October 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Losing a pet to death of their body is painful and you may feel lonely because others don’t understand the bond and connection. They don’t understand the love and connection you had with this being. People say things like, they were ready to go, and other say it was just their time, they think they are being accurate and helpful but neither one of the comments bare any truth. The truth is that their body failed them, whether it be environmental, food, or organ failure, their body stopped working. Whether it was medicine, poor dietary value, breed specific issue, etc, your dog or cat was not wanting to leave you. Much like the elderly grandmother of 90 years old who loves playing with her grandkids, she doesn’t just stop wanting to see her grandkids and say well I am ready to go. No, she was pulled from her life because of her body failure just like our dogs and cats are pulled from their life. If you see your dog or cat or pig as your best friend, a kindred spirit, and your soul family you can’t miss this podcast. This podcast will fuel your heart and remind you or awaken you to the truth within your heart and spirit. I recorded this podcast the day after Buddy's body failed him on August 22, 2025.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're in a good place now you are listening to
Perspectives with Ashley Burgeons. Welcome back live to the Ashley
Burgess Podcast. So many of you have a dog, You've
had a dog, you've lost a dog, and many of
us talk about a dog as our family member. Our
dog is we're with them all the time. It's our
(00:21):
best friend. For some of us, it's a child because
we don't have children of our own. And you take
care of them just like a child. You wake up
up in the morning and you get them ready, you
give them a bath, you fix their food for them,
you take them out, you take them to work with you,
you take them in the car with you. You know
you've made dinner for them. You play with them, you
take them to bed, you put them in their bed.
Whatever it is. You get up the next morning, you
(00:43):
rent and repeat, and you do it because you love it,
because it's something that you love to do. It's become
second nature. It's part of your makeup because you love it.
And some of you have challenging dogs. And some of
you had challenging dogs, but then they got older and
they got easy year to do it. But you still
love him. It doesn't matter how challenging it was, you
(01:03):
dealt with it, and as you go through the years,
you're like, wow, this is amazing, and you grow together
and you have so much fun and so many experiences,
and then that time comes where their body is just
giving out. And that's so challenging to see because it's
like you're looking at it and because you're day in
(01:24):
and day out and you're around it all the time.
It's like seeing a friend of yours with cancer. It's
like seeing a parent with cancer, right, and you see them,
but you see him every day, and so they don't
look to you the way that they look to other people.
To you, they look fine because you see them every day.
You don't see the weight loss like other people do.
You don't see the facial structure change like other people do.
(01:47):
You don't see how how like you know, slow or
laborious they become because you're around it all the time. Now,
in my situation with Buddy, he look like a million bucks.
Literally right before he went into the VETS office, right
before we had the fallout, he looked great. I mean
(02:11):
I have pictures of him literally two hours before that
where he looks amazing. It would be like you looking great,
you looking amazing, looking like a billion dollars, leaving the
house and he never come back. And that's what was
so tough with Buddy, because he's such a strong, strong,
passionate soul that he was keeping it together even though
(02:35):
his body was given out. He didn't want to leave.
I know that a lot of us talk about, oh,
well it was their time to leave. It wasn't their time, Okay,
their body was like I can't do this anymore, which
sucks so bad. You know, there's all these misnomers, Oh
it's their time, you know, Come on, I mean, you know,
(02:56):
does the body have like this, you know, this thing
in there? Okay, it's my time. I'm gonna are breaking down.
I mean I would rather just not break down and
then like a sind or, you know, not break down
and poof instead of like, oh, I'm gonna break down
and have this horrible situation that happens and then it's
my time. No. And so you know this is where
part two begins. There you are, for any of you,
(03:18):
leaving the VETS office. For some of you, unfortunately, like
it was with Dulce, you're leaving the twenty four hour
emergency clinic where you knew nobody and you had to
deal with letting your dog go at two am, and
the circumstances that you had to deal with. Very different
(03:39):
from that situation was the opposite situation that it dealt
with with Buddy. Like I was saying with Dulce, I
got that whole day of hanging out with them prior
to this, like ice cream, fun, everything. I didn't get
that with Buddy. Now. I had all these experiences Buddy
that you know, were amazing, but I wanted that extra day.
I wanted just one more day. And that was hard.
(04:02):
And so we start now in part two, where we're
leaving the er. For some of you, it's day, for
some of you, it's night. For me, it was one
thirty in the afternoon yesterday, and I'm walking out and
I have a bag in one hand that says Buddy
Burchess on it, and inside Buddy Burgess's bag is his
(04:26):
collar and his leash and the medications that the oncologists
had given him earlier in the week. And I carried
that bag out with me and the rest of my family,
and Greg walked out with me and we went up
(04:48):
and it was tough because it was tough, and we
had some friends calling, and you know, it was nice
to be surrounded with people that care. And you're leaving
there and everything seems surreal because it's like, wait a second, now,
(05:09):
what do I do? And I told Greg when we
were there, I said, you know, my concern is that
things are going to get hard. You know, now, things
are going to get hard, because we got to go
back home. And I remember just getting in my car
and I put my bag in the back seat and
it was on. You know, I have a like a
(05:30):
dog cover thing that goes around the you know, the
back of the head rests and around the backhead rest
on the secondary seat so that he kind of catches
all the hair. You know, y'all, y'all know what I'm
talking about. I mean, I have a terrier, right miniature
bull terrier, right Buddy, And if anybody can shed, it's buddy.
Buddy is a shedder from way back. And I know
(05:51):
that many of you have dogs that are shutters, have
been a shutter, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
There's no non shedding involved, and so there's a lot
of hair. So I sat there and I put my
back there and I had a towel in there for
him and his favorite blanket, and I just remember taking
a long breath, and I'm driving back to the house,
(06:12):
and I'm thinking, oh my god, how is it going
to be. When I get into the house, how is
this going to be? Everything is about Buddy. His treat bowl,
all his vitamins, his water bowl, his food bowl, his
food stand, his beds. I mean, heck, I have a
bed for him in my office. I have a bed
(06:35):
for him in the house. I have another bed for
him upstairs. I have another bed for him that goes
and roams from place to place if he's not comfortable,
so he can stay somewhere else. I got a food
bowl upstairs. I mean, I have another bowl in the office.
I mean, like, we're talking about a lot of stuff here,
(06:56):
you know, and every time you look around, it's something
else that reminds you of And we walked in the door.
We were driving separate cars because we were you know,
I was coming from uh the work in the office,
and he was coming from his office. And I barked
and I was like, you know, we walked in the
door and I was like whoa, And it was so quiet,
(07:17):
and see Remember, Buddy didn't bark. Buddy did not bark.
The only time he barked. The only time he barked
was when nobody was around and he wanted your food. Okay,
when it was just you and him and he's gonna bark,
he did like a chirp. It was like a chirp.
(07:39):
You know. He wanted he was a very high pitch chirp,
and he wanted your food. He wanted to get your attention,
and he wanted your food. The only other times is
that we you know, we badly, we badly trained him
as a child. You know, at Mexican restaurants about chips.
We would give him chips and then you know, he
wanted the chips so bad that if he didn't get
the chip, he would do a chirp. But he wasn't
(07:59):
a so it's not like he would bark when he
got to the door. You know, you know, you might
hear some foots, you know, like some footsteps, that's it,
some past steps. But I realized, you know, when people say, wow,
it's quite it's because it's like it's the energy that's gone.
