Peace of Mind for Pet Parents Episode 081: Pet Advance Directive: What to Include

RESOURCES MENTIONED & RELATED LISTENING

• LIVING Quality of Life Care Assessment Tool — Free download
• Menu for Healing PDF - Free download
• PEACEFUL PDF - Free Download
• BrightHaven Animals YouTube Channel — Search: BrightHaven Animals | @brighthaven_animals
• Animal Hospice Group (animalhospicegroup.com) — professional certification organization in animal hospice and palliative care

You might also find helpful:

• Episode 60: What If Your Pet Had a DNR? Planning for Peace When Crisis Hits(opens in new tab)
• Episode 62: After the Loss: What Your Surviving Pets Need and What They Give Back(opens in new tab)
• Episode 073: Reading What They Can’t Say: Pain, Comfort, and the End-of-Life Journal
• Episode 023: Living to the Last Breath: A Pet Parent’s Perspective on Dying Naturally
• Episode 069: Preparing for Your Pet's Death — Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Ways to Make Every Moment Count
  
• Episode 058: Can My Pet Die Peacefully at Home? What Natural Death Really Looks Like

Related reading:

• The Other Doctor in the Room: Trusting Nature at the End of Life
• Walking the BrightPath: A Pet Parent’s Guide to Home Hospice and Natural Transition
• Emotional Support for Pet Owners Facing a Difficult Diagnosis: Coping with Guilt, Fear, and Grief
• Monitoring Your Pet's Health at Home: A Palliative Care Guide for Chronic and Difficult Conditions

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Episode Transcript: 

Karen Wylie: Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents. I'm Karen Wylie here, as always, with my wonderful friend Gail Pope. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about something that many of you have probably already done for a parent, perhaps a spouse or maybe even for yourself and that is an advance directive. But writing one for your pet is a different kind of task and we want to talk you through that and we'll talk about why it's a little different and the kinds of things that we should consider and include in it.

When you write your own advance directive for your end of life, you're writing down your own wishes in your own words. You're basically leaving your written instructions for the future and your future medical care in the event that you can't speak for yourself at that point. You're conveying that these were prepared at a time you could clearly decide for yourself. 

Now for our pets, this is something new to think about doing but it really should be part of a caregiver's written plan for their pet's end of life care. And also include what you believe your pet's wishes for end of life might be.

We're going to talk about the pet's comfort and your limits as a caregiver. Thinking about this in advance calmly, of course, unless one of you has a pet that can "actually write and state their own wishes" and I want to meet that pet. Mine have never done that for me. I've had to figure out what I believe they would want. 

Another big difference is that with human advance directives, it's a whole lot about hospitalization and machines: ventilators, feeding tubes, resuscitation which is something we did discuss back in the spring about, "Do you have a DNR for your pet?"

But for our pets, we have an option that most human families never face, which is talking about a natural death at home or a euthanasia at home or at a clinic— but two possible paths. A lot of humans don't think about it that way because we're assuming most likely it's going to be a natural death, since only 1 or 2% of humans choose medical aid in dying.

So Gail, when you talk with pet parents who have already done this for a human family member, what would pet parents need to unlearn or rethink to do something like this for themselves and their pets?

Gail Pope: Wow, in living memory as of now, I can only think of a handful of consultation clients for which this subject has come up. It's either it comes up generally with people who have already made advance directives for themselves and they're very conscious of the fact that they may not be elderly, old in any way, but they really know that life could end at any time, and they want to be sure. So I take my hat off to them.

However, the majority, including me, haven't really thought it through. It's something that has flown through the mind and then moved on. Now, it's interesting. 

You're really making me stop in my tracks here because the other evening, I sat down for a drink with my daughter, Kirstie, and her husband, Dave. I don't know what we were chatting about but it came up. It came up for me. Something must have triggered it, and Kirstie said, "Okay, I just want to go over the things that you would or wouldn't do." We were obviously talking about an event that had happened for somebody else. "I know you wouldn't want to be put on a ventilator but if that happened... Because I would be left making decisions for you. So I really want to know what your thoughts are." And she really dived deep into the subject.

