February 23, 2025

My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 5

January 27, 2012 by

my dying dogMurphy is dying. My beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel has a tumor on her spleen.

Murphy is 13-1/2. Because of early problems, I’ve been cooking for her for 11 years. Turkey, veggies, fruit. Supplements. A strong healthy diet for a vigorous dog.

Yes, I’ve been cooking for my dog. It works for us, but it’s time-consuming.

I have to think ahead, to make sure she has food, and because I’m handicapped, and working, I have to buy and cook enough to freeze it in portions in case something comes up and I can’t cook.

Dying came up and now I’m stumped.

We discovered the tumor by accident. Pure really dumb luck, if something that horrible can remotely be termed ‘luck.’ But here’s the thing.

In being practical and planning ahead for meals, how far do I plan ahead for a dying dog?

Usually, I stock up on turkey once a month, buying eight pounds or so to feed Murphy and Grace the Cat (poor Alki has to eat something else). But yesterday I was standing in front of the meat counter, wondering just how much I should buy at $5.50/lb for Diestel ground turkey. I caught myself literally thinking: “How much do I gamble here?”

True, Grace the Cat and I can always eat the meat. The problem is in mixing all the ingredients, including bone meal and spirulina, to make the particular meals I feed Murphy. The meals that got Murphy healthy years ago, and kept her healthy until, well, now.

But how many more meals should I make for Murphy? A month’s worth? That would take more than eight pounds. And the freezer is pretty full.

Should I go for realism, meaning I have no clue how long she’ll live? Should I just give in to despair and buy a few pounds? Or, when 10 days go by and I have to cook another batch for her, will I smile, because I won one—I beat death a bit longer?

I don’t know what made me decide.

But I bought three.

© 2012 Robyn M Fritz

 

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Solstice Sleeping: Dogs Softly Breathing of Home

December 23, 2011 by

I awaken in the night and hear it. Silence. I wait for more. It comes. I smile.

I hear the dogs breathing softly in the night. Now, in the longest, darkest time of the year, I awaken in the still, silent night and hear only my dogs’ relaxed breathing. I smile. It’s comforting. Peaceful.

My dogs snore of home.

I can tell them by their breathing. Murphy, my delicate, mild-mannered oh-so-polite aging girl, snores like the proverbial lumber jack. Only, size for size, decibels louder. First time I heard it, she had just come home to live with me, and I leaped out of bed, sure we were being invaded. Over 13 years later, each time a snort startles me, I know the invasion was successful, and smile.

Sometimes, most times, she breathes with soft, gentle sighs. Other times I rest a hand lightly on her back, to make sure she’s still there. She’ll rouse and snuggle up, and we’ll go back to sleep in the cold dark night, back to back, butt to butt.

I used to wonder, way back when, if I could ever love this puppy who was not my beloved, long-lost English Cocker, if we could ever fit. We were strangers, but it didn’t take long for love to settle in my heart. Her snorts, her relaxed sleep, remind me.

Now, as I hear her soft breathing, I know that love, home, settled deep in hers. In theirs. Because all my animals sleep well, comforted in their safety. Knowing we are family. We are together. They do not have to be on guard. They can let down. They can breathe softly in the night.

Love created space to sleep.

Alki, my raucous ten-year-old boy, is rambunctious by day, soft murmuring dreamer by night. His breath whispers of deep dreams, contentment, secure and relaxed and deeply resting in his secured spot in bed. Storing up for daytime mischief.

I smile in the night.

Sure, I poke Murphy sometimes when her snoring shakes me out of mine. She’ll start to grumble but is asleep at the next twitch. Alki’s soft breathy lullaby ripples mildly.

I never hear Grace the Cat breathing. No snuffles from her cat perch above my desk, no soft snores from her Snuggly Safed bed at night. She’s there. Just can’t hear her. She’ll prowl the night, inspect us, snuggle.

Suspended in darkness, I am awake, happy, content. They are here, content with me. Species mingled, personalities meshed, family.

In the heart of a 21st-century city the only sound in the deep night is a 21st-century family, sleeping the human-animal bond.

Soft breathing, counterpoint. Pause. Rhythmic.

Life resting before dawn.

How did it come to this? How did so many years go by before contentment settled so easily on me?

