May 16, 2025 • 21 mins
Discover how shifting from the goal of fixing to the practice of healing opens a deeper connection with your pet — and yourself — in life’s tender final chapters.
What if our caregiving role wasn’t about fixing, but about honoring the journey? In this episode, Gai and Karenl reflect on the wisdom of animals, the limitations of cure-focused care, and how BrightHaven’s Menu for Healing and LIVING Quality of Life Care Assessment support a gentler, more holistic approach. This conversation is for every pet parent facing chronic illness, aging, or decline in their animal companions — and for those who want to walk a path of love, presence, and peace.
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📥 Download your free LIVING Assessment PDF at brightpathforpets.com/living 📥 Download your free Menu for Healing PDF at brightpathforpets.com/healing
Learn More from BrightHaven Caregiver Academy For free resources, upcoming workshops, and a supportive community dedicated to navigating life with your aging or ill pet:
- Visit our website: brightpathforpets.com
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Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes and not a substitute for professional advice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents, the podcast by BrightHaven Caregiver Academy.
I'm Gail Pope and I'm Karen Wylie and together we're here to support you in navigating life with your aging or ill pets.
We know how deeply you care for your beloved companions, and we're here to offer guidance, understanding, and resources for this meaningful journey.
(00:25):
Each episode we'll explore topics that address the daily challenges, emotional realities, and choices you face as a pet parent helping you and your pets find peace, comfort, and joy.
Whether it's making sense of a new diagnosis, adjusting to changing needs, or simply seeking a place to feel understood, you're not alone.
(00:47):
Thank you for being here with us.
Karen Wylie (00:50):
Hello and welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
I'm Karen Wylie joined today as always by Gail Pope.
Today we're going to explore the experiences that Gail had at BrightHaven the Sanctuary because she developed a unique philosophy about taking care of animals and approaching it in such a way that cure is not the only goal but understanding healing.
(01:22):
Taking a healing approach is the day-to-day philosophy and goal.
Gail, can I ask you to expand on your experiences and how you developed that approach?
Gail Pope (01:33):
Well, it's a long and winding story.
I think baby steps sums it up probably best.
But I think it was in the olden days, we had a lot of animals.
Some were young and healthy, some were aging and getting towards the end of their life, and others were with us at any age dealing with illness.
(01:58):
I guess at that time our approach was changing little by little, from a purely conventional approach to healthcare, to a holistic approach and to using a lot more natural ways of care.
I think as we were starting to really learn about the different ways to approach an illness and looking at the whole being instead of the illness.
(02:27):
I started to then realize that I was focusing on the illness or the out of balance state that the animal had, as we all do as parents this is what we do, but I wasn't focusing on them as a whole.
(02:47):
That's really when it all started.
I don't know initially if I looked at it as offering healing rather than curing but that's where we were edging into an understanding.
I think the control and the fear and the worry of caring for an animal or a human when they have a diagnosed DIS-ease, we want to cure that and we focus in on the cure and we let go of the rest of it.
(03:25):
At least that's where I was.
I was so focused on what do I need to do next?
How can I do it?
I've got to prolong life.
Sooner or later I started to realize that maybe some of us, oh gosh, I guess then the spiritual type of approach started to weave its way into the equation.
(03:46):
I started to realize that maybe some of us are just not meant to have long lives.
Some of us have shorter lives, some of us have what we may perceive as a wonderful life and others not.
Maybe that isn't the trajectory for us to decide it may be a pre-set.
I think one of the things that came to me that really, it didn't change my life, but it stayed with me for years and years now, it's a poem and it's called
(04:15):
"A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime"
and it's long and do I have it memorized?
No, I don't.
Sure we can provide a link.
But really summing up is that we are all born into this world for these three things for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
(04:38):
When I started to look back and apply that to the animals past and present, I could almost look at those who had left us to see whether, "Oh my gosh, he came to us obviously for a reason and here are the very clear reasons and we dealt with whatever that purpose was."
(05:00):
Then others who came for a season of life, they may have taught us lessons.
They may have learned from us but it was for a particular season, and then those who came to us at a younger age and they stayed with us for the whole lifetime.