(08:20):
It's their energy that's not there in the physical form,
and that physical form. Energy is so important to be
around because it makes everything better, and it's like, okay,
(08:41):
you know it's not there. And even if your dog's
not a barker, I mean, even if your dog's not
a barker and he's deaf and blind, he still brings
that energy into the room. And you know what I
talk about. You know, if you just lost a dog,
or lost the dog recently, or have lost the dog
in the past, or you currently have a dog and
you know what I'm talking about. You understand what I'm saying,
(09:02):
or you're like thinking about getting another dog. Wherever you
are in this grouping, you know what I'm talking about.
And if you're lucky enough to have a dog right
now and to be through it, check it out and
find out. It's funny if you don't have a barker
and that dog's not really loud, realize they are larger
than life because of their good God energy. And you know,
(09:24):
we got in the house and it was who yeah,
because the energy wasn't there. The energy wasn't there. And
I think sometimes we take that energy for granted, and
it's not an energy to take for granted, it's an
energy to definitely respect. And cultivate. And so I asked Greg,
(09:48):
I said, do you want to go take a walk,
and he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to
take a walk. And so we were walking down I
wanted to go a certain way and the neighborhood. And
we were walking in the neighborhood and we walked down
one street and down another, and I told him a
little bit about what I said, you know, And I said,
you know, I've been talking to Buddy for several days
(10:10):
about the same thing. And I told him about some
stuff that I said and it's it's it's very deep
to me, and it was very deep, and it was
it was and he was like wow. And as I
was saying it, this huge branch on this huge tree cracks,
drops down and shatters the windshield of a car because
(10:35):
I had just spoken and boomed, and it was acknowledging
the fact that what I had said has merit and
obviously is acknowledged by others involved. And I thought that
was interesting, and that led me to realize, Okay, the
energy may not be unfortunately seen, but it can be felt.
(11:00):
And I think our eyes deceive us unfortunately in this lifetime.
I think our eyes deceive us, it's like it's like
it's conning us into believing something different than is real.
It's like the eyes seem to be like it's almost
as if they've been made like with some sort of
DNA situation, left out or skimmed over or something, whereas
(11:22):
there it just seems like there's a screen on top
of them, like screen doors that if you were just
able to open them, you would actually see more of
what's really happening. Because, like I was saying, in the situation,
while I'm watching Buddy and he has the oxygen mask gone,
he's laying on the table, and you know, they've given
me about an hour and a half to spend with him.
(11:45):
I mean, I realize, Yes, I know for a fact
that you know, spirit is different from body. Bodies different
from spirit. And that's why it's surreal, because a lot
of people fall for the fact that, oh, the body,
the outer layer is you know, going, so therefore the
other is gone. I do believe that the bodies, unfortunately
in our lifetime right now, due to lots of reasons
(12:07):
that I'll go into on another time, are expiring before
the person wants to expire, before the dog wants to
expire before the cat wants to expire, before the pig.
Whatever it is, whatever your pet pig, it doesn't last.
And so there we are taking our walk, trying to
get some clarity, I guess, trying to just deal with it.
(12:34):
I can't tell you how many walks I took yesterday.
There were a lot, and there was some walks that
I took on my own that I walked in circles
because you get to that point where you know you
like being at home, but yet you don't want to
go inside the house, and that's challenging. I want to
(13:00):
move anything either. I think that many of you, like you,
walk in the house on the first time back, and
you see the food balls and you see the beds,
and some of you say, maybe I should move that,
maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that,
and I I haven't moved anything yet. I've purposely not
(13:22):
moved anything yet, because I think there's a respect value.
I think there's a respect value, and I don't think
that hiding it is the way to deal with it.
I think acknowledging the fact that this really happened, acknowledging
the fact that you missed them and you know it
was hard. I remember we went to dinner last night
(13:43):
and neither one of us were hungry. Both of us
were not hungry at all. Both of us didn't have
to eat, but we wanted to get out of the house.
We hadn't been out of the house in weeks, and
you know, to eat dinner. You know, we wanted to
get out of the house. Could be been paying attention
to Buddy. We've been making sure he's okay, making sure
he's okay, making sure he's fine, you know, being there
for him. And so we sat down and we ate.
(14:07):
We both kind of moved our food around and both
I had intergestion. When I got out of there, got
back to the house, and again it hits you even harder,
and I said, man, I really just hope I can
go to sleep tonight. I hope I can just get
some rest, because I just didn't know if that's even possible.
I didn't know if that's possible. And so I laid
(14:29):
there and it was hard, and I was able to
sleep for a few hours, and I woke up about
one am sad. And I woke up at three o'clock
thinking I might have seen Buddy, and I thought maybe
he needed to get up on the bed, and then
I realized he wasn't there. And then I woke up
(14:51):
about seven am, and I haven't woke up. I think
it's I think it was when Dulte passed. I think
that was the last time that I woke up just crying.
And I woke up this morning crying and it was tough.
And you know, it's the last few weeks I had
(15:12):
been waking up in the morning just with dread, with
dread because I didn't know when the day was gonna come.
When was the day gonna come that his body was
gonna stop working, When was the day gonna come that
this was gonna happen. And I woke up in the
(15:33):
morning like two am, and I'd gasping, Oh God, and
I you know, and you would think about this stuff,
and then today was a different thing where it's like,
oh my god. It was like that empty feeling and
you had you had to keep her minding yourself. You know,
it's not real. They're you know, they're still around. It's
just not real. I can get through this. I can
get through this. I can get through this. And I
(15:54):
quickly jumped out of bed, you know, washed my face,
brush my teeth, and you know, I said, hey, I'm
to take a walk, went out on a walk. I
was like, I gotta get out of you. I gotta
take a walk. Took a long walk. And it was
interesting because the day before I had one of the
walks that I took. When I was walking around in circles,
(16:14):
I ran into a person that apparently had just moved here.
And you know, Dulce was a Dalmatian and you don't
see a lot of Dalmatians. And I adopted Dulce at
the SPCA, you know, back in the day. And all
of a sudden, I walk up and it's a Dalmatian
and the dalmation is wagging its tail. She's so happy
(16:35):
to see me, and I gave her a hug. She
gave me a big hug back, and it was interesting
and it was just very interesting. The dog was named
Pressley after el was Presley, and the lady had just
moved from Memphis, and very coincidental, right, I don't think
there's any coincidences. And it was interesting. And so today
there was a lady with a with with a large dog,
(16:56):
I can't remember the breede, but very cool dog, and
and she was walking one way and he got he
got one look at me. It turned around and he
stopped and he sat down and he wouldn't get up,
and she was trying to move him, and he sat
and she she's trying to move him. She got him
at one point, and then he just started walking toward me,
like pulling her. He was like. The lady was very
thin and the dog was a large dog, and she's like,
(17:20):
oh my gosh, he doesn't do this, you know. And
so I he started get He was right there and
I was hugging him, and you know, I said, hey,
my dog, you know, my dog, you know, lost his body,
just passed a few hours ago, yesterday. And she goes,
oh my god, and she started crying. And I mean,
it's just hard, you know. And it was interesting. The
(17:42):
dog sat down and put its paw and moved its
arm up and put its hand in my hand and
looked right at me in the eyes. They know exactly
what's going on. And when I sat with that dog
for about twelve minutes, that's a long time. Think about
a dog who's a puppy, by the way, a puppy
(18:03):
hanging out with someone they don't know, putting their paw
in there in someone's hand and chilling out. How rare?