But it did. We’re family. Here. Now. Content. Woman, cat, dogs.

Murphy snuggles closer. Alki is still, soft swoosh rising. Grace the Cat burrows deep.

I hear the dogs softly breathing.

Yes, they snore of home. Of love.

I smile.

All is well.

I am home. We are home.

We are family.

© 2011 Robyn M Fritz

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Thanksgiving: What We Should Really Be Grateful For

November 21, 2011 by

I was thinking, what should I be grateful for this Thanksgiving? Then I saw this silly article, again, and I knew.

I’m grateful for common sense and for refusing fear.

This article, written by Joan Raymond and updated 1-25-11 at Pet Health on msnbc.com, suggests sleeping with our animals can give us diseases. Okay, it’s a good article. We have to take health seriously, including our multi-species family’s health. And we have to report on it responsibly, as Joan Raymond does. The article is not silly in the reporting but in the culture it reveals.

Reporters can’t comment on the facts or sense of their articles. That’s why they report: they give the facts and let us figure it out. We need straight objective reporting.

Those of us who comment on the straight objective reporting write about what it means to us. For me, it’s how can we re-connect people and the planet, from people to animals and the land and waters around us.

So, Raymond writes about the things that can get us if we sleep with or kiss our animals. Things like plague (from fleas), meningitis, round worms, and other horrific or just annoying things. Okay, first, really? Our animals should be healthy, just like us! They shouldn’t have these problems, so fix them already!

Here’s the problem with this reporting: it’s all filler material. No common sense. Just fear. You wade all the way through this article and find out that what they’re trying to scare us about never really happens.

People get hurt and killed in cars every day. You can sprain your ankle getting out of bed. You can choke on a cherry.

So do you avoid cars, getting up, or eating cherries?

No. You get smart. You say, no, I’m not going to be afraid of that. But I am going to be careful and pay attention.

So here’s what I’m paying attention to at Thanksgiving. Here’s what I’m grateful for:

  •  I live in a country where we can disagree and still be safe, even though there are plenty of people who would like to change that.
  • A dear friend sent me a link to an inflammatory documentary on purebred dogs, thinking that my dogs being purebreds was the reason they had some health issues. She cared. It made me think about our assumptions, which I will address in future articles. Mainly: shelters and rescue organizations make a lot of money creating fear and prejudice, when they should be encouraging people to find their heart’s match in a dog or cat. Think, people, think! Talk to each other. Love. Be lucky that your friends care enough about you and your family to say something.
  • People who were users and not friends have left my life, providing openings for wonderful new adventures, wiser choices, and real friendships. Awesome!
  • Wonderful stores like East West Bookshop in Seattle and Vashon Intuitive Arts on Vashon Island have made me and my crystal partner, Fallon, welcome. We’ve met many wonderful people. And other venues are welcoming us.
  • My jade tree, Raymond, was dying, but community came together and saved him. A 200-pound houseplant given to me by my father is going into his fifth decade. Yes!
  • My great-grandparents had the vision to settle in North Dakota and pass a piece of it on to their descendants.
  • Finally, at long last, some smart medical practitioners have figured it out!
  • I’m grateful that my writing has touched lives, and that my book, Bridging Species: Thoughts and Tales About Our Lives with Dogs, was recognized with the prestigious Merial Human-Animal Bond Award.
  • My multi-species family is proof that the human-animal bond is alive and well and sleeping cozily together at night, 10 years now and counting!

This Thanksgiving we are grateful that we are all here, together, so we can write and talk about what makes sense, what doesn’t, and how we can create love from fear, starting with sleeping sensibly with our animals.

We celebrate Thanksgiving at our house: yes, that means the animals get to eat, too (and no, not stupidly).

We celebrate something everyday at our house, even if it’s just the joy of greeting each other in the morning and at night: in bed.

We celebrate birthdays. We celebrate the day each animal joined the family. We celebrate season changes, holidays, mistakes, triumphs, a good meal, a bad meal being over with, gas in the car, sun and rain, cozy flannel sheets on a winter’s night, friendship and family.

And we celebrate reporters who remind us that they’re sometimes stuck with silly assignments, and can still keep a straight face.

We celebrate Thanksgiving. We invite the whole world to celebrate with us.

