
(22:09):
you're very pragmatic and logical about these things, and I
am a veterinarian. So like I coach people through this
all the time, that's my job. But when it comes
to your own animal, no matter how practical pragmatic, if
you're in the veterinary field or not, like your sense
of reasonable thinking really goes out the window. And so
(22:29):
I would stress that if you feel like you're in
this time where you have to make this decision, you
shouldn't have to make this decision alone. And if you
don't have a partner that you can rely on, call
your veterinarian, take your pet in and go in for
just a quality of life visit. We do those all
the time, and it's our job just to help you
(22:49):
as an objective outsider, to help you make that decision,
because when it's your own pet, it feels impossible.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, especially when when you love animal as much as
we did, and we were part of our family.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
And I think what really drove that decision was.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
There were there were great days that were congruent, and
then there was like a bad night where he couldn't
sleep and he was coughing and he felt and you
could just see in his eyes he it was sad.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
But then he'd wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Be totally fine. He's like, where's my breakfast? Right? And
I think what ultimately helped us drive the decision was
the number of days he was good was getting less
before we had a bad evening or a bad day.
And the what I did was I set you down.
I was like, we're on the verge of something very
(23:42):
traumatic happening, where like he's incredibly scared and a lot
of pain. We're freaking out, Like we just need to
understand like if we keep progressing this, like if we
keep pushing this off until something really traumatic happens, it's
not good for us or good for him him hm.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
And it was just that was kind of the probable
the approach that I took, whereas.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
There's going to be a night where's he literally feels
like he's suffocating, and do we want him to get
to that point?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah? I think that's such a great point to make
because I do talk to owners about you know, we
can wait, but we're going to get to a point
just like you said, where it's an emergency, you're rushing
him into the er overnight and then maybe you don't
get a say goodbye on the terms that you want to.
And some people say I don't care. I'll wait till
the last second. But then also you have to think,
(24:31):
like your pet is probably suffering, And to us, it
was more important just to be able to say goodbye
in a peaceful way where he could eat a number
seven combo meal from McDonald's. He could crush it in
the backyard. He got all the love in the world.
He got super high, and we were able to say
(24:51):
goodbye at home. So I feel like that super high
that was helpful for us.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
We gave him the pre med and he definitely he
was seeing Lucy in the sky with diamonds. He was
he was having a good time.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
He ate it was amazing. He had a double cheeseburger mcflury.
He did have an oreo.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Mcflury had to have an entire box of.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
French fries and chicken nuggets.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
And now we know why he never got under fourteen
pounds never.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
He just loved it. I almost forgot why I want
to keep going and we're going to come back to this.
Almost forgot to say that when we adopted him, who
had owned him before. I think I've talked about this
on the podcast before, but he had a prior to
me being his mother. He had an elderly woman that
owned him, and she had let him out into the
(25:40):
backyard to go potty. She went back inside, sat down
on her chair and passed away. I don't know if
she had a stroke or a heart attack. The details
are vague, but yeah, the details are vague, but she
passed away. And eventually the neighbors a few days after this, realized, hey,
this little dog's been locked out in the backyard. I
think they saw him July. Right in July, they saw it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean, the guy stayed outside for five days, no food,
no aud.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
He had a lot of fat storage, I mean.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
And a lot of fur. Like heat stroke would have
been a real thing.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
No, I think he did. So Yeah, Finally they were like,
this is weird. They didn't know any family, so they
called the police. The police knocked down the door. They
found her passed away, and Biggie was locked in the backyard.
And I do think he went to a clinic for
heat stroke. I was treated for heat stroke. So yeah,
he was a fighter, and he loved food until his
very last breath. And I will say this because a
(26:33):
lot of people, and I know I've talked about this before,
but a lot of people will say, Okay, I'm going
to monitor their quality of life. When my pet stops eating,
that's when I'll know it's time. And I'm here to
tell you that, sadly, like that can't be the only
thing that we take into consideration, because Biggie's a perfect example.