Is that? Pretty rare? Pretty rare? And I remember I
came home and I had some coffee and I had
some more coffee, and I looked around and I saw
the dog balls and the beds into this and then that,
and I said, you know, I'm just gonna leave it.
I'm gonna leave it. It's like you know when when
(18:24):
you have a spouse ru and die, some people go
and clean out everything, throw everything out, get everything out
of the closet. It's like, Okay, I think there's a
time period out of respect. I think there's a time
period out of mourning, and I think there's a time
period that's correct to deal with it. But the coming
home is the hardest thing, guys, And you know that.
(18:46):
I know that. And even in my office, my office
is Buddy's office. Let's get that correct. That is this
is Buddy's office. I'm here at this is Buddy's studio.
I'm in Buddy's studio. We still got dog bed dog,
this dog blanket, all this stuff in here. It's fine.
It's not easy, but nobody said it was going to
(19:08):
be easy. And so when you have somebody in your life.
Oh well, it's just a dog. It's never just a dog.
It's never just a dog. It's a soul. It's a
soul that's very close with you. It's a soul that
matters to you, and they matter. You know, they matter
to you, and you matter to them. And I know
(19:32):
that many people will give you advice, and I love
it because people try. People are trying when they give
to you advice, they're trying to tell you what they
think you need to do. They're trying to give you
good advice. And I'd like to give you some advice. Now.
You can take it. You don't have to if you
want to, but I know that it works and its
sound advice. And that is you know, if you're going
(19:56):
through this, and you're dealing with this, try to stay
is sober as you possibly can. Try to be as
cognitive as you possibly can, Try to keep it together
as you possibly can. You got this, you know what
I'm saying. But you gotta walk through it. You can't
(20:19):
put it under the carpet. You can't stick it under
the rug. You can't drink it away, you can't smoke
it away. You can't do that. It's not gonna work.
It's gonna get worse. And when it gets worse, you're
not processing This relationship is so smart and so intelligent
as far as what it's about. It's about compassion, it's
(20:40):
about empathy, it's about connection, it's about understanding. It's about family.
And the thing is that we're family, and it's about
seeing that and understanding that and processing that and going
through that and giving respect for the relationship as it deserves.
I know that. I hear people say, oh, you know,
(21:02):
I've never had a dog. I don't think I could
ever get a dog because I would hate if it died.
I could never deal with that. I couldn't deal with that.
And I said, you know, it was interesting. A person
that I work out at the gym with said that
the other day. It was on Wednesday. We're on Saturday. No,
it was Thursday. And I said, you know, I get it.
(21:23):
I understand, but you're missing out because the energy and
the connection and the love that you have is so
much worth it. It's so better, it's so much worth it,
and the pain is painful. My own father had to
(21:45):
be there when my dog growing up. I was in
college and I wish he still would have called me.
I still can't believe he did this on his own.
He was there when snuggles body gave gave away, when
Snuggles just couldn't deal with it anymore. I really wish
you would have called me in contact because that was
my baby. But he took it up on hisself, and
(22:07):
he's never gotten over that. He's never gotten over it.
He's never been able to get another dog. He's never
gotten over it. And I feel bad for him because
I understand. But the love, it's like you have to
take the hit. It's the same thing as if you
never got married, or you never gotten a relationship, or
(22:27):
you never had a good friend, you know. I mean,
to me, buddy is like freaking right up there, you know,
he's Yeah, he's my best friend in the world. And
I've lost friends. I've lost a lot of human friends
and it's painful. But I wouldn't stop being their friend
(22:48):
or have my life just because like, oh shit, you know,
maybe they might die and then that's gonna hurt me
really bad, so I better steck away from that. Yeah,
I mean, it sucks. This pain sucks, and anybody that's
going through it, right now exactly what I'm talking about.
But you knew what you were getting into, and he
chose it because you wanted to have that connection, you
wanted that love. And maybe I'm here to kind of
(23:12):
put that back in your head. Maybe I'm here to
reinforce the fact that you know, hey, this is okay,
this is okay. You're gonna get through this. It's gonna
take some time, but it was so worth it. It
was so worth it having them, It was so worth it.
(23:41):
And you can have all those memories and you can
reconnect and you can know that they're there watching over you,
they are there even maybe talking to you. You just gotta
fuck you, just gotta listen. And you know, it's interesting
because every time you go into that venture, it's worth it.
When you're ready, it's worth it. When it's the right time,
(24:03):
it's worth it. It's worth it to you. And I
just want you to think about that, because I know
many of you are there. And if you're depressed and
you're going through a deep depression or you're going you're
very upset about the situation. I understand. I get it.
I get it probably better than most people. And I
(24:24):
want you to find some support if you have some friends.
If you don't have friends that understand this, if you
if your friends are like, oh, it's just a dog, right,
dah da da da da, find other friends. If you
need support, you can contact me. But it's interesting because
it's like a lot of people out there. It's like
the all the ideots care about people's kids, but when
it comes to someone that doesn't have children as a
(24:46):
oh sorry about that. Hey, you get over it. There,
they'll be fine. You take your good okay, Yeah, let
me remind me to say that, you know, when your
first born dies from you know, from a car crash,
I'm sure that you're going to really take that very well. Well.
It's about compassionate empathy. And it's like, if you are
a dog person, you're already writing my book okay, and
(25:09):
dogs know people that aren't great people. They're pretty good
at sniffing it out, you know what I'm talking about.
Some are more persnicty than others. I'll tell you that
at picking them out and pointing out who's not good. Yeah.
I mean, if you're going through it right now, you know,
talking about it to friends that care, taking long walks
(25:34):
and realizing that You're allowed to get sad, You're allowed
to break down. It's good to break down. I'm not
a crier, guys, I haven't cried in years. Like, I mean,
I'm serious. Like I have some friends that you know,
they mess with me about it because they're like, you know,
you're not emotional. I mean, one of my best friends
in the world, she's constantly saying that I wish you
(25:56):
would show more emotion. Why don't you cry? I cry? Yeah,
I know, I know. It's not like I'm not trying
to cry. Well maybe so, I don't know, but I'm
not as emotional as some people are, as far as outwardly.
I try to a lot of it. I suck in,
like I keep in right, just like you. A lot
of you do the same thing. We hide it. If
we go cry, we go cry in the corner. If
we cry, we cry in our car. Right, we don't
(26:18):
cry you know the people. So you know what, and
this stuff really breaks me down. I cry in front
of other people when it comes to this. I mean,
I remember I cried so much when Dulce done I
got a sinus infection. I cried that much. And buddy,
(26:41):
I'm sure this is going to go on the same
I mean, I'm only in the first twenty four hours, right,
but I'm allowing myself to do that. I'm giving myself grace.
You've got to give yourself grace and don't try to
just throw it down. Don't try to just you know,
sweep it under the rug. I advise you not to
because the more you drink or the more you smoke,
(27:03):
the more you push it backwards and you're still going
to have to deal with it. It's still going to happen.