Karen Wylie: Oh, good for her. Good for her.

Gail Pope: And so it was really interesting, and I think a lot of people can't have these kinds of conversations with their family or children because people are scared of talking about death. 

But it actually was a funny conversation. We were able to laugh and joke through it and it was really helpful. If you'd have asked me, "Are you going to have a conversation with your children?" I would've been like, "No, I don't think I really need to. They know me." But - we went deeper than the surface.

Of course, it was really influenced by the fact that my late husband, Richard, had been a planner through his life but towards the end and at the end, it all went out of the window. He didn't follow any of the things that he'd said he would want. So that made it very difficult to make decisions. So obviously, I just sprang into action, literally doing what I know that he would've wanted had he really been able to explain himself. But yes, it's an interesting situation.

So going back to an advanced directive for my animals. That really started me thinking. And again, I'm in the most beautiful situation because I live next door to my family. They know my animals really well and during the conversation that we had the other day, Kirstie actually said or maybe I brought up the subject and said, "What about Maisie and Ollie? If I died, what would happen?" And she was right there. She said, "Ollie?" Who's 18, deaf and blind, who is more like a two-year-old in many ways. She said, "He finds his way. We've been actually doing this. You bring him over, depending on the weather. Take him indoors and he knows the house quite well now."

She said, "It wouldn't be a problem at all because Ollie, I would just literally transfer him here. He would adapt really easily. I know what you feed him and when you feed him, and I know the funny little ways he has. So that wouldn't be a problem. As for Maisie, I would not have a clue, so we need to talk more about her. She's new, so that's changing. So this conversation will have to evolve a little bit as we all get to know her better."

So I'm in a delightful situation unless, of course, the whole family gets wiped out in one go. Nothing's written down for anybody other than the standard forms that I have on my fridge about the DNR— those standard medical forms. That would be all that there was. So it still begs something to think about, doesn't it?

Karen Wylie: It is something important to do. I think it's wonderful that Kirstie brought that up as a conversation to have with you because she would want to do right by you and whatever you wanted. So to hear it directly from you is perfect. 

And of course she grew up at a time where the sanctuary was part of her life too. This ability to talk more freely about death because death and dying, because you all were dealing with it more frequently, I think it brought some of the barriers down. Where it just becomes a part of your life and their lives and not something to be so afraid of.

I think when it comes to these advanced directives for a lot of people they just avoid it entirely. They don't want to think about it. We'll make it happen if we think about it. I believe I mentioned this when we did the episode on the DNR because you were talking about your experiences with Richard in healthcare and the hospitals. I was talking about my experience with my husband Tim and about us going to start seeing a cardiologist a couple times a year when they'd diagnosed a very small heart issue 10, 12 years ago.

And I was shocked that every single nurse that came into the room was, "Do you have an advanced directive? Have you done—" Whether it was they're taking your blood pressure or they're asking about the medications that he was on or whatever, every single one of them was asking, "Do you have an advanced directive?" And like I said, that was 10 or 12 years ago but that was our first time. We actually had done some of it a few years prior when we had last done our wills but I was just shocked by the time we were leaving just that first cardiologist checkup. We'd had four or five people ask about his advanced directive and finding out what role— was I the one that would be making decisions. They were very careful about that.

Of course, our veterinarians are not going to be asking us about that with our pets. But I think it does become something that if we think about it ahead of time and we're comfortable with how we want to approach our pet's end of life, that we'll probably have fewer regrets and less guilt or maybe none at all because we'll feel good about the decisions that we make.

So let's talk through what actually belongs in a pet's advanced directive because, again, it's both for your benefit and what you believe your pet would like. 

So the first thing that probably needs to be in it would be who decides about your pet if you can't? So the first piece is basically naming that backup decision-maker. Someone who knows your wishes well enough to speak for your pet if you're not reachable, if you're overwhelmed or simply not thinking clearly in the moment. So Gail, why does this matter that this backup decision-maker actually talk it through with the pet parent ahead of time, rather than just being handed the title— "the decision-making responsibility"?

