Peace of Mind for Pet Parents Episode 012: Healing, Not Curing: A Brighter Path for Aging and Ill Pets

Episode Transcript: 

Karen Wylie: Hello, and welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents. I'm Karen Wylie, joined today, as always, by Gail Pope. And today we're going to explore some experiences that Gail had at the BrightHaven sanctuary. Because, she developed a unique philosophy about taking care of animals and approaching it in such a way that cure is not the only goal, but understanding, healing, and taking a healing approach is the day-to-day philosophy and goal. So Gail, can I ask you to expand on your experiences, and how you developed that approach?

Gail Pope: Well, it's a long and winding story I think. Baby-steps sums it up probably best, but I think it was… In the olden days we had a lot of animals. Some were young and healthy, some were aging and getting towards the end of their life, and others were with us at any age dealing with various illnesses. And I guess at that time our approach was changing little by little, from a purely conventional approach to health care, to a wholistic approach, and to using a lot more natural ways of care.

And I think it was as we were starting to really learn about the different ways to approach an illness, and looking at the whole being instead of the illness, I started to then realize that I was focusing on the illness or the out-of-balance state that the animal had, as we all do, as parents. You know, I mean, this is what we do. But I wasn't focusing on them as a whole. And that's really when it all started.

I don't know initially, if I looked at it as offering healing rather than curing, but that was when we were edging into an understanding. And I think the control and the fear and the worry of caring for an animal or a human when they have a diagnosed dis-ease—We want to cure that. And we focus on the cure, and we let go of the rest of it. At least, that's where I was. You know, I was so focused on: What do I need to do next? How can I do it? I've got to prolong life.

And… sooner or later I started to realize that maybe for some of us—oh gosh! I guess then the spiritual type of approach started to weave its way into the equation. And I started to realize that maybe some of us are just not meant to have long lives. Some of us have shorter lives. Some of us have what we may perceive as a wonderful life, and others not. Maybe that isn't the trajectory for us to decide. It may be preset.

I think one of the things that came to me that didn't change my life—but it has stayed with me for years and years, is a poem, and it's called A Reason, A Season, and… it's long! And so do I have it memorized? No, I don't. I'm sure we can provide a link. But it really, in summing up, is that we are all born into this world for these three things: for a Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime.

And when I started to look back and apply that to the animals, past and present, I could almost look at those who had left us to see whether—Oh, my gosh! He came to us obviously for a reason. And here are the very clear reasons. And, you know, we dealt with whatever that purpose was. And then others who came for a season of life. They may have taught us lessons. They may have learned from us. But it was for a particular season. And then those who came to us at a younger age, and they stayed with us for the whole lifetime. And generally those were the ones we really learned huge, huge lessons from.

And so—it just kind of developed. And I think that's when probably one of our first slogans, if you like, came about, which was healing for the highest good of the animal. So healing for the highest good seemed suddenly to be—Wow! So that's letting go of the human worry and wonder about the end of life. You know, we're going to enjoy the “now” rather than going into the future. But we're still working at healing. Again, we're looking at a spiritual aspect—for the highest good.

And then I guess that brings in the other thing that I talk about—Mother Nature. The other doctor. So if we offer the best healing we can, whether it be conventional, whatever our own approach is towards an illness, an out-of-ease situation, we have to learn those lessons from our animals to accept: We've done our best. We are doing our best.

Karen Wylie: Right.

Gail Pope: Just enjoy what we have.

Karen Wylie: It's interesting, because when I first was hearing about holistic health approaches, holistic medical approaches… of course, at the beginning, it was just about humans. And at the time it really didn't include the spiritual aspect.

Gail Pope: No.

Karen Wylie: It was… it was considering emotions. Considering, then, social being. Having an awareness or a greater understanding of how our life interacts with other lives around us, whether they're human or animal. But then the spiritual component came later.

And so, in thinking about the average pet owner out there, who is, you know, perhaps they've had their pet who maybe was diagnosed with a chronic condition that they've been treating for a long time… in those situations the focus is very much on the physical.

Gail Pope: Yes, yes.

Karen Wylie: The—you know, what medical treatments are we doing that maintain some stability in my pet's condition? And of course, as we've talked about previously, if something's difficult to manage, there's going to be more ups and downs, and that adds another layer of complexity to maintaining a condition, a stable condition.