© 2011 Robyn M Fritz

 

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(Not) Meowing for Mizuna: Exploring Greens with Dogs (and a Cat)

November 18, 2011 by

Cooking is a skill I apparently lost with menopause—and only miss when I’m hungry.

I used to be a great cook. When I say this to friends they always pause, clearly deciding between laughing at what they presumed to be a joke or at what I’d cook, which wouldn’t be. It doesn’t stop me from offering to cook for them. I watch their eyes widen in surprise, and I’m thoroughly delighted when they say something like they just want to spend time with me.

And show up with Thai food. This is called ‘everybody scores.’

I do cook. Just ask my dogs, Murphy and Alki. They think I’m a great cook and take food cues from me: as a team we have wide-ranging tastes and low standards. If it comes out of the fridge if must be good, or else why would it be in there? The cookie jar is a given. We’ll eat our veggies, but never stop hoping for brownies. Or anything with peanut butter.

That’s how I know the dogs and I are related.

Grace the Cat, I’m not so sure about. She’s so smug about being right about everything that she takes convincing. Plus she’s fastidious and skeptical. As it turns out, these are all qualities that I need to rely on, since my cooking skills headed south with my boobs.

I learned this accidentally at the weekly Farmers’ Market in West Seattle. Almost every week I load up on great foods, all the vegetables and fruits you could want, and then some. Problem is, I’ve discovered things I didn’t know existed, and most often can’t figure out how to cook. The farmers are kind and patient, but it’s clear they think I’m an idiot and are just too polite to say so.

Take, for example, pea shoots. I love pea shoots. I have no idea what they are, except pea shoots, but we love them at our house, all of us, even the cat. We’re even doing a video starring pea shoots. Now, the dogs always come running when I come through the door with food, but if I say, “Pea shoots!” then Grace the Cat leaps up from her normal out cold snooze and races to hold down the kitchen counter while supervising grocery unloading.

You hold up a pea shoot and she perks up, meowing. No obstacle is too great as she promptly hunts it down: grocery bags, stuff on the counter, nothing stops her. If I offer pea shoots to the dogs (who are politely waiting on the floor only because they can’t reach the counter), Grace the Cat backflips onto the floor and bulldozes right through them. You’d think that for her, a pea shoot is, well, the fashionable cat’s mouse.

So you can imagine my surprise the day I decided to cook that week’s bounty of pea shoots.

I yanked them out of the fridge with a dramatic flourish and waved them at Grace the Cat. “Pea shoots for dinner,” I announced, grinning at her.

She stared right through them at me. Unrelenting disapproval. Stern outright disbelief.

“What’s your problem?” I asked. “You love pea shoots!”

She didn’t move. Just glared. I stuck them under her nose. She continued to glare at me as she strategically moved her head back.

I looked at the pea shoots. “Well, they do look different this week.” Yes, kind of like an entire species different, but I wasn’t going to say that.

Grace the Cat looked at me like I was an idiot. She is no fool. She knows when something is a pea shoot. And when it is not. Still they had to be eaten.

I tried the dogs next. They examined the suspect pea shoots with long, strained faces and then looked at me like I’d done something embarrassing and disappointing to their tummies.

“Lot you know,” I sniffed. “I admit they look a little weird.” I hesitated, but I’m thrifty and I’d bought them so I’d eat them.

Unless I could pawn them off on the cat. I waved them at her again. Nope.

I cooked those suckers for two dinners. Both were miserable: the suspect pea shoots were lank, bitter, limp, and tough, like spinach gone off the deep end. I sighed and ate it. Both nights the dogs and cat completely avoided me. I thought about how they just didn’t like pea shoots anymore, and about how right they were. They’d known something about that batch that I didn’t.

That weekend at the Farmers’ Market I stopped at my favorite greens vendor. Spring, you know, time for good things.

I stared down at duplicates of the pea shoots I’d suffered through. “What is that stuff?” I asked. “I thought it was pea shoots.”

“Mizuna,” she said, patiently. I think she flinches when she see me coming, but she’s always nice, and I always buy. Not sure what, apparently.

“Mi what ah?” I asked.

“Mizuna. It’s a green.”