Gail Pope: I think the bottom line there is that our animals are very much like us. They're all different. What one might want, the other absolutely would not want. I'm being trained by Maisie in those consequences at the moment. So I think it's really important to know whether, given a particular diagnosis, they should go ahead and do surgery. Given a certain situation would you choose euthanasia or not euthanasia? And again, that could open a deeper conversation depending on the other person's experience or ability or their own wishes.

So it's something to explore at a much greater depth. Then there are the everyday things like food. Nourishment in whatever way: walking dogs, taking out for a walk, and daily activities and what the animal is used to that you would wish or hope may be able to be continued.

Karen Wylie: And then especially for the absolute end of life, if you and I have our first option, it's always going to be we're aiming for a natural death for our pets. But that doesn't mean that everyone or anyone we would name would have that same comfort level. So that's something to think about in terms of the preferred path that you would hope to have for your pet, and who could perhaps best step forward on either path. Is that a clear way to describe that?

Gail Pope: Yes, I think so. It's a very important part.

Karen Wylie: I think it is too. Especially if someone's traveling, for example, and someone's caring for your pet whether it's a pet sitter or a neighbor. Knowing how to guide them when you can't be there, these are things to be thinking about. That would give you peace of mind and whoever is your caretaker, your caregiver, who's pinch-hitting for you is placed in this situation.

So once you know who's going to be deciding things, I guess the next question is what they're going to be deciding on. 

I guess this is where I thought we could bring the living framework in because this is where we help you on a weekly basis go through the tool and identify what quality of life is actually looking like for your individual pet at that point. That would help your decision-maker not to be guessing later on. Gail, if you could share an example of how quality of life can look different from one pet to another, that would be helpful.

Gail Pope: Well, I'll go back to Ollie since he's here right now. Just merely sharing with someone that you have an 18-year-old dog who's deaf and blind would immediately have them on guard. Quality of life? Oh my God, that must be awful. And yet you could parallel him with another animal, the same age, and it would be a completely different picture. 

So I think quality of life is something interesting and it may well be that something like our Living booklet should be part of what is used going forward because you don't think about how important quality of life is when you are the parent because a lot of it sits here (in the mind).

You write certain things down but you've still got the backstory. You've still got things that you don't necessarily write down. So being able to actually do something on paper and get a little more detail in would be very important. And again, you've got to keep it fairly up to date because you're planning for the future, which may be different from the now.

Karen Wylie: And again, it could just be you're going out of town for a weekend or a few days. But if something happened, if there was a crisis in your pet's condition, somebody would be stepping in and trying to decide on your behalf. But they can only really go on the guidance that you provide them.

Gail Pope: Yes. Oh, yes.

Karen Wylie: As you're saying, so much of what determines how we view quality of life of each of our pets is in our head and what we're used to seeing. Their favorite shelf on the cat tree and whether they're higher or lower. And or a dog, how far they're going on their walk these days. That's a good indication. So yes, finding what rules of thumb would make sense at a particular time.

Gail Pope: A good way to start to actually move into following the Living details would be for those people who actually have employed a pet sitter to care for their animal. Because when you have a pet sitter, you think about you've got to teach them, "This is what they eat, this is when they eat it, and that's what you put in it." That kind of basic information. If you've actually written something like that down, ooh, now we've got a beginning to actually create this document that contains so much more than just the basic details.

Karen Wylie: Yes, exactly. And depending on where they are in their disease process or their decline, if they're really close to end of life, you're probably not going out of town on vacation. But there could be a work obligation that you have no option about and still have to go. But yes, thinking about that through the eyes of training a pet sitter is a great way to help think about the information you'd want to provide.

Gail Pope: It may also be that at this point your animal isn't old or sick in any way.

Karen Wylie: Well, that's true.

Gail Pope: To actually make notes and if somebody else had to step in, think of animals that end up in a shelter. There they do physical exams and blood work, and they discover what the background is medically. That is a help, a step in the right direction. They have a whole new being there. Somebody has to learn from scratch, and it's not easy.

Karen Wylie: Definitely. You did that a thousand different times.

Gail Pope: Yes, yes.

Karen Wylie: So you know it's not easy.