Generally those were the ones we really learned huge lessons from.
(05:25):
So, it all just developed.
I think that's when probably one of our first slogans, if you like, came about which was
"Healing for the Highest Good of the Animal".
So healing for the highest good seemed suddenly to be, "Wow. So that's letting go of the human— worry and wonder about end of life." We are going to enjoy the now rather than into the future, but we are still working at healing.
(05:59):
Again, we are looking in at a spiritual aspect for the highest good.
Then I guess that brings in the other thing that I talk about, Mother Nature— the other doctor.
So if we offer the best healing we can, whether it be conventional, whatever our own approach is towards an illness, an out of ease situation.
(06:22):
We have to learn those lessons from our animals to accept we've done our best, we are doing our best.
Let's enjoy what we have.
Karen Wylie (06:34):
It's interesting because when I first was hearing about holistic health approaches, holistic medical approaches.
Of course, at the beginning it was just about humans.
At the time, it really didn't include the spiritual aspect.
It was considering emotions, considering then social being having an awareness or greater understanding of how our life interacts with other lives around us, whether they're human or animal.
(07:06):
But then the spiritual component came later.
So in thinking about the average pet owner out there who, perhaps they've had their pet maybe it was diagnosed with a chronic condition that they've been treating for a long time, in those situations the focus is very much on the physical.
Gail Pope (07:26):
Yes.
Karen Wylie (07:27):
What medical treatments are we doing that maintain some stability in my pet's condition?
Of course as we've talked about previously, if something's difficult to manage, there's going to be more ups and downs and adds another layer of complexity to maintaining a condition, a stable condition.
But if you get to that point where you're looking at, as you're describing, healing for the highest good, and here you're talking about— yes, we talk about it for humans, but right now we're talking about the pet, the animal.
(07:58):
Can you say a little bit more about how you're looking at the truly holistic view of a pet in terms of their physical condition, emotional, social, and spiritual?
Because not everyone has thought about their animals as having these additional dimensions.
(08:19):
Especially when the pet has been diagnosed medically because we all tend to focus, as you're saying, you focus on what's wrong instead of backing up and seeing what might be going and looking at all aspects of your pet's life and your own.
Gail Pope (08:35):
I guess you are really talking here about
the BrightHaven menu for healing.
Again, these baby steps, our philosophy started to change and we never let go of any of the different things that we'd learned conventionally or holistically but we started to create this menu— we didn't create it, it created itself.
(09:02):
And what we realized is that love itself was the most important ingredient, the appetizer.
You've got to have it, and then you've got to have that for dessert too.
That really is wrapping the menu up.
So we started looking at the various approaches that we'd learned holistically and conventionally for diagnostics maybe and we just put them in order.
(09:28):
It's on our website, the menu for healing, it became.
It's what we still live by now or what certainly what I live by now.
Because if a new animal comes to me then I have to get to know them.
I have to love them.
I have to let them see who I am.
Then I look at what is the best diet in this situation, what can I do?
(09:49):
I mean that anyone who knows me knows that I lean to a raw meat-based diet where possible.
However, sometimes we have to learn.
That's not always possible.
As humans, we know very well some of us can or can't eat particular diets.
It's the same.
Again, so it's looking at this being rather than having something that is regimented for all.
(10:13):
We have to look.
Then I think diagnostics sometimes we haven't needed to do diagnostics and animals come to us either with them or in what apparently is really good health.
They're just elderly.
So as and when the need occurs, we would have diagnostics run.
The one thing we did do for all our animals was to engage one of our wonderful classical veterinary homeopaths to be their vet, even if there were no actual symptoms to express something underlying.
(10:46):
Everybody has a different personality.
We are all special beings.
So that's a place you can begin with.
So under the holistic umbrella was flower essences, herbs, herbal therapies, and I still use a lot of them.
We learned about immune support and organ support, and so all of these things, little by little, had crept into our lives until it was, "I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I probably picked up a piece of paper and thought I need to make a list of these things" because we have them all the time.
(11:22):
Then that's when I guess the spiritual aspect to the menu crept in with reiki, with other forms of energy healing, with Feng shui.