It's just you're taking a depressant now on top of
the loss, which is not a good idea. You know,
I made the comment to my spouse either or not.
I said, you know, you know, I mean there's a
(27:24):
lot of people out there that are that are single,
or they're divorced, or they're widowed, and they lose their dog,
and you know, they need to be watched. I mean,
it's it could be a suicide watch because that dog
was their best friend. And I said, you know, sometimes
I think couples take it for granted because they have
(27:45):
someone else to fall back on, they have someone else
to talk to, they have someone else that's in the
house and it's not fucking so freaking quiet. And if
you are single and you just lost your best friend,
I want you to have people over. I want you
to start doing things. I want you to start playing
(28:05):
some happy music. I want you to start doing things.
I want you to get out and about. I want
you to start being active. And I want you to
call up some friends and family. I want you to
do that because I know it is hard, it is excruciating,
and it will get better. It's just gonna take some
(28:26):
freaking time here, and you're not gonna forget them. I
haven't forgotten one moment from Dulce. I haven't forgotten one
moment from some of those days. Ever. I can remember
it down to the second, and that was seventeen years ago,
maybe eighteen years ago, at least seventeen. It's a long
(28:51):
time remember down to the second of what happened and
where you were and what you did and everything else
that happened. Because it made an impression on you, It
made a paw print on you, It touched your soul,
and soul touching things only happened certain amount of times
in your life, and sometimes they are the most amazing things.
(29:13):
And somebody of the most excruciating things. However, sometimes we
have to go through these pieces, these gut wrenching pieces,
because we had so many years of true love. And
Buddy was a Helian and I know that some of
you had dogs that were Helien. See, my Buddy was
that dog that you know when he was young, he
(29:34):
was crazy. He was crazy. You know, he was doing
the zoomies, he was crazy. I mean I was running
him like I had a lady that was running him
like six miles a day just to calm him down.
We had a treadmill in the house, a dog treadmill
as well. I'm not kidding you. Okay. He needed like
three to four hours of real exercise, hardcore exercise a day.
(29:57):
He went to camp, he went to school. Okay. It
wasn't until the last five years that Buddy calmed down.
I mean he didn't calm down until maybe four years.
He didn't come down to was at least eleven, maybe twelve,
maybe twelve. I remember, my dad still talks about him
biting him in the butt. He still hasn't gotten over that.
I mean, some of y'all had calm dogs the whole time,
(30:19):
and that's a different story. But some of y'all had
real crazy ones, especially if you adopted one like I did. Adults,
I understand because you have all the bad patterns and
all the abuse and everything else that you gotta overcome,
and you got to overcome all that, overcome all this,
and overcome the eating issues and overcome the abuse issues,
and eventually you get that dog that loves you and
you love them because they realize that you're there for
(30:39):
the rest of their life. But this is hard because
you've had so many uphill battles and so much stuff
going through it. And I give you kudos. I give
you a pat on the back, I give you your
metal honor. I give you a metal honor for doing
it because I know that you're probably not because you're
over there coming up with something. I should have done this,
(31:00):
done that. I should have been there, I should have
done this. I should have canceled that. I mean, I
felt bad. I had a friend of mine that I
was having a birthday on Thursday night and I really
wanted to go, and she's a very good friend of mine,
and I said, I'm sorry, I can't, and I know
she was hurt by that, but I didn't want to
tell her at the time this might be my last night,
and it was. And I'm so glad I stayed home,
(31:23):
and I'm so glad I wouldn't have gone anyway, but
I I I'm glad that I didn't take it for granted.
I'm glad that I did not take that for granted.
I'm glad that I didn't think, Oh no, no, it's fine.
You know, I know him, You know I didn't you
realize he was He was, he was in pain, but
he wanted to stay so bad that he hit it.
He wanted to stay so bad that he overcome. You know.
(31:45):
He just like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna push
through it, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
I can do this, mom. And I didn't know that
because he didn't want to show me, because he also
wanted to be here. And so I hope all y'all
can connect and give. If you currently have a dog
or cat, he's your best friend, give him a hug,
give him a kiss, if they can take a walk,
(32:08):
or you want to get in the car take a drive.
If you've just lost one, or lost one recently or
in the last year, give yourself some grace and if
you're still teetering and wondering what should I do? Did
you love the last time? Before the end part? Was
everything else pretty good? I mean some of it might
(32:29):
have been crazy, but was it worth it? I Mean,
it's like a kid, right, Sometimes there's growing pains and
sometimes you have the Terrible twos, but it's a good time.
If you haven't checked out the website, check out the
website Ashleyburgers dot com. You can actually set up coaching
and therapy sessions right online on the coaching section. Hi advice,
(32:53):
Just if you're coming home and dealing with this, give
yourself some grace, take lots of walks. State as clear
headed as you possibly can. When you think about having
a drink, have a water, have a juice. Don't overreat,
like just be have clarity. Try not to you know,
eat yourself into feeling calm, because that's not gonna help
(33:16):
you either, because it's not gonna work. We got to
deal with what's in there. We got to deal with
the sadness and the pain and the frustration. We got
to deal with it so that it'll slowly dissipate and
we can go through the processing of grief. So we
can come out the other side. I have a part
three here very soon. I got to get there, right.
I mean, yes, I've done this before, but I but
(33:38):
these two times are very different. And I feel like
when we're going through it and it's right there, it's
time to share, not time to just suck it in
and hide it. It's time to put it out there
to help you, to help other people. Now, you might
know someone right now that's going through it and you
don't know what to tell them because you don't know
what to tell them because you haven't gone through it,
(34:00):
or they're not Your dog is not like your kids
so it's a different story, or you don't have a
dog and you don't know what to say. Send them
the first podcast episode of this, Send them this one
right here and all the other episodes, and say, hey,
I might not know exactly what to say, and I
don't know maybe exactly what you need to hear, but
you need to hear this because this will help you
(34:25):
because she's gone through it and she knows what it's about,
and she knows there's pain and suffering, but she knows
you have to give yourself grace and you're allowed to
cry and you're allowed to show your emotions and she
got to take care of yourself. You gotta remember, even
though I'm not hungry or don't want to eat, you
gotta eat a little bit of food, you know, think
about those things. If you're eating too much, you gotta
(34:46):
step back and go why am I trying to fill
that void of food? These things go other ways, right,
Just say hey, I want to work on this. I
want to process this because this relationship was so important
to me. I want to be able to open myself
up to that in the future. And I want to
be a to see the value. And I don't want
to take this as a negative. I want to be
in a positive form of this because it matters. Because
(35:09):
these relationships, it's like it's God's energy. It's not some
random energy, even though they might never bark it to
big presence. Right, what does presence mean? Very interesting words
we use, right, So just be aware of when you're
interacting and when you use to interact. See that, look
back at some of those memories, look back at some
(35:31):
things and realize and think about that energy. There's a
reason why the energy is so important. You're like, there's
a reason why you miss it because it's very real,
because it's real conscious Christ's energy that is so important
to have. That's what it is. It's Christ's conscious energy
that you had in the room and a fur body
(35:52):
that was there that you could feel that you knew
it was there. I love you, I love your an,
I love your child, your dog, best friend, companion, buddy.