Gail Pope: And when you've got an animal who is grieving a loss of some kind, and they come to you without their history, without being able to share their history with you, it can be even more difficult. That's what the sanctuary reminds me of. So many animals who have come to us grieving, and we didn't know who they were, or we didn't have any background on them. So it takes time to step in and find out their likes, their dislikes, what they will and what they won't, and how they fit in with other animals or don't.

Karen Wylie: Another area to consider is how far you would want someone to go with treatment. So this is where you would be thinking through, at what point does further treatment stop helping your pet live and begin a point where it's prolonging the dying process?

It could also be where some financial boundaries need to be addressed calmly and ahead of time for yourself and your family so that you're getting a good handle on what you're able to spend, what you're willing to spend so that guilt and money don't get all entangled up together later on. 

Of course, this is also where a DNR lives— the Do Not Resuscitate. Not as the whole advanced directive but as one specific piece of it. I'll make sure to put the link to the episode where we focused on the DNR in the show notes.

So Gail, how would you help a pet parent think through their financial limits without shame being attached to them?

Gail Pope: I don't know. Because again, it's so different. It's different for everybody, isn't it? We had a system at the sanctuary where people would contact us. They would fill in our forms, and they would make an initial small deposit. Then if they died, if something happened to them and they were unable to, we had agreed for a specific sum of money to take the animal in.

So they'd given us some pretty good information at that point. But again, it's still taking a new being into your home and getting to know them. So the more you have on paper, the more help it can be. But then they're coming to you in a grief situation, which can change their picture too. So it's very hard, I think, to get to know a new animal when they're grieving, when their whole life has changed.

It does take time. And the more you know about the kind of background they've had at home, what kind of treatment they've had in the past. Have they had conventional? Have they had holistic treatment? Have they really had no kind of treatment other than an emergency situation? Those things can all be relevant to plan how to go forward. And again, we come up against the situation that the person who ends up caring for that animal may have a completely different mindset. That can be a really big obstacle.

I think sometimes you just have to let go and let love lead the way, and even if things aren't continued exactly how you would like them to be, to know that animal is really deeply loved by someone, to me, that would be the most important part.

Karen Wylie: And the financial aspects these days, this would be something to really stay on top of over time because even if someone had done an advance directive a year ago on their pet based on what the cost of pet services were at the clinic a year ago, you have no clue whether they're 20% higher now or 30% higher now. I saw a video on Facebook a couple days ago from a veterinarian talking about how one of her clients showed an invoice from an emergency room visit over the previous weekend when that vet was not around, and they were being charged hundreds of dollars for fluids.

Gail Pope: Oh, Yes.

Karen Wylie: I hadn't known about that, I was so used to doing them at home. But anyway, I think especially when it comes to the financial aspects of how we handle illness and end of life, there does come a point where we have to have that awareness of what we really can do. Then at what point does it begin affecting our ability to take care of our home expenses, children's expenses, all the other pets' expenses.

So it's not a little thing. It's actually a very complicated thing. But it is something to at least have a sense of because you might have to give this kind of guidance to whoever's taking care of your pet in your place and what the financial limit would be of the care that could be pursued.

Gail Pope: Yes, yes.

Karen Wylie: So going back to what I brought up a little earlier and the two pathways of natural death or euthanasia, and where you as the pet owner lean. We've talked about this so many different times on the podcast. This is not a kind of binding decision. It's not carved in stone because you really don't know exactly what's going to be happening for your pet with their unique disease process or decline process. So you could have a preference for what you want to be able to provide for your pet but something could happen that would require a shift.

So Gail, why do you feel it is most helpful for pet owners to be writing this down, even if they're not fully certain themselves yet?

Gail Pope: I think before the writing down comes the question of, "Am I writing all this down for a person that I know now or for somebody who I don't know?" Because if this is for somebody that you do know, a family member, a friend who said, "Oh, don't worry, if anything happened to you I would take him," that's a different situation because you two can sit and talk about the difficult topics. If he had an emergency, here's what I would do, but what would be your way of dealing with this? What would you expect to spend? What choices would you make at end of life? What would be your preference?