Life really started to open up and show us different vistas.
There it was, it wrote itself and it became our menu for healing.
(11:45):
And was curing a part of that?
Yes, at some level but I started to realize that just because a symptom goes away doesn't mean there's a cure.
We don't know that.
In holistic thinking a symptom is a gift.
It's like Mother Nature saying, "Excuse me you're missing something. Here's a symptom, but there's something else going on and this is a symptom of it."
(12:13):
So we started looking at those things and I guess it just evolved into our menu for healing.
It has worked for us.
We've always learned to do our best, to do it with love, to accept that we've done our best.
At some level, let go of the worry and the fear about caregiving because that's all any of us can ever do, isn't it?
(12:41):
We can only do our best with love.
As the appetizer and the dessert.
So there you are, you're back in the menu.
Karen Wylie (12:49):
You're talking about the love sandwich.
Gail Pope (12:53):
Isn't that lovely?
I don't know who actually came up with that idea.
Probably Carol, I expect.
Karen Wylie (12:59):
I have heard it many times, so I can't help but think of that when you talk about the menu for healing.
So your approach then, as you're saying, taking an approach to cure had a role at various times with various animals but maintaining balance was really your goal.
Your approach was looking at each animal and trying to find out what their best equilibrium for them was and keeping them in balance.
(13:29):
When an animal reaches a point where nothing you're doing is restoring balance in terms of prime condition and health, and you're seeing a slide in their condition.
Especially if a pet parent has that situation verified in some way by the veterinarian they're working with that it doesn't seem like treatments have a role anymore.
(14:01):
What does a pet parent do at that point to embrace this philosophy that you're describing that has worked so well for you?
Because so much of our role as a pet owner is maintaining the physical care and providing any physical treatments that are necessary.
So what happens when treatment is no longer going to do anything?
(14:26):
The focus shifts then to the highest healing for the highest good and providing comfort and focusing on the relationship you continue to have.
That sense of connection you have with your pet as well as so many other things as you're describing.
Gail Pope (14:41):
Now you are talking about, we've slid a little further along the line and now we are talking about how important it is to be monitoring the quality of life.
Therein lies another difference because as say we've got an aging animal who is very gradually starting to wind down.
(15:03):
We are looking at quality of life— our menu for healing.
Actually, we have two menus, the main menu but then it tweaks a little bit because as we get closer along towards the end of life, we don't do invasive treatments.
We don't do so much but it's a journey to monitoring daily life to be the best it can be.
(15:27):
I think we see a difference there.
We see a difference in ways of thinking because a lot of people are looking at quality of life with a view to end of life and how that should happen.
Possibly sometimes as to whether to consider euthanasia because they've gone as far as they can and sometimes that may be the right choice.
(15:51):
But quality of life for actual living.
Living to me is the word because you can have an animal who is not in good health but the joy shines from their little faces.
That's living, that's what we are looking for.
We are looking for the joy, the love, the laughter.
(16:15):
We know that smiling is contagious.
We know that it's healing.
It's part of the process.
So if you have a happy cat or dog, regardless of the fact that kidneys are failing or they have cancer, that's okay.
It's part of living.
So I think looking at the best recipe you can for creating that feeling of living.
(16:37):
Does that make sense?
Karen Wylie (16:39):
It absolutely does.
Of course, I agree with you that a lot of us, at least historically, have not thought about quality of life until we're wondering if it's time to do something about it.
Gail Pope (16:54):
Exactly.
Karen Wylie (16:55):
That a decision has to be made.
Now let's look at quality of life and then you download one of the assessments available online and you're numerically rating where your pet is— usually the physical.
That's why we created a different quality of Life care assessment which is for living.
We called it the Living assessment.
(17:18):
So we have that available for any of our listeners or viewers who might like to explore them, we have that on both websites at brighthaven.org and BrightPathforpets.com
We've got the Menu for Healing available as well as the living assessment.
Because the living assessment is trying to look at what day-to-day life looks like for you and your pet, even when medical treatment is no longer a part of your daily routine when you're not aiming for a cure anymore.
