It’s hard to say goodbye to a beloved animal companion.

It’s harder to live the goodbye.

Murphy and I managed to live our goodbye, accompanied by Alki and Grace the Cat. We found the courage, fortitude, and love to fully and gracefully embrace it, adding depth to the many years we’d shared.

It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

How? By living the human-animal bond as a multi-species family. This is a new way of living the human animal bond—as equals with free choice. Murphy and I lived it together for 13½ years. We added depth—and kinks—when her Cavalier brother, Alki, came along 10 years ago and our resident alien, Grace the Cat, a year later.

Somehow we all learned together how choice and family intersect—we learned how to balance our needs and desires as individuals with everyone else’s. We learned to compromise.

When we discovered that Murphy had a splenic tumor and was dying, I knew it was time to define what death is like in a multi-species family.

I didn’t want to, but I had to. Then I wrote about it here, exploring the raw, heartfelt, angry, mystical, practical things that real families live through when someone they love is dying. When I started to hear from people who were either also losing their dogs—or had, and were struggling to accept it—I decided to pull it all together in one place—an e-book.

Here’s a chance to find community in storytelling. An opportunity to stop and think about what the end of your animal family will look like—and why. Your story won’t be exactly like ours, but perhaps you’ll get an idea that will help you live it, and what more can any of us ask?

So here are some things to think about.

You’re a Family

Honestly, like most people, I never spent a lot of time thinking about death in my family. Sure, it was coming, and it certainly wasn’t a stranger in my life, but still.

We were lucky: we had a few months with Murphy after we knew she was dying.

In the beginning I was in such shock, and under such pressure to act (you don’t have time to waste when an aggressive cancer might be eating a loved one) that all I could do was juggle the plain hard facts. Murphy was involved in that, obviously, but I neglected to tell Alki and Grace the Cat. So there was tension and sadness in the house, which made Grace the Cat act out and confused Alki. Our life was turned upside down, as happens in every loving family when a crisis occurs.

Once I stopped and concentrated on each of my animal family members, things calmed down.

Alki is a live-in-the-moment dog. Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky doesn’t think too far beyond his nose. He noticed things weren’t right, but dismissed them until one night when we were sacked out in bed and I was reading. In those last weeks Murphy’s breathing was not exactly labored, but it was certainly louder, and that night Alki suddenly heard it. He sat up, turned and looked at her, and horror washed across his face. He looked at me, shocked and uncertain. In that moment I knew he got it. All I could do was hold him and explain it again. My sensitive boy was losing his best friend—he was stunned in the moment, and then went looking for a cookie.

Since Murphy’s death, Alki has reveled in his “single dog” status, but it took him some weeks to quit moping and looking for Murphy. He’s finally quit standing by the car, waiting for me to bring her inside. He’s still quieter than normal. His happy heart plays and he sticks close, but he’s often somber.

Grace the Cat was unruly until I sat down and explained to her what was happening. She’d been ignored because both dogs were sick at the same time—like Murphy, Alki, too, had developed a slight bronchial infection, and I was just taking Grace for granted. As I told her, she sat and stared at me, eyes wide and ears raised high in that startled manner she wears when things just don’t fit. After that she started snuggling with Murphy, spending hours every day stretched out or curled beside her on Murphy’s bed. It was both touching and sad. Murphy and Grace the Cat had never been great friends, although Murphy had yearned for a cat friend, but at the end of her life she finally got her wish—a cat to snuggle with.

Since Murphy’s death, Grace the Cat has point-blank refused to have anything to do with Murphy’s bed. She also clings to me even more, following me around the house and sitting and climbing on me: in some ways, she’s trying to make sure I don’t leave her like Murphy did.

I make sure each of them has space to grieve, that we grieve together. When they fought angrily with each other, I recognized it as grief and comforted them.

We always make sure to play.

Remember to pay attention to every family member, animal and otherwise. Guilt, worry, concern, fear, and jealousy are all part of the mix.

Family is good.

Get a Great Vet

Make sure you are established with a great vet, and don’t be afraid to switch vets if something changes and you’re uncomfortable. A great vet must not insist on blanket routine vaccinations or early spay/neuter (yes, Murphy’s cancer is linked to early spay/neuter, as are some horrible things like thyroid disease, obesity, and arthritis). A great vet must understand nutrition and holistic care, must have a referral network to good specialists, and, above all, must support the multi-species family bond.

That is, great vets must know that they are partners but not in charge of the animal care team. You are. You make the decisions. Fire the bastards who think otherwise. I did.