He was in full throttle heart failure. He had a
fluid in his chest, medications weren't keeping up with that anymore,
(26:56):
and he crushed a number seven combo meal like he
would have eaten he would be eating forever and ever
and ever. But he didn't have a great quality of life.
Aside from that, he.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Had moments where you were like which made it very difficult.
But and I think realistically we probably could have delayed
it a little bit longer. But going back to the
whole catalyst of it was about to be really traumatic.
Not us, we can deal with us, but for him, Yeah,
(27:27):
he's waking up in the middle of night and feeling
like he's drowning. Yeah, like, that's who wants their dog
to go through that. So yeah, we're just like, let's
let's make the decision, knowing that he can't make the
decision for himself. But I do legitimately, at my core
feel like we made the right decision for him.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I agree. I also want to say that you will
never ever feel completely ready. I don't know a single person,
and maybe some people do, but I certainly can say that,
like I don't have many owners that ever feel one
hundred percent certain. You're always going to have some doubt.
There's always going to be oh, should I wait another day,
should I give it a little bit more time? Have
(28:07):
I done everything I could do? Did they know that
I love them? So you're you're gonna have a lot
of questions. You're never going to feel completely ready, And
so again I just can't stress how important it is
to rely on your veterinarian and rely on your partner,
have someone else help you making that decision. I do
want to talk a little bit about our specific euthanasia
experience with Biggie. I think everyone is different, and maybe
(28:31):
it's you know, I feel like we think it's kind
of tappy to talk about death and euthanasia, but like
I said, everyone experiences it. So we decided to euthanize
at home. Some people go into the clinic to euthanize,
some people will do it in their home. It's really
kind of wherever your most comfortable. I chose this for
him because he's most comfortable at home. He did not
(28:53):
like going to the vet clinic. And I'm even his vet,
so I don't know what that says. So we decided
to do it at home. Lucky in that one of
our best friends, Ellen, who also works with me. She's
my head nurse. She lives just around the corner, so
she was kind of able to come over and help
us through it. Usually what we do is will place
(29:15):
an IVY catheter in their arm. That way we have
access to their vein. In Biggie's case, he hates to
have his paws touched. We were we couldn't trim a
single tonail on this guy. I mean, he's the hands
down the worst dog I've ever had for a tonail trim.
And I'm not just saying my dog. I'm saying, like
(29:36):
all my patients, all the dogs I take care of.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Ever, Well, yeah, I love how you threw in that
caveat for a toenail trim. Like if he was twenty
pounds heavier, he wouldn't have made it as long as
he did. Because, once again, if you had a posable
thumbs to swear to God, eighty percent of the people
who walked through the door.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Would have been checked. Now he sounds so bad, Oh
he was. He was a bad boy, the best worst
dog ever heavier.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, there's no way he would have made it this long.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
But yeah, the guy had to fight.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
He had passion, passion, and god did he have some
grinch toes on his little fuzzy grinch toes. He hated
having his toes. So I was like, Okay, how in
the heck am I going to get an ivy catheter
in this dog? Because I have to hold their paw
and get the catheter in. So I'm like, this is
going to be really bad, and I don't want to
stress him out anymore, Like I need our final moments
(30:30):
to be peaceful together. So we decided to give him
some injectable sedation, which just makes them like a little drunk.
That way, they're not as stressed about when we're touching them.
So we give him, Yeah, relax them exactly. So I'm
holding him, you're feeding him in mcflurry. Ellen gives him
(30:51):
his shot in the butt and then he got on.
He won last bite.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
The last ten minutes of his life he drew blood again.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Oh yeah, he did get you a little bit. Ohah, no,
so you're gonna I don't want to say anything bad
about him. I want to remember him. He was very
he was perfect, and he got really drunk really quick.