(17:46):
Animals can be expressing joy for a very long time after treatment stops and they're the best gauge of when their life is over, let them decide.
It's not something as you know how you feel too.
We don't have to decide it.
Our animals can decide.
But that will save that for another topic.
(18:08):
Another topic to discuss.
But is there anything else you'd like to say about approaching healing for the highest good,
especially to a pet owner— this is a whole different way to look at the care of their pet?
Gail Pope (18:24):
No, I think it really is just more about us than it is about the animal.
It's about us learning.
Again, it's animal wisdom.
We have to learn from them if they're happy.
Then sometimes we have to let go of all the worries and the concerns of being a parent and that's hard for us.
(18:48):
That's very hard.
I think
stopping ourselves right where we are and asking ourselves the question,
"what would he want?"
"What would she want?"
"Is this a good balance for her?"
It may not feel quite a good balance for me, but maybe it is.
(19:11):
Maybe it is.
But I think letting go of the word cure, let's face it, in this world of ours,
both living and dying have become very medicalized.
I think if we can let go of trying to.
To direct the path sometimes and just do our best, again, offering healing for the highest good.
(19:37):
Prayers are healing, love, laughter, smiling, and various— obviously, many holistic modalities are available, which can be very powerful as 6 or 700 animals have shown us.
It does seem to be a little bit coincidental perhaps, that so many animals have lived their way happily to the very end of their lives at BrightHaven.
(20:04):
So I think there is, there's definitely something to be said for this.
Karen Wylie (20:09):
Definitely something to be said for this approach.
Gail Pope (20:14):
I have to say.
Karen Wylie (20:18):
We'll make sure to link these resources in right below the summary of this episode.
If you want to access either the menu for healing or the Living Quality of care assessment tool on the Bright Path for pets.com site, all you have to do is do a little forward slash and add living (BrightPathforpets.com/living)
(20:40):
or
healing (BrightPathforpets.com/healing)
and you'll get to either instrument, either tool that you can download and then we'll include the links to where you can find them on the brighthaven.org site as well.
So we thank you for being with us today and look forward to talking with you next time.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
(21:01):
Thank you for joining us on Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
We hope today's episode has offered you support and insight as you care for your aging or ill pets.
Remember, it's not just about the end.
It's about living well at every stage of life.
To continue your journey with us, explore more resources at BrightHaven Caregiver Academy's website— BrightPathForPets.com, where you'll find guides, assessments, and a caring community of pet parents like you.
(21:35):
Until next time, may you and your pets find comfort, connection, and peace in every moment.
Take care.
Welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents, the podcast by BrightHaven Caregiver Academy.
I'm Gail Pope and I'm Karen Wylie and together we're here to support you in navigating life with your aging or ill pets.
We know how deeply you care for your beloved companions, and we're here to offer guidance, understanding, and resources for this meaningful journey.
(00:25):
Each episode we'll explore topics that address the daily challenges, emotional realities, and choices you face as a pet parent helping you and your pets find peace, comfort, and joy.
Whether it's making sense of a new diagnosis, adjusting to changing needs, or simply seeking a place to feel understood, you're not alone.
(00:47):
Thank you for being here with us.
Karen Wylie (00:50):
Hello and welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
I'm Karen Wylie joined today as always by Gail Pope.
Today we're going to explore the experiences that Gail had at BrightHaven the Sanctuary because she developed a unique philosophy about taking care of animals and approaching it in such a way that cure is not the only goal but understanding healing.
(01:22):
Taking a healing approach is the day-to-day philosophy and goal.
Gail, can I ask you to expand on your experiences and how you developed that approach?
Gail Pope (01:33):
Well, it's a long and winding story.
I think baby steps sums it up probably best.
But I think it was in the olden days, we had a lot of animals.
Some were young and healthy, some were aging and getting towards the end of their life, and others were with us at any age dealing with illness.
(01:58):
I guess at that time our approach was changing little by little, from a purely conventional approach to healthcare, to a holistic approach and to using a lot more natural ways of care.
I think as we were starting to really learn about the different ways to approach an illness and looking at the whole being instead of the illness.