That way if you have a good relationship with the person that's going to be taking your animal, you're well on the way and then you can actually write out your heart, basically. What you know you would choose because you'd be comfortable that they understand. So I think that would be really important to do.

Karen Wylie: Yes, I agree. And definitely to be thinking ahead about this in terms of what you would feel comfortable with, what you want in your heart, what your backup plan would be too, maybe. If you can't, for whatever reason, support your pet in a natural death, how would you want the euthanasia to be handled? So it's a matter of thinking ahead to what you can't control.

You don't know exactly what's going to be happening, and yet you're trying to project in the future based on your values and what you think your pet would want. Consulting with other members of your family so that when the end of life comes, at least some level of agreement about how some parts will proceed. Other things, you're just going to have to decide in the moment.

That's not an easy thing to do. So the next area to include in your thinking with an advance directive would be where and who is present. Do you want to be at home? Do you want to be at a clinic? Who do you want to be with you as you take your pet? If you take your pet to the clinic or if you are at home with your pet, would you want to be alone in that moment? That's important to think about, too, right alongside what your philosophy is on comfort and pain and what your backup plan is. How are you going to approach that?

We've talked about pain management also very often on this podcast because you have to think about how aggressively do you want to manage pain and manage comfort? How do you feel about sedation if it comes to that point? Gail is there anything pet parents might get wrong or worry about unnecessarily here when we're talking about pain management?

Gail Pope: I don't know. On the one hand, I've got thoughts of all the animals that are left alone after a person dies or even moves away sometimes, and there is absolutely nothing. And then one who has a certain amount of planning for the future. There's only a certain amount of planning, again, unless you really know that person that is going to be looking after your pet. I don't think you can address everything in minute detail.

The more information you give, and I think writing things out more simply. Obviously writing it out so that the person who ends up reading this piece gets a sense of who you are, that's really important. Gets the sense that this document has been written with a lot of love and care, and that you also understand that not everything can be done or achieved. But you want to share your heart and how life has been up until this point. Then to provide clear and basic information about how life has been, how daily meds have been, and just to give a good overall sense. I think if you include too much information, quite often, it is just too overwhelming.

Karen Wylie: Yes, true.

Gail Pope: Because going forward, it is not going to be about you. It's going to be about the animal and what's best for them and the new guardian. How they can bridge this gap and then create that new relationship. So they're going to have to bring a lot of their own ideals— they're not going to change who they are.

Karen Wylie: No.

Gail Pope: And the animal, there's going to be that period of acceptance from one to the other of a whole new way of life, a whole new dynamic to life. I think it's a delicate balance filling in those kinds of details. Obviously you need honesty, clarity, and clear information rather than a long, rambling story, which is what I'm doing now.

Karen Wylie: I think it's what any of us tend to do when it's our own pet that we're talking about. Fortunately, when we created The Planning Workbook for if you're not going to be around to take care of your pet, or you die before they do, or you're incapacitated and yet someone else does have to step in. We do have some guidance and worksheets in that book on creating the advance directive.

So at least your designated caregiver would have some sense of what you would hope and what you would want. 

But as you're saying, you don't really know what the exact situation's going to be for that caregiver trying to do what's right for you and the pet, and on your behalf in that particular situation. So there's got to be some flexibility. We have to have the understanding that there's going to have to be some flexibility. So really, I guess, it's identifying those parameters for ourselves so we can give some guidance to someone else.

Gail Pope: Definitely. I think one of the most important parts is a paragraph at the beginning that actually helps the new parents, the adoptive parents understand “who is this being”? Tell me what makes them tick. Who are they? What matters most to them? And just an overall picture of daily life before you get to the nitty-gritty of all the little pieces, the eating, the peeing, the pooping, the various different things that are important.

But I think the most important thing is getting to know you. That needs a little time and let's face it, we're all different.

Karen Wylie: Isn't that the truth? But just a paragraph? Oh my God, I'm going to be hard-pressed.

Gail Pope: Oh, you'd write a book on anything, wouldn't you?

Karen Wylie: And I do.

Gail Pope: I think so.