“Well, I know that,” I said. It was green. Now, how to ‘fess up with the least embarrassment. “Should you cook it?” I asked innocently.

Shocked, she said in a strained voice, “Oh, don’t do that. Cooking makes it limp. And bitter.”

I giggled. For once the bad food wasn’t my cooking. It was mi what ah. I knew I shouldn’t have cooked it, but I’m not much of a predator, and I just didn’t know if it would fight back harder if I tried to eat it raw.

 “I noticed that,” I said. “I sort of accidentally cooked it.”

She was shocked, like nobody could be that dumb. She was also disappointed in me. Like Grace the Cat in her stoic cat way.

 “Oh, you shouldn’t do that,” the farmer said.

Good words to hear before I’d suffered through two miserable dinners.

Thing is, I wouldn’t have had to hear them if I’d just paid attention to my kids. The dogs, that goofy cat, they knew.

So now I’m a reformed shopper at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market. The vendors tend to explain things to me as they’re putting them in my bag: this is pea shoots, this is spinach, whatever. People in line shake their heads and sigh. But at least I get home safely. With food we kind of know how to eat.

Food that gets vetted by Grace the Cat.

Which is why I’m sticking to things the cat likes. Pea sprouts (certified by the farmer). Meat. Blueberry muffins. Cheese doodles. Salad. Corn bread, even though mine is more skanky than home on the range.

Because I guess I hit menopause and I’m not so home on the range. But there’s this cool grass I grow on the deck for the kids. They love it, so it must be good. Don’t have to cook it. Cool.

© 2011 Robyn M Fritz

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The Not So Crazy Things We Do for Our Animals

November 7, 2011 by

Here I’d been thinking I was just a bit off. And, as usual, not regretting it a bit.

When I think about being a bit off, I understand that I’m more off than normal. At least that’s what some people tell me, because I’m making a living in partnership with a crystal ball (literally). I did, however, think that I might just be the only person out there who bought a home, and a car, for my animal family.

Thanks to Yvonne DiVita over at BlogPaws I discovered a funky website called Daily Infographic. Where I discovered, in “20 Facts about Pet Ownership,” that I am in the minority but not all alone out there, doing whatever makes sense for my multi-species family.

See Item 7: “16% of dog owners and 14% of cat owners say they bought a home or a car with a pet in mind.” That includes me.

Even back when I didn’t have an animal family.

Back in 1998 I decided I wanted a dog again in my life, after grieving for my beloved English Cocker, Maggie, for 12 years. My landlord wouldn’t allow pets, so I bought a condo. A few months later an irrepressible, goofy Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Murphy Brown, came home to live with me.

Thirteen years later we’re both still here, aging together. We’ve been joined by another Cavalier, my goofy boy, Alki, and Grace the Cat.

The  condo wasn’t the only thing I bought. By the time Grace the Cat came along 8 years ago it was clear we had car issues. The fancy Audi I’d bought to drive long distances to visit my nephews was impractical. I needed a family car: something easy to get into and out of with two dogs and a cat in tow.

The Audi went and a Toyota Matrix came. It’s a whole lot easier to get around in. Especially with the animals in tow.

And the condo? I love our condo. My multi-species family loves it. I planned for it to be a place where kids and dogs could come and go while enjoying the beach in our salty, sandy Seattle beach neighborhood. It worked really well for that. What I didn’t count on was the most obvious of all—my animals would age.

The human-animal bond is a strange and wonderful thing. Trying to live a thoughtful life is tough enough alone. Adding animals to the mix can be devastating. I wouldn’t trade it for a life without them, but I can’t sugarcoat it.

That’s where we’ve become our own strange statistic. Not surprising, really, considering the things we’ve shared, from past lives to a cherry addiction.

And a new, tough thing. Murphy and I share a gruesome arthritis: our futures our written in our spines.

It means we need a home where we don’t have stairs. I can do them okay for now, but it’s hard to carry things. Like groceries and handicapped dogs. As I watch Murphy gamely do the stairs, and Alki begin to hurt as well, I see time running out.

It means we’ll have to leave the home I bought for us to live in.

I love our home. My work means that I talk with all life. Our home, Frank, is a real living being, an active presence in our lives and our work. But we’ll have to leave him behind.

People say: “Really? You’d give up your home for a 13-year-old dog?”