Usually in an injection in the muscle, so like in
the butt can take anywhere from like five to fifteen
(31:20):
minutes to kick in. In his case, I think it
took like thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
That was the most traumatic part of it, because you
had stepped out to do something so injection. I was
feeding him the mcflurry. Josie walks out, and then like
fifteen seconds later, I was like, this guy is really
messed up, like falling over legs, going wide, couldn't even
keep his head up to eat the mcflurry. No, granted,
(31:45):
he was still eating it right like. He was like,
let's go to town on this head oreos and of course,
uh And then I called you. I was like, there's
something wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, So I came running back upstairs and he was
getting really dysporic. So I was like, okay, Wow, the
sedation's kicking in really quickly. I go to scoop them up.
We walk into the living room We're sitting in the
living room with him, and about sixty seconds later, you know,
I feel him taking some deep breaths. He's relaxing, the
(32:15):
sedation is working, and I look at you and I say,
I think he's gonna pass away from the sedation. And
we just sat there and stared at him. And thirty
seconds later he had passed away, which was for me, sorry,
go ahead, we're you gonna say something for me. I
have never I've worked in a VAT clinic for twenty years,
(32:36):
I have never had a patient pass from the pre meds.
We almost always will, you know, give them a little sedation,
put the IVY cathterin, then we push some propofall, which
is like going under anesthesia, and then from there we'll
give them. Once they're nice and under, we give them
the euthanasia and they, like, very peacefully drift to sleep.
(32:57):
We didn't even get a chance to put his catheterin
or give him proper vault or euthanasia. He passed from
his sedation, which for me was really twofold. I didn't
know how to feel about that. In the moment, I
was like, WHOA, Like I thought I had another twenty
minutes to like say a proper I mean I'd already
said goodbye, but you know, you just have this plan
in your head of like, oh, I have twenty more minutes,
(33:17):
I'm gonna say him goodbye, like I'm going to be
telling him goodbye as he's getting the euthanasia. And I
didn't get that, which is fine. It's not about me,
it's about him. It just you know, when you have
something in your head and it doesn't go to plan.
I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't super stressed,
and I don't think he was.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I don't think he was either, because you were holding
him and I was looking at him, and you were like,
I think he's going to pass. I was like, honey,
I think he already has or was in the process
of it. But the way I justified in my head
is he was just constantly fighting to breathe fighting to
(33:59):
become to and then he just.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Got a little edge where that edge was.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Like I can finally relax, and like in his eyes
at that time, he just like went to sleep, and
probably in a more peaceful way than putting in an IV,
putting more drugs into him, stressing him out. I think
he went out on his terms, and I think he
just was like, this is great. I'm gonna close my eyes,
I'm gonna stop breathing in true biggie fashion.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, all that to say, I just I think afterwards,
like maybe I'm desensitized it from it because I see
it all the time. But I do think that if
you leave your pets youth in Asia and you're like,
oh my gosh, like that didn't go as I expected,
or they yelped when they got the shot, or they
(34:45):
were fidgeting a bunch for their catheter, I guess you know,
it's never going to be one hundred percent perfect for
how we envision it, and I think you're always gonna
leave with a little bit of like, oh my gosh,
like did I make the right decision? Did it go okay?
I think it's normal have some level of like uncertainty,
and I just I am a veterinarian and I even
have that, you know, feeling after leaving it with him.
(35:07):
So I guess if you feel that, just you're not
alone in that at all, and feeling a little bit
of guilt potentially is very normal. And the other interesting
feeling that I have felt, or that I immediately felt
I would say that I was like, oh my gosh,
I can't believe I'm feeling this was a little bit
of relief, just knowing that, Okay, he's not suffering anymore.
(35:30):
We finally made the decision. Making the decision is so hard,
So making that decision once you've made it, and being like, Okay,
now he's at peace. So feeling a little bit of relief.