Karen Wylie: But it's true. All of my babies are "little people" as far as I'm concerned. There could be a little book about each of their personalities but I understand we need to kind of condense that a little bit.

Gail Pope: So let me ask you. I think you need to share with us now, you've done this. What have you written for your people? What about Chey, Livvy, Callie? What's the future for them if something happened to you?

Karen Wylie: Chey and Livvy are actually my greatest worry because they're Australian shepherds with very high energy. Chey is fear reactive, not aggressive at all but he needs to have his day-to-day life very routine and you don't hear a peep out of him. But if there's any change in his daily routine, like the doorbell ringing, taking him to the vet is "Where's the sedatives?"

I think I've told you, I always try to time it where I'm the last appointment before the clinic closes for lunchtime or the last appointment before the clinic closes at the end of the day because I want the waiting room cleared out. Otherwise, Chey scares the heck out of them. 

But seriously, so for me, the Aussies have been what I give the most worry about because of the energy level, because of Chey's fear reactiveness. Livvy is just high-energy, in charge, the sweetest thing in the world. And they are a bonded pair.

So that becomes another issue for what would happen and people taking them on. Livvy just turned six. Chey's going to be eight next week. He's officially considered a senior and she's officially middle-aged now. 

The cats that we have: Callie, who's 13, then I have Graylin and Giselle, who came during COVID, so they're, what, six and a half. And then little Goldie popped up during Hurricane Helene, when we were living out on the front deck for a few weeks with no electricity. So, he'll be three. I guess he's about three. I figured I would just ship all of them to California, Gail.

Gail Pope: I had a feeling you might.

Karen Wylie: Yes, I'm not worried about them.

Gail Pope: Then in that case, knowing you, how many books have you written for all of them? Geez.

Karen Wylie: I thought you could just go through a few thousand emails we've written over the last few years and just search for Chey, search for Callie, search for...

Gail Pope: Oh, my goodness.

Karen Wylie: We all have so much to say about our pets, but what would we say? What are we going to put in writing that's going to help somebody else? And you're right, that's a whole different kind of writing and editing process but it's very much needed.

Gail Pope: Okay, so you sidestepped my question. You gave me a lot of nice information but it wasn't written down. So have you actually created a manuscript that actually if something happened to you, it would be helpful?

Karen Wylie: I have about three and a half pages on Chey because he's my worry boy. I adore him. He's my boy. Livvy's two pages. Then talking about them being a bonded pair. 

But the main thing that I've been doing is taking videos of them so that people see what they're like with me and with Tim at home now, when their life is normal and day-to-day and how they expect it to be. Because if someone else had to take them out, away from here, and to try to take care of them, obviously they'd be under a lot of stress given all the changes. I think it'd be really hard for someone else to understand what was normal for Chey and Livvy. How to evaluate them in a new context.

So for me, I thought the best way to convey what Chey is actually like at home, he's a perfect little child at home, is to take the video and so forth. So that along with the writing. The cats are pretty easy. I might have several takers for Callie. But you'll be first in line, though.

Gail Pope: Yes. Exactly. She's mine.

Karen Wylie: She comes running every time she hears your voice, so yes. You get her. You get her. So we have two more things I wanted to cover on this. Aftercare wishes included ahead of time. We can just deal with burial and cremation or maybe aquamation which is becoming a little more available option, depending on where you live.

Any honoring rituals that you might hope someone else would observe. Certainly planning this out for yourself to do for your pet, you can be deciding ahead of time what you would want to do for your own pet so that you're not having to make all these decisions when you're in shock and grieving immediately after your pet has died. Conveying these wishes of how you would like this handled in the future if you weren't around would be an entirely different thing. But it very often involves your sense of spirituality, if you align with a particular religion. All of that may be very important to also write down for someone else, right?

Gail Pope: Definitely. And again, the information is important whether or not it can or will be completely followed. But at least if you can reach a middle path or If you can have the conversation with someone you know who's going to be that person, that's something you can really talk about. It's not an easy subject for anyone to talk about, two-legged or four-legged but it is an important part of the equation.

Karen Wylie: Yes and like you were describing a little earlier about your conversation with your daughter, Kirstie probably had a pretty good sense of what you would say and what you would want. But it's a whole different thing to ask you and actually hear you say the words.