To which I say, “Well, wouldn’t you?”

© 2011 Robyn M Fritz

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The Worst Part About Living with Animals

October 22, 2011 by

I was out with the dogs, scooping poop as we meandered down the street.

The man carefully negotiated the turn on his motorbike and headed up the street toward us. He saw me bagging poop and, with a sympathetic grin, said, “That has to be the worst part of the job.”

 “Not even close,” I laughed.

But he got me thinking.

What is the worst thing about living with animals, about living the human-animal bond, about living life as a multi-species families?

Having a migraine and dealing with upset dog tummies in the middle of the night—in a driving rainstorm?

Preparing food when you’re tired?

Baths and grooming?

The medical bills? Or the worry that caused them in the first place?

What it feels like to see the want and need for attention on their faces, and you’re too busy to give it?

Nope, none of those things.

The worst part of living with animals is aging.

Sure, the dying part won’t be a picnic. It will be sad, even if it’s a relief because it’s time (if it is), and I’ll cry a lot and want do-overs. I’ll cry because I’m sentimental and I love them and will miss them. I’ll cry when I think of all the times when I could have been a better friend, even though I know those times start when you’re about 2 and just multiply over the years. And zip by in light-years when you’re living the human-animal bond.

But really, aging is the worst part.

A lot of people give up when frailty strikes an animal companion. Old animals get abandoned. They’re too much work, or people can’t face their own mortality while helping a loved one with theirs. Or the bills are too big. Or they simply can’t accommodate their needs. Sometimes aging isn’t an option because death sneaks up on us.

Most of us stick with our aging animals because we won’t imagine anything else. Because they’re family, a special family: a multi-species one. Because it’s a choice, and not just ours: because our animals choose to grow old, just as we do, and we honor that choice. We watch aging as it happens, and every day our hearts break a little bit more, because we’re enjoying their old age with them, but the days keep slipping by.

I remember when Murphy was a puppy, a goofy high-spirited romper who dug holes bigger than she is and barked all the way down them to China. Now she’s 13, her head twitches a bit at night, the hind end is a bit stiff, the arthritis ripples down her back, and a good long nap, yummy treats, and a few short trips with sniffs are about her speed. Mine, too, really. Oh, yeah, she romps quite a bit, because truth is, she’s 13 going on, oh, about 10.

Now Alki is 10, gray-eared and missing a few teeth, a bit sore in the back at times. But show him a stick or a treat and he’s game for the adventure. Deaf. And sometimes creaky on the stairs.

And Grace the Cat? At 8 she appears to be ageless, but that’s just my way of not thinking about it. Hers, too.

So here’s the thing.

Aging animals are harder. Murphy isn’t up to the kind of exercise that Alki is, so we go out in shifts here. Murphy doesn’t like being left behind, but sometimes it’s necessary. We don’t like leaving her behind, but  sometimes we have to.

Murphy had a lot of health problems early on. It astonishes me that people say this is because she’s purebred, as if being purebred is a dishonor instead of a choice. Truth is, while Murphy did inherit a few conditions, a bad vet made them chronic. That’s when I learned to fight back. That’s why Murphy got to be 13—and old.

Aging animals have aches and pains. We manage ours. I won’t tolerate pain, so old age here is as comfortable and easy as it can be.

But aging doesn’t stop.

Things slow down with an aging animal. I look back at the last 13 years with Murphy and I laugh and say to her, “Wow, we grew old together.” We did, but her old age will be shorter than mine. Someday, Murphy will be gone. And Alki. And Grace. But I’ll probably still be here.

Every day I look at my aging animals and I flinch. What will old age hold for us?

I know it’s a road I don’t want to walk. If I could, I’d stop time in its tracks, get the do-overs, spend more time snoozing in the grass with my kids, make everything perfect and painless.

Well, okay, maybe I would.  Truth is, I’m not sure that anything would have been better than the life I’ve shared with my multi-species family. They’ve lived long happy lives. I’m tougher and smarter than I ever was without them. Kinder. More loving. Happier than I ever thought possible.

Because of my animal family I’ve found a life I never knew existed. I’m making a contribution to the world I never knew was possible. And I laugh a lot. So do my kids. We value our lives together.