(02:27):
I started to then realize that I was focusing on the illness or the out of balance state that the animal had, as we all do as parents this is what we do, but I wasn't focusing on them as a whole.
(02:47):
That's really when it all started.
I don't know initially if I looked at it as offering healing rather than curing but that's where we were edging into an understanding.
I think the control and the fear and the worry of caring for an animal or a human when they have a diagnosed DIS-ease, we want to cure that and we focus in on the cure and we let go of the rest of it.
(03:25):
At least that's where I was.
I was so focused on what do I need to do next?
How can I do it?
I've got to prolong life.
Sooner or later I started to realize that maybe some of us, oh gosh, I guess then the spiritual type of approach started to weave its way into the equation.
(03:46):
I started to realize that maybe some of us are just not meant to have long lives.
Some of us have shorter lives, some of us have what we may perceive as a wonderful life and others not.
Maybe that isn't the trajectory for us to decide it may be a pre-set.
I think one of the things that came to me that really, it didn't change my life, but it stayed with me for years and years now, it's a poem and it's called
(04:15):
"A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime"
and it's long and do I have it memorized?
No, I don't.
Sure we can provide a link.
But really summing up is that we are all born into this world for these three things for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
(04:38):
When I started to look back and apply that to the animals past and present, I could almost look at those who had left us to see whether, "Oh my gosh, he came to us obviously for a reason and here are the very clear reasons and we dealt with whatever that purpose was."
(05:00):
Then others who came for a season of life, they may have taught us lessons.
They may have learned from us but it was for a particular season, and then those who came to us at a younger age and they stayed with us for the whole lifetime.
Generally those were the ones we really learned huge lessons from.
(05:25):
So, it all just developed.
I think that's when probably one of our first slogans, if you like, came about which was
"Healing for the Highest Good of the Animal".
So healing for the highest good seemed suddenly to be, "Wow. So that's letting go of the human— worry and wonder about end of life." We are going to enjoy the now rather than into the future, but we are still working at healing.
(05:59):
Again, we are looking in at a spiritual aspect for the highest good.
Then I guess that brings in the other thing that I talk about, Mother Nature— the other doctor.
So if we offer the best healing we can, whether it be conventional, whatever our own approach is towards an illness, an out of ease situation.
(06:22):
We have to learn those lessons from our animals to accept we've done our best, we are doing our best.
Let's enjoy what we have.
Karen Wylie (06:34):
It's interesting because when I first was hearing about holistic health approaches, holistic medical approaches.
Of course, at the beginning it was just about humans.
At the time, it really didn't include the spiritual aspect.
It was considering emotions, considering then social being having an awareness or greater understanding of how our life interacts with other lives around us, whether they're human or animal.
(07:06):
But then the spiritual component came later.
So in thinking about the average pet owner out there who, perhaps they've had their pet maybe it was diagnosed with a chronic condition that they've been treating for a long time, in those situations the focus is very much on the physical.
Gail Pope (07:26):
Yes.
Karen Wylie (07:27):
What medical treatments are we doing that maintain some stability in my pet's condition?
Of course as we've talked about previously, if something's difficult to manage, there's going to be more ups and downs and adds another layer of complexity to maintaining a condition, a stable condition.
But if you get to that point where you're looking at, as you're describing, healing for the highest good, and here you're talking about— yes, we talk about it for humans, but right now we're talking about the pet, the animal.
(07:58):
Can you say a little bit more about how you're looking at the truly holistic view of a pet in terms of their physical condition, emotional, social, and spiritual?
Because not everyone has thought about their animals as having these additional dimensions.
(08:19):
Especially when the pet has been diagnosed medically because we all tend to focus, as you're saying, you focus on what's wrong instead of backing up and seeing what might be going and looking at all aspects of your pet's life and your own.
Gail Pope (08:35):
I guess you are really talking here about
the BrightHaven menu for healing.
Again, these baby steps, our philosophy started to change and we never let go of any of the different things that we'd learned conventionally or holistically but we started to create this menu— we didn't create it, it created itself.
(09:02):
And what we realized is that love itself was the most important ingredient, the appetizer.