Gail Pope: That's exactly what she said. Yes, that's exactly what she said. I guess it is different, just to be sure. She said, "I think I know you well enough and I've lived the (sanctuary) life well enough. I know the answers, but I shouldn't assume it. I want to hear you say it."

Karen Wylie: Absolutely, absolutely. Also writing it down and on the chance you wouldn't have a chance to explain it to someone else would be important. 

And I guess the last thing I wanted to just have us address is the importance of keeping it current and to not look at it as a one-time document that you do and never look at again. There can be changes in your animal's condition, a new diagnosis, one of them starts a serious decline.

All of those would be natural moments to revisit it if you can think of it. Maybe putting it on your calendar to revisit every six months at least. And it might be something to share with your veterinarian. It'd be a way to convey what's important to you and it might help your partnership with your veterinarian.

Gail Pope: That's an interesting thought. Mind you, I don't know that many veterinarians would really have time to devour the content.

Karen Wylie: You're talking about my books.

Gail Pope: Yes. People read them.

Karen Wylie: But if somebody wrote a couple paragraphs about it, that might be...

Gail Pope: Exactly. Something to include in their computer about the animal and that would be wonderful. I think depending on the hospital that you go to and the staff there, If it's a smaller practice or sometimes a big practice and they actually get to know you, they get to know the animal— they know the answers to a lot of these questions because they come up in their question time when you go in for whatever the reason is. But putting it down on paper so they can just pop it in the file, you never know when it could be helpful.

Karen Wylie: Especially if you're going to be out of town or you might not be around. That's a natural place to make sure that your advanced directive is. That's how it would be done if it was a human who would have an advanced directive on file with their cardiologist. Which was the example I started out talking about where Tim's cardiologist was, "This is something we want to know."

If you haven't thought through having an advanced directive for your pet, what you would want for your pet's end of life whether you're the one caregiving throughout the process or if someone might need to step in for your behalf at some point, we do hope that you'll consider some of these things we've talked about today to give you a start. 

And in an episode we'll do a little later this month, we'll build on this because once you've made these decisions we can help you create a practical checklist for getting ready for end of life.

So one announcement that we want to make before we say goodbye is that Gail and I will be offering a new live eight-week course: An Introduction to Animal Hospice that we will be starting on October 13*. It is open to everyone. It's open to pet parents, pet care practitioners, veterinary team members. We call it "Relationship Centered Animal Hospice" because it's all about your pet's journey, your journey as a caregiver, and the journey that your relationship together takes as you evolve over time, and your family support of your pet may change over time and through end of life.

So that's just one of the many ways this course will be unique. But it will also be the very first time that Gail Pope is teaching a live weekly 90-minute class each Tuesday and after 20 minutes or so where we'll present the topic we'll be focusing on each week for our discussion. We'll have about an hour for Q&A, so you'll be able to get Gail's take on whatever is on your mind.

So I'm really looking forward to this because I love teaching with you. I love talking with you each Monday when we record our podcast. I think everyone's going to enjoy the conversations that we can have together. What are you looking forward to most, Gail, as you look forward to these eight weeks that we'll have together with quite a variety of different perspectives?

Gail Pope: It's scary, of course, for someone like me. That comes up first. What I'm finding really exciting is the word "live" because I know I learn better and it's fun. I don't want to be a teacher. I want to share and learn with everybody. And I think when we work as a group together, there's so much beauty in that kind of a relationship in a small class where everybody learns from each other. That's what I'm looking forward to most of all, I think. 

Karen Wylie: We really can always have fun in these classes. We take enough time at the beginning to present information so that everybody has a common language of what our focus is for that day. But then—

Gail Pope:Then we can talk about it.

Karen Wylie: Then we talk about it and hear from everyone. We hope that you will take a look at the course description. We'll put it below in the show notes for you. So take a look and see if it's something that feels right for you. We'd love to have you join us starting October 13* each Tuesday through December 1*.

So with that, we will say thank you for being with us today, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Gail Pope: Thank you. Bye-bye