Still, aging is the worst part of living with animals.

It’s also the best.

Aging animals are magnificent. As mine have aged with me I’ve seen the wonder of discovery, the zest for life, maturity and determination, curiosity and excitement and, yes, depression and grief. In my aging animal family I see everything we think we see in the best lives lived by humans.

I see grace. Belief. Possibility. Lives well lived.

Walking this last long road with my family I’m simply grateful that I can. It’s not time I ever thought I’d have, because, when problems cropped up with Murphy, it didn’t look like we had time, and Alki and Grace seemed, well, eternal.

I was naïve.

But I’m not stupid.

Aging is the worst and the best part of living with animals. It means we are lucky enough to experience a complete, full life with them. It’s a gift. An honor. A privilege.

It’s mine. I wouldn’t give it back for anything.

I cherish each and every day. It’s more than I ever expected. Harder than I ever wanted. The best thing that ever was.

Aging is a gift. One I accept with humility, compassion, gratitude, and some worry. One I hope to give back to the world as a lesson learned in love. In acceptance. In getting the last laugh, and making it a good one.

Here’s hoping you get that gift, too.

© 2011 by Robyn M Fritz

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If You Die Before They Do: Protecting Your Animal Family

September 23, 2011 by

I had the flu in February. Big time. Haven’t been that sick in years. Bad cough. High fever. So sick I needed help.

I’m the only human in my multi-species family, so getting help was hard. Yes, I have friends to call, and no, I didn’t want to. The ‘flu’ (an epidemiologist told me they couldn’t identify this ‘flu,’ but I’m sure it was as close to a plague as we could ever fear to see). So many people were so sick with it that I worried about accidentally contaminating them by even having them deliver groceries or walk the dogs.

Taking care of myself was hard. Stunning, blinding, debilitating hard. I needed help. So did my animal family.

It’s taken me all year to get well. Two months to recover from the flu, four to recover from the side effects, still counting on rebuilding my energy.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about what would have happened to my animal family if I’d died.

That’s when I realized that I hadn’t updated my will in 9 years. My two dogs, Murphy and Alki, were provided for, but Grace the Cat would, technically, end up homeless. Although I’d had the guardianship conversation recently with any number of people, I hadn’t followed up for my own kids. I’d essentially ignored an essential element of the human-animal bond: I hadn’t made sure they would always be cared for.

So here’s what you do for your animal family: before you die.

Financial and Legal Provisions

  • Estimate your animal’s longevity.
  • Estimate your animal’s basic care costs: food, shelter, medical care, entertainment (yep, you’ll be dead, but they’ll still need to play).
  • Estimate your animal’s special care costs: food, medical care, emergency care, supportive care (palliative, mobility aids, etc.).
  • Update your will.
  • Prepare legal documents: have your attorney draw up legal documents providing for transfer of ownership (animals are our families, but legally they are property), care directions, and financial support.
  • Consider appointing multiple guardians:
    • a legal guardian to oversee legal issues
    • a welfare guardian to oversee the estate monies and monitor the animal’s welfare in a new home (financial and physical/emotional care)
    • a physical guardian to adopt your animals

Physical Provisions

  • Find a physical guardian. Someone needs to adopt your animals. It’s better to have someone in mind (and willing) than for your animal family to end up in a shelter—or on the street.
    • Consider each animal’s physical needs: does your cat need a warm bed at night, do the dogs sleep in bed with you or in the hall to keep cool, what do they like to eat, what are their favorite toys? What kind of family would suit them: a single person, an elderly couple, a rabble-rousing kid-filled family? Must multiple animals be rehomed together? Is your animal handicapped? I adore my handicapped dog, but some people may not be able to physically or emotionally care for an animal with special needs.
    • Keep records: write everything up, including medical records. Keep it updated and share it with friends: everything you know about your animal should be right there. Make sure to discuss all of it with your potential guardians.
  • Find a welfare guardian to oversee your animal’s life in a new home. Appoint someone you know and trust who has common sense, a practical mind, compassion, and shares your mindset. That person will have tough choices. Make sure those choices are as close to your own as you would make. Your animals deserve it.
  • Consider separating guardianships. One person could supervise ownership transfer, ongoing physical and emotional welfare, and financial care for the animal’s life; another person becomes the caretaker (new owner). Seriously. Consider separating the money from the physical guardian. Welfare guardians can be objective and ensure that the monies are only going for your animal’s care. Yes, there’s the consideration that your animals are only being adopted for their estate, but there’s also the emotional burden physical guardians must deal with if a catastrophic medical issue arises. If you’ve planned properly, this guardian will fall in love with your family: lessen the burden by leaving the financial decisions to someone else.
  • Regularly update your legal documents to reflect the animal’s physical and emotional condition.
  • Regularly check in with your appointed guardians. We usually don’t plan to die, but we will, anyway. Say every year at tax time you also check in with prospective guardians, to make sure nothing has changed for them and they will still be available to serve their role.