I know the buddy's looking at me right now, going, hey,
that was pretty good. I miss him very much. It's
(36:14):
been a little bit more than twenty four hours. We'll
get through this together. If you want to send me
any sort of message, you can always go to the
website Ashleyburges dot com, click on that contact page and
you can send me an email. Right then we can
talk about it together. I can also be there to
support you and tune into the next part three of
(36:35):
this conversation that we're having here live on the Ashley
Burgess podcast. Don't forget to live your true life.
You're in a good place now you are listening to
Perspectives with Ashley Burgeons. Welcome back live to the Ashley
Burgess Podcast. So many of you have a dog, You've
had a dog, you've lost a dog, and many of
us talk about a dog as our family member. Our
dog is we're with them all the time. It's our
(00:21):
best friend. For some of us, it's a child because
we don't have children of our own. And you take
care of them just like a child. You wake up
up in the morning and you get them ready, you
give them a bath, you fix their food for them,
you take them out, you take them to work with you,
you take them in the car with you. You know
you've made dinner for them. You play with them, you
take them to bed, you put them in their bed.
Whatever it is. You get up the next morning, you
(00:43):
rent and repeat, and you do it because you love it,
because it's something that you love to do. It's become
second nature. It's part of your makeup because you love it.
And some of you have challenging dogs. And some of
you had challenging dogs, but then they got older and
they got easy year to do it. But you still
love him. It doesn't matter how challenging it was, you
(01:03):
dealt with it, and as you go through the years,
you're like, wow, this is amazing, and you grow together
and you have so much fun and so many experiences,
and then that time comes where their body is just
giving out. And that's so challenging to see because it's
like you're looking at it and because you're day in
(01:24):
and day out and you're around it all the time.
It's like seeing a friend of yours with cancer. It's
like seeing a parent with cancer, right, and you see them,
but you see him every day, and so they don't
look to you the way that they look to other people.
To you, they look fine because you see them every day.
You don't see the weight loss like other people do.
You don't see the facial structure change like other people do.
(01:47):
You don't see how how like you know, slow or
laborious they become because you're around it all the time. Now,
in my situation with Buddy, he look like a million bucks.
Literally right before he went into the VETS office, right
before we had the fallout, he looked great. I mean
(02:11):
I have pictures of him literally two hours before that
where he looks amazing. It would be like you looking great,
you looking amazing, looking like a billion dollars, leaving the
house and he never come back. And that's what was
so tough with Buddy, because he's such a strong, strong,
passionate soul that he was keeping it together even though
(02:35):
his body was given out. He didn't want to leave.
I know that a lot of us talk about, oh,
well it was their time to leave. It wasn't their time, Okay,
their body was like I can't do this anymore, which
sucks so bad. You know, there's all these misnomers, Oh
it's their time, you know, Come on, I mean, you know,
(02:56):
does the body have like this, you know, this thing
in there? Okay, it's my time. I'm gonna are breaking down.
I mean I would rather just not break down and
then like a sind or, you know, not break down
and poof instead of like, oh, I'm gonna break down
and have this horrible situation that happens and then it's
my time. No. And so you know this is where
part two begins. There you are, for any of you,
(03:18):
leaving the VETS office. For some of you, unfortunately, like
it was with Dulce, you're leaving the twenty four hour
emergency clinic where you knew nobody and you had to
deal with letting your dog go at two am, and
the circumstances that you had to deal with. Very different
(03:39):
from that situation was the opposite situation that it dealt
with with Buddy. Like I was saying with Dulce, I
got that whole day of hanging out with them prior
to this, like ice cream, fun, everything. I didn't get
that with Buddy. Now. I had all these experiences Buddy
that you know, were amazing, but I wanted that extra day.
I wanted just one more day. And that was hard.
(04:02):
And so we start now in part two, where we're
leaving the er. For some of you, it's day, for
some of you, it's night. For me, it was one
thirty in the afternoon yesterday, and I'm walking out and
I have a bag in one hand that says Buddy
Burchess on it, and inside Buddy Burgess's bag is his
(04:26):
collar and his leash and the medications that the oncologists
had given him earlier in the week. And I carried
that bag out with me and the rest of my family,
and Greg walked out with me and we went up
(04:48):
and it was tough because it was tough, and we
had some friends calling, and you know, it was nice
to be surrounded with people that care. And you're leaving
there and everything seems surreal because it's like, wait a second, now,
(05:09):
what do I do? And I told Greg when we
were there, I said, you know, my concern is that
things are going to get hard. You know, now, things
are going to get hard, because we got to go
back home. And I remember just getting in my car
and I put my bag in the back seat and
it was on. You know, I have a like a
(05:30):
dog cover thing that goes around the you know, the
back of the head rests and around the backhead rest
on the secondary seat so that he kind of catches
all the hair. You know, y'all, y'all know what I'm
talking about. I mean, I have a terrier, right miniature
bull terrier, right Buddy, And if anybody can shed, it's buddy.
Buddy is a shedder from way back. And I know
(05:51):
that many of you have dogs that are shutters, have
been a shutter, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
There's no non shedding involved, and so there's a lot
of hair. So I sat there and I put my
back there and I had a towel in there for
him and his favorite blanket, and I just remember taking
a long breath, and I'm driving back to the house,
(06:12):
and I'm thinking, oh my god, how is it going
to be. When I get into the house, how is
this going to be? Everything is about Buddy. His treat bowl,
all his vitamins, his water bowl, his food bowl, his
food stand, his beds. I mean, heck, I have a
bed for him in my office. I have a bed
(06:35):
for him in the house. I have another bed for
him upstairs. I have another bed for him that goes
and roams from place to place if he's not comfortable,
so he can stay somewhere else. I got a food
bowl upstairs. I mean, I have another bowl in the office.
I mean, like, we're talking about a lot of stuff here,
(06:56):
you know, and every time you look around, it's something
else that reminds you of And we walked in the door.
We were driving separate cars because we were you know,
I was coming from uh the work in the office,
and he was coming from his office. And I barked
and I was like, you know, we walked in the
door and I was like whoa, And it was so quiet,
(07:17):
and see Remember, Buddy didn't bark. Buddy did not bark.
The only time he barked. The only time he barked
was when nobody was around and he wanted your food. Okay,
when it was just you and him and he's gonna bark,
he did like a chirp. It was like a chirp.
(07:39):
You know. He wanted he was a very high pitch chirp,
and he wanted your food. He wanted to get your attention,
and he wanted your food. The only other times is
that we you know, we badly, we badly trained him
as a child. You know, at Mexican restaurants about chips.
We would give him chips and then you know, he
wanted the chips so bad that if he didn't get
the chip, he would do a chirp. But he wasn't
(07:59):
a so it's not like he would bark when he
got to the door. You know, you know, you might
hear some foots, you know, like some footsteps, that's it,
some past steps. But I realized, you know, when people say, wow,
it's quite it's because it's like it's the energy that's gone.
(08:20):
It's their energy that's not there in the physical form,
and that physical form. Energy is so important to be
around because it makes everything better, and it's like, okay,
(08:41):
you know it's not there. And even if your dog's
not a barker, I mean, even if your dog's not
a barker and he's deaf and blind, he still brings
that energy into the room. And you know what I
talk about. You know, if you just lost a dog,
or lost the dog recently, or have lost the dog
in the past, or you currently have a dog and
you know what I'm talking about. You understand what I'm saying,
(09:02):
or you're like thinking about getting another dog. Wherever you
are in this grouping, you know what I'm talking about.