I was obviously devastated, heartbroken, but also feeling a little
bit of that too. Yeah, I am The other thing
that people don't talk about that I think is so
interesting and maybe just this go around, because obviously with
(35:54):
euthanized Luca, but this go around, I've really been like
thinking about it a lot. Is that following day after
euthanasia feels to me like maybe the worst of it all.
I feel like the day of you're like making this
terrible decision, You're having to say bye, like you're I mean,
for me, I'm like crying hysterically. It's like a fever
dream kind of. Then you get home and then the
(36:17):
next day you wake up and it's almost like I
woke up the next morning and like for the first
few eyeblinks, I'm like, oh, yeah, everything's normal, Biggie, Like
my life is normal, Biggie's here, and then you just
remember like okay, yeah, Biggie's dead, and it's just like
this gut wrenching, like having to just like go on
with life, feeling this extreme grief.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, and just going back making a terrible decision. I
don't think we made a terrible decision. We made the
right decision.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
For him, A hard decision, a.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Hard decision for us. But the way he passed, the
way he was progressing in the disease, it was exactly
how it was supposed to be. But the next day, yes,
you just it hasn't sunk in yet. You're almost in disbelief.
You're in the stages of grief. Yeah you so I
(37:12):
saw that too.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah. I think it's like, Okay, it happens. It's like
this somewhat climac climactic event. And then it's the following
days that I find are the most challenging. And so
you wake up and his little stairs are by the bed,
and it's just like what do we do with the stairs,
Like do we throw them away? Do we move them?
Like his hairs are on my pillow. I go in
the morning to feed the dogs, and I grab three
(37:35):
bowls instead of two, Like just your whole life, this
like major part of your life. There's just this massive
void now. I mean it's just true and utter grief
and just having to navigate through it. It's horrible. I
definitely like have such a new empathy for my clients
that are single or don't have a partner in life,
(37:58):
or are widowed, whatever it may be. Because I relied
heavily on you, I would say, yeah, through that, you're
so strong, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
I think the other like, I don't know if it's
like super well set up on after that, because then
you have the they come and creamate in and then
the next day they're like delivering a box and like
everybody's sending flowers, which is like really generous and like
I very much appreciate that everybody did that, but it's
like kind of just a constant reminder.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
And then they're like so quick to give you the
ashes and.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
You're just like.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Maybe just wait a week, you think, yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And then they show up at the door and they're
like we're bringing big home. I'm like, oh, well, here
comes the water works. It happened and again I know.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I was like, just just give me a week.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I don't, but that's interesting. I feel like we could
ask the crematorium to do that. I think it's like
great service that they bring it to you the next day.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
I mean the nicest people.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, and they're like, you know, they're they come to
the door, they're crying. I'm like, and you, I did
it without you telling you when they were coming, because
I was like trying to like kind of shield that.
And they're like, we're here to bring biggie home.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I'm like, oh, I hate that. I can't even think
about it.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I just can please shut up?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Like I know you're so sweet and you're like you're
really thoughtful, but like I just I just need to
cry and.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Look yeah, like for a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, it is really sad. Some places, some VET clinics
will hold the ashes for you, which is nice. Yeah,
so it doesn't have to they don't have to come
home the next day, but yeah, the following days after.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
To me prints the paw princess and like, awful, his
hair is stuck to it.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I this might be weird. I don't know if this
is weird or not, but I have I can't bring
myself to put his pawprint like up on a shelf,
So it's sitting on my nightstand, my bedstand, right next
to my bed and like I'm a freak. Like every
night I just like put my little finger on the pall,
like tell him good night. And I know now I'm
(40:02):
like people are gonna think I'm so weird. I don't care.
He was the love of my life. And his little
hairs like somehow got into the clay Grinch toes.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I mean, we need to upload a photo of his
Grinch shoes.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Because they was cute. He was cute, like at first,
not cute, but like his toes, he was so beautiful, hideous,
Like if you the movie The Grinch, it's a perfect image.