Emotional Provisions

  • Define your animal’s basic emotional needs. Assess each animal’s personality, and verify that with friends who know them: our devotion to our animals can blind us to their faults, so make sure you outline what someone would like, and dislike, about each one. You’ll have a better chance of finding your animals a good home.
  • Physical needs help define emotional ones, but they really are separate issues. What do your animals need to be happy? Yes, they will miss you. Make sure their legal guardian knows what they need to feel safe, happy, comforted—and loved.
  • Find a good animal communicator. Yes, I talk with animals, but I also have trusted communicators talk with mine. Find someone who can help you talk with your animal companions about their concerns in this process and what they would like. They have rights, too. And opinions and feelings. Honor them.

So, have I updated care instructions for my kids? Um, well. Yes, guardians are notified, monies are set aside, preferences and needs are identified.

Here’s what I learned this year.

Being sick reminds us that we’re mortal, which reminds us that things end. I want to make sure that if I can’t be there, someone else will be: someone who will try, as hard as I do, to create a healthy happy multi-species family.

In the meantime, I’m going to remind myself every day that I’m alive, my kids are alive, and we have the world’s best family. I make sure to tell them that every day.

My kids know it, and believe it.

How about yours? Tell them you love them, every day. Before it’s too late. Enjoy your animal family. And don’t forget: if you’re not there, someone almost as good as you should be. Make sure of it.

 

© 2011 Robyn M Fritz

 

Filed Under: Human-Animal Bond Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How a Company’s Raffle Prize Helped an Animal Shelter

September 13, 2011 by

On the weekend before the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show back in February I attended a pet writing conference in New York City, the day before I won the Merial Human-Animal Bond Award for my book, Bridging Species: Thoughts and Tales About Our Lives with Dogs. Yay!

It was a fun weekend and I met some fabulous people. Winning the Merial Award, a coveted prize in the dog writing world, plus a cash grant, was wonderful. The recognition for writing about new ways to think about the human-animal bond felt great.

I also got lucky and won a raffle prize from Hartz at the writing conference. A few weeks later this enormous gift basket arrived in the mail, full of Hartz treats, combs, brushes, a toothbrush, toys galore, and a wonderful note from Jennifer Dombkowski, Integrated Marketing Manager at The Hartz Mountain Corporation.

It was far more than my multi-species family could use, although these pictures prove that they were fascinated! And, yes, played with a toy or two.

The feature photo here is a shot of the complete gift basket at our vet’s office in Port Hadlock, WA, as the gift was on its way to the Jefferson County Animal Shelter. (My apologies to Hartz, as the gift arrived perfectly wrapped, but was inexpertly unwrapped and rewrapped by, you guessed it, me.)

Thanks to Hartz’s generosity at a pet writing conference in New York, a group of homeless dogs and cats in rural western Washington had some fine treats and toys. Jefferson County’s animals have taken a hit with the tough economy, and this briefly helped.

Every time you think that a nice gesture doesn’t count, think about what tossing a business card into a raffle basket can do for an animal near you. Yep, a nice advertising plug for a company, and a good benefit to some needy animals.

Awesome and forever, two of my favorite words.

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

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Why MY Dogs Aren’t Spoiled–MY Cat Ain’t, Either

August 3, 2011 by

Amazing the number of people who scowl and tell me I’m spoiling my animal family.

It flummoxes me. These people, ‘the complainers,’ don’t just turn up their noses at me and my kids. They’re rude about disapproving of people (like me) who treat our animal family as something more than discardable toys, and in public no less.