You've got to have it, and then you've got to have that for dessert too.
That really is wrapping the menu up.
So we started looking at the various approaches that we'd learned holistically and conventionally for diagnostics maybe and we just put them in order.
(09:28):
It's on our website, the menu for healing, it became.
It's what we still live by now or what certainly what I live by now.
Because if a new animal comes to me then I have to get to know them.
I have to love them.
I have to let them see who I am.
Then I look at what is the best diet in this situation, what can I do?
(09:49):
I mean that anyone who knows me knows that I lean to a raw meat-based diet where possible.
However, sometimes we have to learn.
That's not always possible.
As humans, we know very well some of us can or can't eat particular diets.
It's the same.
Again, so it's looking at this being rather than having something that is regimented for all.
(10:13):
We have to look.
Then I think diagnostics sometimes we haven't needed to do diagnostics and animals come to us either with them or in what apparently is really good health.
They're just elderly.
So as and when the need occurs, we would have diagnostics run.
The one thing we did do for all our animals was to engage one of our wonderful classical veterinary homeopaths to be their vet, even if there were no actual symptoms to express something underlying.
(10:46):
Everybody has a different personality.
We are all special beings.
So that's a place you can begin with.
So under the holistic umbrella was flower essences, herbs, herbal therapies, and I still use a lot of them.
We learned about immune support and organ support, and so all of these things, little by little, had crept into our lives until it was, "I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I probably picked up a piece of paper and thought I need to make a list of these things" because we have them all the time.
(11:22):
Then that's when I guess the spiritual aspect to the menu crept in with reiki, with other forms of energy healing, with Feng shui.
Life really started to open up and show us different vistas.
There it was, it wrote itself and it became our menu for healing.
(11:45):
And was curing a part of that?
Yes, at some level but I started to realize that just because a symptom goes away doesn't mean there's a cure.
We don't know that.
In holistic thinking a symptom is a gift.
It's like Mother Nature saying, "Excuse me you're missing something. Here's a symptom, but there's something else going on and this is a symptom of it."
(12:13):
So we started looking at those things and I guess it just evolved into our menu for healing.
It has worked for us.
We've always learned to do our best, to do it with love, to accept that we've done our best.
At some level, let go of the worry and the fear about caregiving because that's all any of us can ever do, isn't it?
(12:41):
We can only do our best with love.
As the appetizer and the dessert.
So there you are, you're back in the menu.
Karen Wylie (12:49):
You're talking about the love sandwich.
Gail Pope (12:53):
Isn't that lovely?
I don't know who actually came up with that idea.
Probably Carol, I expect.
Karen Wylie (12:59):
I have heard it many times, so I can't help but think of that when you talk about the menu for healing.
So your approach then, as you're saying, taking an approach to cure had a role at various times with various animals but maintaining balance was really your goal.
Your approach was looking at each animal and trying to find out what their best equilibrium for them was and keeping them in balance.
(13:29):
When an animal reaches a point where nothing you're doing is restoring balance in terms of prime condition and health, and you're seeing a slide in their condition.
Especially if a pet parent has that situation verified in some way by the veterinarian they're working with that it doesn't seem like treatments have a role anymore.
(14:01):
What does a pet parent do at that point to embrace this philosophy that you're describing that has worked so well for you?
Because so much of our role as a pet owner is maintaining the physical care and providing any physical treatments that are necessary.
So what happens when treatment is no longer going to do anything?
(14:26):
The focus shifts then to the highest healing for the highest good and providing comfort and focusing on the relationship you continue to have.
That sense of connection you have with your pet as well as so many other things as you're describing.
Gail Pope (14:41):
Now you are talking about, we've slid a little further along the line and now we are talking about how important it is to be monitoring the quality of life.
Therein lies another difference because as say we've got an aging animal who is very gradually starting to wind down.
(15:03):
We are looking at quality of life— our menu for healing.
Actually, we have two menus, the main menu but then it tweaks a little bit because as we get closer along towards the end of life, we don't do invasive treatments.
We don't do so much but it's a journey to monitoring daily life to be the best it can be.
(15:27):
I think we see a difference there.