Like if we could have died him green.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
He had such beautiful fur and hair.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Remember one time in the summer, this is when he
had first gotten diagnosed with heart disease and I'm such
a crazy dog mom, and our ac went out and
he was so high. It was August in Tennessee. He's
like kind of panting. I'm like, okay, like the AC's out,
I need to keep him cool, Like what the hell's
going on? And you're on a work call, and I
go back to the bathroom and I take clippers and
(40:53):
I give him a full throttle buzz cut. And this
dog had long, beautiful hair. And the next thing I
know is you're on your call and like, look at
what I did. And he's running by you. And his
head is like a fluffy ball like Maine, and the
rest of his body is like a naked mule rat.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Like a hot dog.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
He looked like in like an over.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Stuffed hot dog.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
You were like, oh my god, we're gonna have to
hide him for a while.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
He loved his haircut.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I think that was the same time. Then we would
take him out on walks and people would be like,
did you get a third dog? And we're like, I no, no, no,
he's been here longer than the other two.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
He's been here forever. He just doesn't like to walk
in the heat. He has heart disease. Okay, oh my gosh. Yeah,
he had such beautiful for anyways. Beautiful, Yeah, I guess,
like I do know other owners that like keep their
ashes in the earth. They never spread them. Like whatever
you need to do to feel good, If you want
to put that popprint on your nightstand and kiss it
good night every night. You do what you need to do.
(41:48):
Because I'm laughing right now. I'm like I was talking
to Morgan, I was like, am I gonna cry during
this episode? I feel like I'm like a little like
maybe dad inside right now, I don't know all my tears,
have no tears left. I cried so much, but yeah,
whatever you need to do to get through, because there's
really no worst grief in the world. And I've said
it once, I'll say it again. I have had so
(42:09):
many people say I didn't cry this much when my
mom died. I didn't cry this much when my grandma died.
And I'm telling you it's because they are like your
mom and your grandma don't get into bed with you
every single night like they are not It's such an
intimate relationship.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
I would have preferred Biggie not getting into bed with
us every night. But lost that fight too, you did.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And I'm sure there will be another before you know it.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, I mean he was, Yeah, he was constantly there.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
He was a shadow to you.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
He was always in your shadow, running around after you.
Your relationship with him was twenty four to seven and
my relationship with him was when you weren't around.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
So he was.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
He was full of life, he was a fighter. He
brought me a tremendous amount of joy. He also brought
me a tremendous amount of headache. But at the end
of the day, we made the right decision, and I
think the aftermath and the grief that came from it
(43:21):
was just the normal phases of grief, where if we
were to do it all again, I don't think we
would have changed the thing.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah, I agree. Everyone asked me, are you going to
get a third dog? Are you going to get a
third dog? Well, I won't be telling you before we do.
I'm just kidding. I don't know. I don't really even
feel like I am ready for that at all.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
It's a huge void to fill. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
He was the personality of the house and he was
the boss.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
He was. He was half the weight of Siah and
a tenth of the way of Oakley or a fifth
of the way of Oakley. And he he ran the household.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
He was the he was the mafia boss of this,
the total boss.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, and I think I need a breather.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah, And it's just you know, you're never going to
get a dog to fill that void. And I think
taking a few weeks months here, maybe a little bit longer,
we'll see, because we don't want to fill that void
because nothing will come close to him, like we'll have
to go so dramatically like another syah, right, she's perfect.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
I also think too, like I never really go seeking
them out too much. They tend to just find us.
So whatever, if an animal that needs a home that
nobody else wants, I'll take it. We'll wait and see
what that is and when it's meant to be in
our life. I will say, if you only have one.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Pet, that would be hard.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
You've got to take it back on the wagon or
just like get a second one, because I not if
I didn't have my other two to like be there
with me to get me through this. I don't know.
I don't know how people with one pet do it.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yeah. Yeah, that was a weird revelation too. After Biggie passed,
I was like, all right, let's bring the other dogs
so they can say they're goodbye. And at that exact moment,
I looked at you and I was like, I have
just come to the revelation that dogs cannot critically think
like they cannot recognize that he's not alive, and they.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Were just like totally unfazed, Right, where's the string cheese?