I’m spoiling my family? Huh. Actually, I’m taking care of them. Like equals.

My eldest dog is cold a lot, so she wears a fleece jacket, indoors and out, during the cool months (a lot of those in Seattle). My younger dog prefers to be cool. The dogs and cat are safely constrained on car trips. They all get quality food and pure water. Cool toys and treats. Clean groomed bodies and comfy beds (often mine). Love and attention. An interesting, stimulating environment. Consideration for their bodies, their minds, their souls.

‘The complainers’ act like ‘spoiling’ is a dirty word. Like the ‘spoilers’ are guilty of some horrible offense.

Like it’s any of their business. Like they have a clue about how to really behave in the world.

So let me tell you. And them.

Treating everyone, human or animal, respectfully as equals is how the world goes from okay to fabulous. It’s how we create a happy balanced planet.

Starting by really getting it that everyone, and everything, has feelings. We can make others, including animals, happy or fearful by how we treat them.

My animal family gets treated as family, as beings who deserve to be respected, made comfortable and pleased. As equals. So what that they’re not human? What matters is that compassion, consideration, attention, and just plain fun aren’t reserved for humans. That we all have space to be animals, and humans, together. Without judgment.

What matters is that we’ve created a family that works for us, that together we’re safe, nurtured, and loved. That we give each other the best chance to be our best, whatever that is. That we pay attention to each other’s needs and interests. Isn’t that common courtesy? Compassion in action? Respect?

If that’s ‘spoiling,’ then let there be spoiling in a world that badly needs it! Starting with the people who don’t get it!

So you frowners and complainers, I hope you don’t have animals in your household. Or, maybe, other humans. Because when I hear you say ‘spoiled’ it sounds like you’re caught in that loop of wearing hair shirts with your perpetual frowns, of suffering through life instead of enjoying it, of making life miserable because it’s somehow supposed to be. Of disrespecting yourselves while you’re disrespecting others. Of not really caring about anything, or anyone, around you as much as you care about your narrow-minded viewpoint. It’s sad, and pointless.

Does minding my business for me make yours that much easier? I hope not!

At our house, everybody’s equal. We learn new things about each other every day. It isn’t always fun, but it’s always worth it. We try to model our respect and compassion in the world. Even for ‘the complainers.’

My dogs, my cat, they ain’t spoiled. They’re respected.

‘Spoiling’ is a dirty word, the way the complainers use it. So don’t. Try a little respect on yourself. You just might find that ‘spoiling’ is word, and a mindset, you’re better off without. The rest of us sure are.

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

 

Filed Under: Human-Animal Bond Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Grace the Cat’s Tail

July 30, 2011 by

We live in a small condo: just me, two Cavalier spaniels (Murphy and Alki), and Grace the Cat. Well, okay, let’s include my crystal partner, Fallon, and Raymond, a fifty-something jade tree who spreads out like an oak.

Yes, our condo is small. Still, it’s plenty of room for my head and Grace the Cat’s tail to be in two separate places at the same time.

So why aren’t they always?

Granted, my animal family and I are close. They all spend time in my lap, and we cuddle as often as we can. But there’s that peculiar cat tail.

Grace lounges on the back of my chair, defying both gravity and my opinion. She’s a small cat (her tail is long, 10 inches long), but she has a distinct knack for putting it in the exact spot of the chair where the back of my head hits. And she won’t move it.

There’s no other place for my head. It belongs in the center of the chair. If I sit straight it’s the only place my head goes. I know, I’ve tried to accommodate Grace’s tail, but I can’t. And won’t.

Yes, I move Grace’s tail out of the way so I can put my head in that spot. But the tail moves. A lot. Even when Grace doesn’t. Her tail will flop on my head, or whack my head, or poke my ear, all while Grace herself is busy pretending she’s busy doing something else. Grace simply doesn’t move, but, then, why should she? Her tail does all the work.

When I get tired of this, I move my head to turn around and complain. You guessed it. When I settle back in, Grace’s tail is back in the spot where my head belongs. We collide.

Is this a weird physics thing? Or plain dumb luck?

Oh, wait, I know! My cat has an attitude. Everybody knows that about cats.

It can’t be me.

(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz

 

Filed Under: Human-Animal Bond Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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