We see a difference in ways of thinking because a lot of people are looking at quality of life with a view to end of life and how that should happen.
Possibly sometimes as to whether to consider euthanasia because they've gone as far as they can and sometimes that may be the right choice.
(15:51):
But quality of life for actual living.
Living to me is the word because you can have an animal who is not in good health but the joy shines from their little faces.
That's living, that's what we are looking for.
We are looking for the joy, the love, the laughter.
(16:15):
We know that smiling is contagious.
We know that it's healing.
It's part of the process.
So if you have a happy cat or dog, regardless of the fact that kidneys are failing or they have cancer, that's okay.
It's part of living.
So I think looking at the best recipe you can for creating that feeling of living.
(16:37):
Does that make sense?
Karen Wylie (16:39):
It absolutely does.
Of course, I agree with you that a lot of us, at least historically, have not thought about quality of life until we're wondering if it's time to do something about it.
Gail Pope (16:54):
Exactly.
Karen Wylie (16:55):
That a decision has to be made.
Now let's look at quality of life and then you download one of the assessments available online and you're numerically rating where your pet is— usually the physical.
That's why we created a different quality of Life care assessment which is for living.
We called it the Living assessment.
(17:18):
So we have that available for any of our listeners or viewers who might like to explore them, we have that on both websites at brighthaven.org and BrightPathforpets.com
We've got the Menu for Healing available as well as the living assessment.
Because the living assessment is trying to look at what day-to-day life looks like for you and your pet, even when medical treatment is no longer a part of your daily routine when you're not aiming for a cure anymore.
(17:46):
Animals can be expressing joy for a very long time after treatment stops and they're the best gauge of when their life is over, let them decide.
It's not something as you know how you feel too.
We don't have to decide it.
Our animals can decide.
But that will save that for another topic.
(18:08):
Another topic to discuss.
But is there anything else you'd like to say about approaching healing for the highest good,
especially to a pet owner— this is a whole different way to look at the care of their pet?
Gail Pope (18:24):
No, I think it really is just more about us than it is about the animal.
It's about us learning.
Again, it's animal wisdom.
We have to learn from them if they're happy.
Then sometimes we have to let go of all the worries and the concerns of being a parent and that's hard for us.
(18:48):
That's very hard.
I think
stopping ourselves right where we are and asking ourselves the question,
"what would he want?"
"What would she want?"
"Is this a good balance for her?"
It may not feel quite a good balance for me, but maybe it is.
(19:11):
Maybe it is.
But I think letting go of the word cure, let's face it, in this world of ours,
both living and dying have become very medicalized.
I think if we can let go of trying to.
To direct the path sometimes and just do our best, again, offering healing for the highest good.
(19:37):
Prayers are healing, love, laughter, smiling, and various— obviously, many holistic modalities are available, which can be very powerful as 6 or 700 animals have shown us.
It does seem to be a little bit coincidental perhaps, that so many animals have lived their way happily to the very end of their lives at BrightHaven.
(20:04):
So I think there is, there's definitely something to be said for this.
Karen Wylie (20:09):
Definitely something to be said for this approach.
Gail Pope (20:14):
I have to say.
Karen Wylie (20:18):
We'll make sure to link these resources in right below the summary of this episode.
If you want to access either the menu for healing or the Living Quality of care assessment tool on the Bright Path for pets.com site, all you have to do is do a little forward slash and add living (BrightPathforpets.com/living)
(20:40):
or
healing (BrightPathforpets.com/healing)
and you'll get to either instrument, either tool that you can download and then we'll include the links to where you can find them on the brighthaven.org site as well.
So we thank you for being with us today and look forward to talking with you next time.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
(21:01):
Thank you for joining us on Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
We hope today's episode has offered you support and insight as you care for your aging or ill pets.
Remember, it's not just about the end.
It's about living well at every stage of life.
To continue your journey with us, explore more resources at BrightHaven Caregiver Academy's website— BrightPathForPets.com, where you'll find guides, assessments, and a caring community of pet parents like you.
(21:35):
Until next time, may you and your pets find comfort, connection, and peace in every moment.
Take care.
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