And if you're lucky enough to have a dog right
now and to be through it, check it out and
find out. It's funny if you don't have a barker
and that dog's not really loud, realize they are larger
than life because of their good God energy. And you know,
(09:24):
we got in the house and it was who yeah,
because the energy wasn't there. The energy wasn't there. And
I think sometimes we take that energy for granted, and
it's not an energy to take for granted, it's an
energy to definitely respect. And cultivate. And so I asked Greg,
(09:48):
I said, do you want to go take a walk,
and he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to
take a walk. And so we were walking down I
wanted to go a certain way and the neighborhood. And
we were walking in the neighborhood and we walked down
one street and down another, and I told him a
little bit about what I said, you know, And I said,
you know, I've been talking to Buddy for several days
(10:10):
about the same thing. And I told him about some
stuff that I said and it's it's it's very deep
to me, and it was very deep, and it was
it was and he was like wow. And as I
was saying it, this huge branch on this huge tree cracks,
drops down and shatters the windshield of a car because
(10:35):
I had just spoken and boomed, and it was acknowledging
the fact that what I had said has merit and
obviously is acknowledged by others involved. And I thought that
was interesting, and that led me to realize, Okay, the
energy may not be unfortunately seen, but it can be felt.
(11:00):
And I think our eyes deceive us unfortunately in this lifetime.
I think our eyes deceive us, it's like it's like
it's conning us into believing something different than is real.
It's like the eyes seem to be like it's almost
as if they've been made like with some sort of
DNA situation, left out or skimmed over or something, whereas
(11:22):
there it just seems like there's a screen on top
of them, like screen doors that if you were just
able to open them, you would actually see more of
what's really happening. Because, like I was saying, in the situation,
while I'm watching Buddy and he has the oxygen mask gone,
he's laying on the table, and you know, they've given
me about an hour and a half to spend with him.
(11:45):
I mean, I realize, Yes, I know for a fact
that you know, spirit is different from body. Bodies different
from spirit. And that's why it's surreal, because a lot
of people fall for the fact that, oh, the body,
the outer layer is you know, going, so therefore the
other is gone. I do believe that the bodies, unfortunately
in our lifetime right now, due to lots of reasons
(12:07):
that I'll go into on another time, are expiring before
the person wants to expire, before the dog wants to
expire before the cat wants to expire, before the pig.
Whatever it is, whatever your pet pig, it doesn't last.
And so there we are taking our walk, trying to
get some clarity, I guess, trying to just deal with it.
(12:34):
I can't tell you how many walks I took yesterday.
There were a lot, and there was some walks that
I took on my own that I walked in circles
because you get to that point where you know you
like being at home, but yet you don't want to
go inside the house, and that's challenging. I want to
(13:00):
move anything either. I think that many of you, like you,
walk in the house on the first time back, and
you see the food balls and you see the beds,
and some of you say, maybe I should move that,
maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that,
and I I haven't moved anything yet. I've purposely not
(13:22):
moved anything yet, because I think there's a respect value.
I think there's a respect value, and I don't think
that hiding it is the way to deal with it.
I think acknowledging the fact that this really happened, acknowledging
the fact that you missed them and you know it
was hard. I remember we went to dinner last night
(13:43):
and neither one of us were hungry. Both of us
were not hungry at all. Both of us didn't have
to eat, but we wanted to get out of the house.
We hadn't been out of the house in weeks, and
you know, to eat dinner. You know, we wanted to
get out of the house. Could be been paying attention
to Buddy. We've been making sure he's okay, making sure
he's okay, making sure he's fine, you know, being there
for him. And so we sat down and we ate.
(14:07):
We both kind of moved our food around and both
I had intergestion. When I got out of there, got
back to the house, and again it hits you even harder,
and I said, man, I really just hope I can
go to sleep tonight. I hope I can just get
some rest, because I just didn't know if that's even possible.
I didn't know if that's possible. And so I laid
(14:29):
there and it was hard, and I was able to
sleep for a few hours, and I woke up about
one am sad. And I woke up at three o'clock
thinking I might have seen Buddy, and I thought maybe
he needed to get up on the bed, and then
I realized he wasn't there. And then I woke up
(14:51):
about seven am, and I haven't woke up. I think
it's I think it was when Dulte passed. I think
that was the last time that I woke up just crying.
And I woke up this morning crying and it was tough.
And you know, it's the last few weeks I had
(15:12):
been waking up in the morning just with dread, with
dread because I didn't know when the day was gonna come.
When was the day gonna come that his body was
gonna stop working, When was the day gonna come that
this was gonna happen. And I woke up in the
(15:33):
morning like two am, and I'd gasping, Oh God, and
I you know, and you would think about this stuff,
and then today was a different thing where it's like,
oh my god. It was like that empty feeling and
you had you had to keep her minding yourself. You know,
it's not real. They're you know, they're still around. It's
just not real. I can get through this. I can
get through this. I can get through this. And I
(15:54):
quickly jumped out of bed, you know, washed my face,
brush my teeth, and you know, I said, hey, I'm
to take a walk, went out on a walk. I
was like, I gotta get out of you. I gotta
take a walk. Took a long walk. And it was
interesting because the day before I had one of the
walks that I took. When I was walking around in circles,
(16:14):
I ran into a person that apparently had just moved here.
And you know, Dulce was a Dalmatian and you don't
see a lot of Dalmatians. And I adopted Dulce at
the SPCA, you know, back in the day. And all
of a sudden, I walk up and it's a Dalmatian
and the dalmation is wagging its tail. She's so happy
(16:35):
to see me, and I gave her a hug. She
gave me a big hug back, and it was interesting
and it was just very interesting. The dog was named
Pressley after el was Presley, and the lady had just
moved from Memphis, and very coincidental, right, I don't think
there's any coincidences. And it was interesting. And so today
there was a lady with a with with a large dog,
(16:56):
I can't remember the breede, but very cool dog, and
and she was walking one way and he got he
got one look at me. It turned around and he
stopped and he sat down and he wouldn't get up,
and she was trying to move him, and he sat
and she she's trying to move him. She got him
at one point, and then he just started walking toward me,
like pulling her. He was like. The lady was very
thin and the dog was a large dog, and she's like,
(17:20):
oh my gosh, he doesn't do this, you know. And
so I he started get He was right there and
I was hugging him, and you know, I said, hey,
my dog, you know, my dog, you know, lost his body,
just passed a few hours ago, yesterday. And she goes,
oh my god, and she started crying. And I mean,
it's just hard, you know. And it was interesting. The
(17:42):
dog sat down and put its paw and moved its
arm up and put its hand in my hand and
looked right at me in the eyes. They know exactly
what's going on. And when I sat with that dog
for about twelve minutes, that's a long time. Think about
a dog who's a puppy, by the way, a puppy
(18:03):
hanging out with someone they don't know, putting their paw
in there in someone's hand and chilling out. How rare?