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Totally unfaced, which is which is a great.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Bounce back from the trauma of letting go of a
pa of a dog, because Si would come up and
she'd be like what changed. She would be like a
grounding force where she's like, like, we would be sad,
but she's like I'm still here.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
She's like, it's okay, I'm here. Yeah, I think it's
I like to give other pets the opportunity to say
goodbye to the animal. With that said, I don't know
that they should always be present for the euthanasia themselves.
You know, your pet's better than anyone, so if you
feel like they need to be present, of course, in
my experience, like I want my I want to have
(46:04):
one on one time with my pet, but I also
like to give my other pets the opportunity to at
least sniff them, like if they can even interpret that
we have determined that anxia in Oakley, we're unfazed. But
you know, I think it's nice at least like give
them the opportunity. But yeah, they certainly do not critically
think like humans do, and that is why we love them.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, no, it's very very pure. That's I was actually
just about to say that. I was like, that was
one of the more pure moments that I've seen because
they have spent years with Biggie, they love Biggie. And
then Biggie wasn't moving and they physically couldn't recognize it,
and they just went on with their day. They went
over the couch and got on it and fell asleep. Yeah,
(46:47):
was like, and I was at that moment, I was
like upset. I was like, you guys, this is your brother,
come say goodbye. It wasn't actually upset, but I was.
I was trying to digest it. And then I was like, well,
this is what's so pure about animals is yeah, they
might get a shot in the butt and yelp like
Biggie did, but thirty seconds later or three seconds later,
(47:10):
it was yeah, it was there and gone.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yeah they're half glassful all the time.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, all the time. So that was that was peaceful.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Okay. I want to end this episode with an excerpt
that I read online. I can't I even put it
into chat GPT, which you know knows everything and I
can't find who the author is. So if you're the author,
let me know. It's been floating around. It's called you
do it anyway. I have to pull it up here,
(47:41):
and is this about Biggie No, no, no, no, no, no, okay,
it's an excerpt. You'll see what it is. It's I
don't know the exact context. I think I like to
envision it as it's a parent talking in the first person.
The parent is speaking to their child, Okay, and it's
called you do it anyway. Okay, ready, So you're going
to give them a lecture the listeners right now.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
No, no, no, nogie, Biggie spirit, you're gonna lecture.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
No, no, no. This is just like a it's about
like loving a pet and euthanasia.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Pipe down over there.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
So this is in the perspective of the appearan. It's
a risky thing, giving your heart to a dog, I said,
staring at the leash still hanging by the door, because
you know right from the start that they won't stay forever.
You sign up for an ending before you even begin.
She shifted in her chair, waiting. So I kept going.
But you do it anyway. You let them in. You
(48:36):
let them take up space in your home and your
routines and the parts of you that you didn't even
realize needed filling. And before you know it, they've got
a piece of you, one you won't ever get back,
even long after they're gone. I ax healed, shaking my head.
The funny thing is you never regret it, not even
when the end comes, not even when it recks you
in ways you weren't ready for, because somehow the love
(48:58):
they give outweighs the pain every single time. She nodded,
a small, knowing smile crossing her face. So you do
it anyway, she said, Yeah, you do it anyway. I
think that's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
It is very sweet.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
So on that note, smart, thank you.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
I think that's the first time I've ever remitted that.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
You're glad I picked. I love that, and I'm glad
I have you. Not to get too sappy, but thanks
for being here, being there for me, being a great
dog dad and being on today's episode. Thanks for inviting me,
all right, And that's a rap.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
As always, be sure to rate, review, subscribe. You can
find me at doctor Josivette on Instagram. Send me a
DM let me know what you thought of today's episode,
and we will be back, same time, same place next week.
Host
Josie Horchak
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