Good vets are good.

Do Your Homework

I’ve learned more about veterinary care in my life with my animal family than most vets seem to ever know. I hope that scares you into paying attention. Find out what it takes to care for your animals. Figure out what makes sense to you. Do it.

When the vet told me that Murphy had an abdominal mass, we sat down and looked at the X-ray and radiologist’s report together. Then I ordered an ultrasound, and then I took Murphy to a surgical specialist. I found out what a splenic mass meant. I told Murphy. We figured out what to do together.

I didn’t think about Murphy getting old when she was a puppy new to my household. I didn’t think about age: about arthritis making life difficult for both of us, about old dogs becoming blind and deaf and feeble, or slipping from cheerful vigor into the clutches of an aggressive, incurable cancer. It happens.

Accompanying a senior pet through old age brings mystery, grace, frustration, exhaustion, and grief. What can you manage, afford—and stand? How do you explain it to the animal, the family, yourself?

Before you ever get an animal in the first place, consider how and why your family will walk that last road, together, because it always ends one way: in heartbreak.

If that makes you not want an animal, then please don’t get one. You won’t be doing anyone a favor, including yourself.

If that makes you flinch, excellent. You’re thinking. You’ll figure out a way to get through it, because life really is like that. 

In fact, life with an aging animal is magnificent. If you’re looking for grace in action, this is it.

Life is good.

Don’t Buy into the Guilt

The current medical establishment often believes that fighting death, no matter the odds or the suffering involved, is more important than a life well lived and a death gently met. Someday they’ll grow up. In the meantime, you be a grown-up for them. Pain and suffering and disability are cruel things to suffer: I know, I am handicapped.

You will know when enough is enough. You cannot beat death. You can make it acceptable.

Yes, you’ll feel bad if you resort to euthanasia if you haven’t sorted through the whys and why-nots. You’ll feel bad if you don’t and drag out an ending that causes misery to no real purpose. You’ll feel bad when your dog dies, regardless.

Figure out what the limits are: your animal’s, the family’s, yours. Figure out what love looks like to you, from Day 1 with your animal to the end. Cling to love. Whatever ending you get.

Love is good.

Hire an Intuitive

Yes, I can talk with animals. So can a lot of other people. Establish a relationship with a professional intuitive, for everybody’s sake. It will inspire and enlighten you as you carve out a satisfying personal and professional life. It will give you additional perspective on tough life issues—like dying.

The last weeks of Murphy’s life were enriched by our work with a professional intuitive. Those sessions confirmed my own insights, added others, helped us say goodbye.

You hear the medical from the vet, what you want or not from family and friends, what you fear from yourself, and what love has to say from an intuitive.

Sometimes it is astonishing. I know, from my intuitive experience working with dying animals, and with deceased animals and humans and other beings, that we absolutely have to tell the dying what is happening and ask what they want. All life knows when death is upon it: some animals resist because they think they’ve accidentally killed themselves, when it was illness; some animals want surgery and chemo because they need more time with their people; some animals want to die long before their humans are willing to let go; some animals like Murphy insist their body is breaking down anyway, and they want to experience the process.

Ask. You will hear. Let the answers guide you.

Everyone has the right to meet death on their own terms. Sometimes we get lucky enough, as I did with Murphy, to make sure that happens.

It matters. Trust me. Trust yourself. It matters.

Intuitive work is good.

Follow the Vibration

A lot of people talk about energy work, from Reiki to all the new modalities popping up. Are they real? Yes. Are they useful? Absolutely. Are you ready for it? Maybe.

I’d done energy work of various sorts for years when a new modality came into my family’s life in 2007. It came at my request. I was told to use it to heal myself and my family and take it out in the world when it was time.

That time showed up in the fall of 2011, during intuitive sessions that my crystal partner, Fallon, and I were conducting with clients. When it showed up, I’d ask if people were willing to experience it; if so, we incorporated it into a session. The results are astonishing—and immediate.

After much thought, I now call it alchemical energy. It’s vibration—the vibration of transformation, of choice. I used it with Murphy, surrounding her belly with it. It supported her by helping her body stay strong and vibrant as it declined from her illness. It gave the cancer and Murphy a chance to meet and separate. Was it ever going to save her life? Not her body’s life, no, and her soul’s life was never in question. But it did help—her vet was astonished to hear she was looking for cookies and chasing Alki around the garage right up until the last few days of her life.