Is that? Pretty rare? Pretty rare? And I remember I
came home and I had some coffee and I had
some more coffee, and I looked around and I saw
the dog balls and the beds into this and then that,
and I said, you know, I'm just gonna leave it.
I'm gonna leave it. It's like you know when when
(18:24):
you have a spouse ru and die, some people go
and clean out everything, throw everything out, get everything out
of the closet. It's like, Okay, I think there's a
time period out of respect. I think there's a time
period out of mourning, and I think there's a time
period that's correct to deal with it. But the coming
home is the hardest thing, guys, And you know that.
(18:46):
I know that. And even in my office, my office
is Buddy's office. Let's get that correct. That is this
is Buddy's office. I'm here at this is Buddy's studio.
I'm in Buddy's studio. We still got dog bed dog,
this dog blanket, all this stuff in here. It's fine.
It's not easy, but nobody said it was going to
(19:08):
be easy. And so when you have somebody in your life.
Oh well, it's just a dog. It's never just a dog.
It's never just a dog. It's a soul. It's a
soul that's very close with you. It's a soul that
matters to you, and they matter. You know, they matter
to you, and you matter to them. And I know
(19:32):
that many people will give you advice, and I love
it because people try. People are trying when they give
to you advice, they're trying to tell you what they
think you need to do. They're trying to give you
good advice. And I'd like to give you some advice. Now.
You can take it. You don't have to if you
want to, but I know that it works and its
sound advice. And that is you know, if you're going
(19:56):
through this, and you're dealing with this, try to stay
is sober as you possibly can. Try to be as
cognitive as you possibly can, Try to keep it together
as you possibly can. You got this, you know what
I'm saying. But you gotta walk through it. You can't
(20:19):
put it under the carpet. You can't stick it under
the rug. You can't drink it away, you can't smoke
it away. You can't do that. It's not gonna work.
It's gonna get worse. And when it gets worse, you're
not processing This relationship is so smart and so intelligent
as far as what it's about. It's about compassion, it's
(20:40):
about empathy, it's about connection, it's about understanding. It's about family.
And the thing is that we're family, and it's about
seeing that and understanding that and processing that and going
through that and giving respect for the relationship as it deserves.
I know that. I hear people say, oh, you know,
(21:02):
I've never had a dog. I don't think I could
ever get a dog because I would hate if it died.
I could never deal with that. I couldn't deal with that.
And I said, you know, it was interesting. A person
that I work out at the gym with said that
the other day. It was on Wednesday. We're on Saturday. No,
it was Thursday. And I said, you know, I get it.
(21:23):
I understand, but you're missing out because the energy and
the connection and the love that you have is so
much worth it. It's so better, it's so much worth it,
and the pain is painful. My own father had to
(21:45):
be there when my dog growing up. I was in
college and I wish he still would have called me.
I still can't believe he did this on his own.
He was there when snuggles body gave gave away, when
Snuggles just couldn't deal with it anymore. I really wish
you would have called me in contact because that was
my baby. But he took it up on hisself, and
(22:07):
he's never gotten over that. He's never gotten over it.
He's never been able to get another dog. He's never
gotten over it. And I feel bad for him because
I understand. But the love, it's like you have to
take the hit. It's the same thing as if you
never got married, or you never gotten a relationship, or
(22:27):
you never had a good friend, you know. I mean,
to me, buddy is like freaking right up there, you know,
he's Yeah, he's my best friend in the world. And
I've lost friends. I've lost a lot of human friends
and it's painful. But I wouldn't stop being their friend
(22:48):
or have my life just because like, oh shit, you know,
maybe they might die and then that's gonna hurt me
really bad, so I better steck away from that. Yeah,
I mean, it sucks. This pain sucks, and anybody that's
going through it, right now exactly what I'm talking about.
But you knew what you were getting into, and he
chose it because you wanted to have that connection, you
wanted that love. And maybe I'm here to kind of
(23:12):
put that back in your head. Maybe I'm here to
reinforce the fact that you know, hey, this is okay,
this is okay. You're gonna get through this. It's gonna
take some time, but it was so worth it. It
was so worth it having them, It was so worth it.
(23:41):
And you can have all those memories and you can
reconnect and you can know that they're there watching over you,
they are there even maybe talking to you. You just gotta
fuck you, just gotta listen. And you know, it's interesting
because every time you go into that venture, it's worth it.
When you're ready, it's worth it. When it's the right time,
(24:03):
it's worth it. It's worth it to you. And I
just want you to think about that, because I know
many of you are there. And if you're depressed and
you're going through a deep depression or you're going you're
very upset about the situation. I understand. I get it.
I get it probably better than most people. And I
(24:24):
want you to find some support if you have some friends.
If you don't have friends that understand this, if you
if your friends are like, oh, it's just a dog, right,
dah da da da da, find other friends. If you
need support, you can contact me. But it's interesting because
it's like a lot of people out there. It's like
the all the ideots care about people's kids, but when
it comes to someone that doesn't have children as a
(24:46):
oh sorry about that. Hey, you get over it. There,
they'll be fine. You take your good okay, Yeah, let
me remind me to say that, you know, when your
first born dies from you know, from a car crash,
I'm sure that you're going to really take that very well. Well.
It's about compassionate empathy. And it's like, if you are
a dog person, you're already writing my book okay, and
(25:09):
dogs know people that aren't great people. They're pretty good
at sniffing it out, you know what I'm talking about.
Some are more persnicty than others. I'll tell you that
at picking them out and pointing out who's not good. Yeah.
I mean, if you're going through it right now, you know,
talking about it to friends that care, taking long walks
(25:34):
and realizing that You're allowed to get sad, You're allowed
to break down. It's good to break down. I'm not
a crier, guys, I haven't cried in years. Like, I mean,
I'm serious. Like I have some friends that you know,
they mess with me about it because they're like, you know,
you're not emotional. I mean, one of my best friends
in the world, she's constantly saying that I wish you
(25:56):
would show more emotion. Why don't you cry? I cry? Yeah,
I know, I know. It's not like I'm not trying
to cry. Well maybe so, I don't know, but I'm
not as emotional as some people are, as far as outwardly.
I try to a lot of it. I suck in,
like I keep in right, just like you. A lot
of you do the same thing. We hide it. If
we go cry, we go cry in the corner. If
we cry, we cry in our car. Right, we don't
(26:18):
cry you know the people. So you know what, and
this stuff really breaks me down. I cry in front
of other people when it comes to this. I mean,
I remember I cried so much when Dulce done I
got a sinus infection. I cried that much. And buddy,
(26:41):
I'm sure this is going to go on the same
I mean, I'm only in the first twenty four hours, right,
but I'm allowing myself to do that. I'm giving myself grace.
You've got to give yourself grace and don't try to
just throw it down. Don't try to just you know,
sweep it under the rug. I advise you not to
because the more you drink or the more you smoke,
(27:03):
the more you push it backwards and you're still going
to have to deal with it. It's still going to happen.
It's just you're taking a depressant now on top of
the loss, which is not a good idea. You know,
I made the comment to my spouse either or not.
