Lorrie [00:00:08]:
Welcome to the Maximum Fun Agility podcast. I'm Lorrie Reynolds, owner of Maximum Fun Dog Sports. We help your agility team build your relationship, communication, confidence, and fun in training so that you can joyfully succeed on any course. I want to warn you ahead of time that this episode deals with losing a pet and may trigger people who have recently gone through it. You may need a tissue or 2. One beautiful spring morning, out of the blue on a Monday, my little 6 year old dog had a grand mal seizure. For those of you who are fortunate to never have dealt with this before, seizures are terrifying when they occur unexpectedly. Even though I knew what was happening intellectually, I was an emotional mess as I waited an eternity for it to end.
Lorrie [00:01:00]:
I had already planned an emergency trip to the vet. Xephyr woke up and fell off the bed. He was circling oddly, and he couldn't find his crate for breakfast. I was on my way to get dressed for a trip to the emergency vet when the seizure happened. I won't drag you emotionally through all of the horrible details from that day and the follow-up visits to get more tests and an ultrasound. The seizure was caused by low glucose, which was triggered by a large mass on his liver that was interfering with the insulin balance. The vet told me that if I was lucky, I'd have a month, maybe 2, before I had to say goodbye to my dog who should have been less than halfway through his life. In many ways, I've been extremely fortunate.
Lorrie [00:01:45]:
I've had 11 rescues and 2 purchased dogs so far in my adult life, and I've only lost one other dog at a young age to an autoimmune disease that caused a sudden bleed. All of the others have lived very long lives, and my heart and soul dog lived until just shy of 17. I've never had to deal with cancer in any of my dogs, so I've beaten the odds. I'm also blessed to have had, other than the COVID years, a very active life with my dogs. Especially compared to most household pets, my dogs have lived full and enriched lives. Xephyr had traveled out of state to a national trick dog convention, had made trips to the mountains to be my teaching assistant, had gotten to play in the wide open spaces with a pack of friendly dogs on multiple occasions, had been a demo dog for foreign students learning about canine conditioning, and was my full time companion for the last 2 years of his life as I worked from home. And that brings me to the bucket list. Here's my advice.
Lorrie [00:02:55]:
All dogs should have a bucket list. It should include things you assume that they want to do and the things you want to do with them. Integrate your dog's bucket list into your daily life. Wanna make him the star of a video? Go do it now. It doesn't have to be perfect. Want to take a trip to the beach, the mountains, or the lake with your dog? Don't put it off. Take the selfies with your dog. Movie plots aside, our bucket lists for our dogs or ourselves shouldn't be one last grand adventure we take as they are dying.
Lorrie [00:03:32]:
We should do things on that list every day while they are well and can enjoy them. One of my bucket list items for Xephyr was to finish his trick dog champion title. We completed it 2 days after his formal diagnosis. You can watch it on my YouTube channel. The only things I changed after his diagnosis were to let him get away with a little more naughtiness, take some extra pictures and video since the hundreds of photos and hours of video I already had would never be enough, and feed him things I normally wouldn't have let him have. I have no regrets about Xephyr's experiences in life. I only wish that we could have continued to have those experiences together for much, much longer. Go give your dog or dogs a hug.
Lorrie [00:04:22]:
They are never with us long enough. And then go put a check mark next to another one of their bucket list items. You won't regret it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Maximum Fun Agility podcast. Learn how we can help your team and join our community at www.maximumfundogs.com. See you next time.