Alchemical energy was exactly what Murphy needed to “walk the mystery” of the end of her life—it surrounded her with Fallon’s golden, loving light. Alchemical energy is what I needed to walk the mystery with her. It’s what Alki and Grace the Cat needed to be there with us.

If you’re lucky enough to experience vibrational work with your dying animals, do so. Consider it well before you get to that point. It’s worth it. Just be careful. Energy, or vibration, is easy to work with, but sometimes the human practitioners are not.

Vibration is good.

Build Community

Many of us humans live alone these days, but there are people out there, friends and family. Ask for help. Be clear that anyone you ask can refuse. Pay attention—you’ll learn things about life you never expected. It’s interesting to see who shows up, who doesn’t, and what new connections you make. It’s painful and exhilarating and worth it. Be grateful—people often mean well, but our culture is big on avoiding feelings, and dying, well, dying pushes buttons.

Above all, make sure all the decisions you make are yours—and your animal’s. Some family members, human and animal, just don’t get it. That’s their mindset, not yours. Forgive and move on. Or out.

Community is good.

Make Your Choice

We didn’t have much time to decide how to treat Murphy’s tumor. Whether it was cancer or not (they were almost completely certain it was, and they were right), a splenic tumor was going to kill her if I didn’t have it surgically removed. Fast. But the consequences of surgery—financially, physically, emotionally—were daunting. When I heard from several respected vets that the old dogs just don’t really recover from the surgery—well, I was glad Murphy and I had opted for quality of life and refused surgery.

I was glad we went to see the surgical specialist, who said they operate on these tumors all the time, but not because they hope to save an animal’s life, because there isn’t any hope. They operate because the families are shocked—usually, it presents as a crisis at the end stage—and they can’t get their heads around saying goodbye. My heart goes out to everyone who struggles to say goodbye, especially if it’s an emergency.

Whatever choice you make—if you’re lucky enough to make one, instead of having death suddenly drop on your doorstep—do everything possible to logically, rationally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually be at peace with it. To be able to live with it later. Regrets are unnecessary. They can also kill you.

Whatever you do, make sure you do the right thing in the moment. I regretted euthanizing my beloved English Cocker, Maggie, for years, because I dimly knew at the time that I was doing the wrong thing in that moment. That decision has affected every decision I’ve made for my multi-species family—it taught me to pay better attention. Now, although I miss Murphy terribly and always will, I know we did everything we could for her, everything we wanted and agreed upon, everything that made sense to us. We have no regrets.

I am at peace. She is at peace. Our family is at peace—and goes on.

If, by some horrible fate, your beloved dies suddenly, know that terrible things happen, and go on. If you did the best you could with whatever you had, it’s enough. If you didn’t, you’ll know better next time. That’s what life is—next times.

Acceptance matters.

Choice is good.

One Last Thing

One thing I learned in my life with Murphy, the thing that opened up a new world and way of thinking for me, was that our bodies, whatever they are, whatever they look like, are bodies only, and not our souls. Of course bodies are important, and unfortunately, for humans, they seem to determine both intelligence and rights. Love learns to look beyond bodies. Mindset helps.

I had to smile this spring when Murphy said to me, via the renowned animal communicator Joan Ranquet, that “We are not our bodies.” Who would know better than the dog who was—who is—the ambassador to the dragon kingdom?

We are souls who take bodies to play and experiment in, to work in, to love in. Thinking of bodies as lesser or greater because of their form, animal or human (or whatever), distracts us from our purpose: of joining together as equals with all life to contribute to the welfare of our conscious, evolving planet.

And it really messes with our sense of humor.

Even so, I loved Murphy’s body and the personality her soul chose to be in it. I adored her. I grieve my lost soul mate. I would give a lot to have her back in her body—but I would not take it back with cancer, with pain, with disability. Not for one extra minute.

So, to grief.

I know that because death is part of life, we are also right now either grieving or preparing to grieve. I know that this series, My Dog Is Dying, has touched hearts around the world, has enabled people to share their grief. I am grateful for that.

Grief reminds us that we care, that we don’t live in isolation, that community isn’t just human. Grief hurts—it’s gut-wrenching, soul-testing pain. Nevertheless, I am glad for it, because if I weren’t grieving, I would never have lived the wonderful life I did with this amazing dog.

That matters. My grief matters. So does yours.

Grief is what death looks like in a multi-species family.

Grief reminds us that we love. Love matters.

Remember that.

Grief is good.

© 2012 Robyn M Fritz