I said, you know, you know, I mean there's a
(27:24):
lot of people out there that are that are single,
or they're divorced, or they're widowed, and they lose their dog,
and you know, they need to be watched. I mean,
it's it could be a suicide watch because that dog
was their best friend. And I said, you know, sometimes
I think couples take it for granted because they have
(27:45):
someone else to fall back on, they have someone else
to talk to, they have someone else that's in the
house and it's not fucking so freaking quiet. And if
you are single and you just lost your best friend,
I want you to have people over. I want you
to start doing things. I want you to start playing
(28:05):
some happy music. I want you to start doing things.
I want you to get out and about. I want
you to start being active. And I want you to
call up some friends and family. I want you to
do that because I know it is hard, it is excruciating,
and it will get better. It's just gonna take some
(28:26):
freaking time here, and you're not gonna forget them. I
haven't forgotten one moment from Dulce. I haven't forgotten one
moment from some of those days. Ever. I can remember
it down to the second, and that was seventeen years ago,
maybe eighteen years ago, at least seventeen. It's a long
(28:51):
time remember down to the second of what happened and
where you were and what you did and everything else
that happened. Because it made an impression on you, It
made a paw print on you, It touched your soul,
and soul touching things only happened certain amount of times
in your life, and sometimes they are the most amazing things.
(29:13):
And somebody of the most excruciating things. However, sometimes we
have to go through these pieces, these gut wrenching pieces,
because we had so many years of true love. And
Buddy was a Helian and I know that some of
you had dogs that were Helien. See, my Buddy was
that dog that you know when he was young, he
(29:34):
was crazy. He was crazy. You know, he was doing
the zoomies, he was crazy. I mean I was running
him like I had a lady that was running him
like six miles a day just to calm him down.
We had a treadmill in the house, a dog treadmill
as well. I'm not kidding you. Okay. He needed like
three to four hours of real exercise, hardcore exercise a day.
(29:57):
He went to camp, he went to school. Okay. It
wasn't until the last five years that Buddy calmed down.
I mean he didn't calm down until maybe four years.
He didn't come down to was at least eleven, maybe twelve,
maybe twelve. I remember, my dad still talks about him
biting him in the butt. He still hasn't gotten over that.
I mean, some of y'all had calm dogs the whole time,
(30:19):
and that's a different story. But some of y'all had
real crazy ones, especially if you adopted one like I did. Adults,
I understand because you have all the bad patterns and
all the abuse and everything else that you gotta overcome,
and you got to overcome all that, overcome all this,
and overcome the eating issues and overcome the abuse issues,
and eventually you get that dog that loves you and
you love them because they realize that you're there for
(30:39):
the rest of their life. But this is hard because
you've had so many uphill battles and so much stuff
going through it. And I give you kudos. I give
you a pat on the back, I give you your
metal honor. I give you a metal honor for doing
it because I know that you're probably not because you're
over there coming up with something. I should have done this,
(31:00):
done that. I should have been there, I should have
done this. I should have canceled that. I mean, I
felt bad. I had a friend of mine that I
was having a birthday on Thursday night and I really
wanted to go, and she's a very good friend of mine,
and I said, I'm sorry, I can't, and I know
she was hurt by that, but I didn't want to
tell her at the time this might be my last night,
and it was. And I'm so glad I stayed home,
(31:23):
and I'm so glad I wouldn't have gone anyway, but
I I I'm glad that I didn't take it for granted.
I'm glad that I did not take that for granted.
I'm glad that I didn't think, Oh no, no, it's fine.
You know, I know him, You know I didn't you
realize he was He was, he was in pain, but
he wanted to stay so bad that he hit it.
He wanted to stay so bad that he overcome. You know.
(31:45):
He just like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna push
through it, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
I can do this, mom. And I didn't know that
because he didn't want to show me, because he also
wanted to be here. And so I hope all y'all
can connect and give. If you currently have a dog
or cat, he's your best friend, give him a hug,
give him a kiss, if they can take a walk,
(32:08):
or you want to get in the car take a drive.
If you've just lost one, or lost one recently or
in the last year, give yourself some grace and if
you're still teetering and wondering what should I do? Did
you love the last time? Before the end part? Was
everything else pretty good? I mean some of it might
(32:29):
have been crazy, but was it worth it? I Mean,
it's like a kid, right, Sometimes there's growing pains and
sometimes you have the Terrible twos, but it's a good time.
If you haven't checked out the website, check out the
website Ashleyburgers dot com. You can actually set up coaching
and therapy sessions right online on the coaching section. Hi advice,
(32:53):
Just if you're coming home and dealing with this, give
yourself some grace, take lots of walks. State as clear
headed as you possibly can. When you think about having
a drink, have a water, have a juice. Don't overreat,
like just be have clarity. Try not to you know,
eat yourself into feeling calm, because that's not gonna help
(33:16):
you either, because it's not gonna work. We got to
deal with what's in there. We got to deal with
the sadness and the pain and the frustration. We got
to deal with it so that it'll slowly dissipate and
we can go through the processing of grief. So we
can come out the other side. I have a part
three here very soon. I got to get there, right.
I mean, yes, I've done this before, but I but
(33:38):
these two times are very different. And I feel like
when we're going through it and it's right there, it's
time to share, not time to just suck it in
and hide it. It's time to put it out there
to help you, to help other people. Now, you might
know someone right now that's going through it and you
don't know what to tell them because you don't know
what to tell them because you haven't gone through it,
(34:00):
or they're not Your dog is not like your kids
so it's a different story, or you don't have a
dog and you don't know what to say. Send them
the first podcast episode of this, Send them this one
right here and all the other episodes, and say, hey,
I might not know exactly what to say, and I
don't know maybe exactly what you need to hear, but
you need to hear this because this will help you
(34:25):
because she's gone through it and she knows what it's about,
and she knows there's pain and suffering, but she knows
you have to give yourself grace and you're allowed to
cry and you're allowed to show your emotions and she
got to take care of yourself. You gotta remember, even
though I'm not hungry or don't want to eat, you
gotta eat a little bit of food, you know, think
about those things. If you're eating too much, you gotta
(34:46):
step back and go why am I trying to fill
that void of food? These things go other ways, right,
Just say hey, I want to work on this. I
want to process this because this relationship was so important
to me. I want to be able to open myself
up to that in the future. And I want to
be a to see the value. And I don't want
to take this as a negative. I want to be
in a positive form of this because it matters. Because
(35:09):
these relationships, it's like it's God's energy. It's not some
random energy, even though they might never bark it to
big presence. Right, what does presence mean? Very interesting words
we use, right, So just be aware of when you're
interacting and when you use to interact. See that, look
back at some of those memories, look back at some
(35:31):
things and realize and think about that energy. There's a
reason why the energy is so important. You're like, there's
a reason why you miss it because it's very real,
because it's real conscious Christ's energy that is so important
to have. That's what it is. It's Christ's conscious energy
that you had in the room and a fur body
(35:52):
that was there that you could feel that you knew
it was there. I love you, I love your an,
I love your child, your dog, best friend, companion, buddy.
I know the buddy's looking at me right now, going, hey,
that was pretty good. I miss him very much. It's
(36:14):
been a little bit more than twenty four hours. We'll
get through this together. If you want to send me
any sort of message, you can always go to the
website Ashleyburges dot com, click on that contact page and
you can send me an email. Right then we can
talk about it together. I can also be there to
support you and tune into the next part three of
(36:35):
this conversation that we're having here live on the Ashley
Burgess podcast. Don't forget to live your true life.
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