But if you get to that point where you're looking at, as you're describing, healing for the highest good—and here you're talking about, not… you know, yes, we talk about it for humans. But right now we're talking about the pet, the animal—can you say a little bit more about how you're looking at the whole, the truly holistic view of a pet, in terms of their physical condition, emotional, social, and spiritual? Because not everyone has thought about their animals as having these… these additional dimensions.

Gail Pope: Right.

Karen Wylie: Especially when the pet has been diagnosed medically, because we all tend to focus, as you're saying, you focus on what's wrong instead of backing up and seeing what might be going right, and looking at all aspects of your pet's life—and your own.

Gail Pope: I guess you're really talking here about the BrightHaven Menu for Healing, because that's really, I guess, where it all began—again, these baby steps—our philosophy started to change. And we never let go of any of the different things that we'd learned, conventionally or holistically, but we started to kind of create this menu. And—well, we didn’t create it. It created itself.

And what we realized is that love itself was the most important ingredient—the appetizer. You've got to have it. And then you've got to have that for dessert, too. I mean, that really is wrapping the menu up. And so we started looking at the various approaches that we'd learned holistically and conventionally—for diagnostics, maybe—and we just put them in order. I mean, it’s on our website, it became the Menu for Healing. And it's what we still live by now, or what—certainly what I live by now, because if I have a new animal come to me, then I have to get to know them. I have to love them. I have to let them see who, who I am.

And then I look at what is the best diet in this situation? You know, what can I do? I mean, anyone who knows me knows that I lean to a raw meat–based diet where possible. However, sometimes we have to learn that that’s not always possible. You know, as humans, we know very well—some of us can or can’t eat particular diets, and it’s the same again. So it’s looking at this being rather than having something that is regimented for all. We have to look.

And then I think about diagnostics. Sometimes we don't need to do diagnostics. Animals come to us either with them, or in what apparently is really good health—they’re just elderly. So as and when the need occurs, we would have diagnostics run.

The one thing we did do for all our animals was to engage one of our wonderful classical veterinary homeopaths to be their vet, even if there were no actual symptoms to express. Something underlying—everybody has a different personality. We are all special beings. So that’s a place you can begin with.

So under the holistic umbrella were flower essences, herbs, holistic therapies, and I still use a lot of them. We learned about immune support and organ support. And so all of these things, little by little, had crept into our lives until it was—I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure I probably picked up a piece of paper and thought, “I need to make a list of things that, you know, we do,” because we use them all the time.

And then that’s when, I guess, the spiritual aspect to the menu crept in—with Reiki, with other forms of energy healing, with Feng Shui. Life really started to open up and show us different vistas. And there it was. It wrote itself, and it became our Menu for Healing.

And was curing a part of that? Yes, at some level. But I started to realize that just because a symptom goes away, it doesn’t mean there’s a cure.

We know that in holistic thinking, a symptom is a gift. It’s like Mother Nature said, “Excuse me, you’re missing something. Here’s a symptom.” But there’s something else going on, and this is a symptom of it. And so we started looking at those things, and it—I guess it just evolved into our Menu for Healing. And it has worked for us.

We've learned to do our best. To do it with love. To accept that we’ve done our best. And to, at some level, let go of the worry and the fear about caregiving. Because that’s all any of us can ever do, isn’t it? We can only do our best—with love as the appetizer and the dessert. So there you are, you're back in the menu.

Karen Wylie: You’re talking about the Love Sandwich.

Gail Pope: Isn’t that lovely? I don’t know who actually came up with that idea. Probably Carol, I expect. But…

Karen Wylie: I have heard it many a time, so I can't help but think of that when you’re talking about the Menu for Healing.

So your approach then, as you're saying, you know, taking an approach to cure had a role at various times with various animals. But maintaining balance was really your goal—or your approach was looking at each animal and trying to find out what their best equilibrium for them was, and keeping them in balance.

And so when an animal reaches a point where nothing you’re doing is restoring balance in terms of prime condition and health, and you’re seeing a slide in their condition—especially if a pet parent has that situation verified in some way by the veterinarian they're working with—that it doesn’t seem as though  treatments have a role anymore…

What does a pet parent do at that point to embrace this philosophy that you’re describing, that has worked so well for you? Because so much of our role as a pet owner is maintaining the physical care and providing any physical treatments that are necessary. So what happens when treatment is no longer going to do anything, and the focus shifts then to the healing for the highest good, and providing comfort and focusing on the relationship—you continue to have that sense of connection you have with your pet, as well as so many other things as you're describing?

Gail Pope: Now you’re talking about—we’ve kind of slid a little further along the line. And now we’re talking about how important it is to be monitoring the quality of life.

Karen Wylie: Yes.

Gail Pope: And therein lies another difference, because—as… say we’ve got an aging animal who is very gradually starting to wind down. Well, we’re looking at quality of life. Our Menu for Healing—actually we do have two menus. The main menu, but then it tweaks a little bit, because as we get closer towards the end of life, we don’t do invasive treatments. We don’t DO so much as before. But it’s—it’s a journey to monitoring daily life to be the best it can be.

And I think we see it. We see a difference there. We see a difference in ways of thinking. Because a lot of people are looking at quality of life with a view to end of life.

Karen Wylie: Right.

Gail Pope: And how that should happen, and possibly sometimes as to whether to consider euthanasia, because they’ve gone as far as they can. And sometimes that may be the right choice. But quality of life for actual living…

Karen Wylie: Is—

Gail Pope: You know, “living” to me is the word. Because you can have an animal who is not in good health, but the joy shines from their little face. That’s living. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the joy, the love, the laughter. We know that smiling is contagious. We know that it’s healing. It’s part of the process. So if you have a happy cat or dog, regardless of the fact that kidneys are failing or they have cancer—that’s okay. It’s part of living. So I think looking at the best recipe you can for creating that feeling of living—does that make sense?

Karen Wylie: It absolutely does. And of course, you know, I agree with you that a lot of us, at least historically, have not thought about quality of life until we're wondering if it's time to do something about it.

Gail Pope: Exactly.

Karen Wylie: That a decision has to be made. NOW let's look at quality of life. And, you know, then you download one of the assessments available online, and you're numerically rating where your pet is on all the—usually the physical dimension. And that's why we created a different quality of life care assessment, which is for living, and we called it the LIVING Assessment.

And so we have that available for any of our listeners or viewers who might like to explore them. We have that on brightpathforpets.com. We've got the Menu for Healing available as well as the LIVING Assessment, because the LIVING Assessment is trying to look at what day-to-day life looks like for you and your pet—even when medical treatment is no longer a part of your daily routine, when you're not aiming for a cure anymore.

Gail Pope: Right.

Karen Wylie: Because animals can be expressing joy for a very long time after that—after treatment stops. And they're the best gauge of when their life is over. Let them decide. It's not something—well, as you know, and how you feel, too—we don’t have to decide. Our animals can decide. But that—we’ll save that for another topic.

Gail Pope: Yes.

Karen Wylie: Another topic to discuss. But is there anything else you'd like to say about approaching healing for the highest good, especially to a pet owner who hasn't—this is a whole different way to look at the care of their pet?

Gail Pope: No, I think it really is just… it's more about us than it is about the animal. It's about us learning. Again, it's animal wisdom. We have to learn from them. If they're happy, then sometimes we have to let go of all the worries and the concerns of being a parent. And that’s hard for us. That’s very hard.

Karen Wylie: Very hard.

Gail Pope: I think stopping ourselves right where we are and asking ourselves the question: What would he want? What would she want? Is this a good balance for her? It may not feel quite a good balance for me, but maybe it is. Maybe it—maybe it is.

But I think letting go of the word cure—I mean, let's face it, in this world of ours, both living and dying have become very medicalized.

Karen Wylie: So true.

Gail Pope: And I think if we can let go of trying to direct the path sometimes, and just do our best—again, offering healing for the highest good. Prayers are healing. Love, laughter, smiling—and various, obviously many holistic modalities are available, which can be very powerful—as 600 or 700 animals have shown us.

It does seem to be a little bit coincidental, perhaps, that so many animals have lived their way happily to the very end of their lives at BrightHaven. So I think there is—there's definitely something to be said for this.

Karen Wylie: Definitely something to be said for this approach.

Gail Pope: Totally.

Karen Wylie: Well, we’ll make sure to link these resources right below the summary of this episode. And if you want to access either the Menu for Healing or the LIVING Quality of Care Assessment Tool on the brightpathforpets.com site, all you have to do is do a little forward slash and add living (brightpathforpets.com/living) or healing (brightpathforpets.com/healing), and you’ll get to either instrument, either tool that you can download. And then we’ll include the links to where you can find them on the brighthaven.org site as well.

So we thank you for being with us today and look forward to talking with you next time.

Karen Wylie: Bye-bye.

Gail Pope: Bye-bye. Thank you.