82. Honoring, Healing & Holding On

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Speaker 1 (00:00):

Pets ad Life, your guide to the latest in Pet Trends products and the joy of the Human Animal Bond with Kristen Levine and Chris Bonafide, powered by the American Pet Products Association and Dog tv.

Speaker 2 (00:14):

Alright, hello and welcome back to the Pets Ad Live podcast. We've got another great episode for you. I am your co-host, Kristen Levine, and as co-host that suggests that I have another co-host and you're going to love her. You might've heard her the last time she was on the show. We actually had this fabulous person as a guest several months ago. She talked about her trip to Africa and we loved her so much that we decided to invite her to co-host. So please join me in welcoming Jamie Popper. Welcome, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (00:44):

I'm so excited to be here. Again, thank you so much for inviting me to co-host this episode with you.

Speaker 2 (00:50):

You are a seasoned pet industry entrepreneur, dog trainer, and innovator with over a decade of experience under your collar, as they say, you are the founder and driving force behind Pop Pets and among other things is known for the focus treat pouch. I want to hear about that. And also, Jamie, you hold a certification from the Care and Prior Academy and you're a recognized speaker, national level competitor in dog sports and a trainer in both hobbyist and working dog professionals. Oh my gosh, you must be very busy.

Speaker 3 (01:24):

Yeah, so I've been in the industry for almost 15 years now, and part of that, I started as a dog trainer and later grew into a product designer for pet products. I recently founded my own business, popper Pets, and our flagship product is the focus treat pouch, which is essentially a treat pouch that you can wear around your waist while you're training your dog. I've used every treat pouch that's on the market and all of them have their pros and cons. And so I took everything that I learned and loved from the treat pouches that are available and turned it into a treat pouch that to me checks all of the boxes so it has five different pockets to it, including two different pockets on the inside of the treat pouch. So you're going to have two different kinds of treats.

Speaker 2 (02:14):

Two days ago was a pretty special day for pet lovers and it was National Pet Memorial Day. And so we're going to talk a little bit about honoring those of our pets who've passed, and maybe for those listeners that might be facing that type of end of life situation for their pet to give them some comfort and some tips on how to handle the situation. And we have two amazing guests that are going to also help us out with that topic too. So I know that as a pet professional and as a pet mom yourself, you've already experienced that and will be a great expert to help us talk about this topic today.

Speaker 3 (02:56):

Yeah, I'm really interested to hear from our guests. I have a 14-year-old dog at home and I've already started thinking about what those end of life decisions might look like. And while it's heartbreaking, I think that it's important to prepare for those moments. So I'm really looking forward to our experts that we're having on today.

Speaker 2 (03:15):

So Jamie, the drill on this show, we feature two stories. We have two amazing guests. We share two pet product recommendations, and we wrap up the show with answering two questions from our viewers and our listeners. So if you're ready, we're going to dive right into story time. Love

Speaker 3 (03:33):

That.

Speaker 1 (03:35):

Kristen and Chris, present story time.

Speaker 2 (03:42):

Okay. So you are a guest cohost. I'm going to let you go first, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (03:45):

Perfect.

Speaker 2 (03:46):

What's your story?

Speaker 3 (03:47):

Well, I wanted to share something that I learned about recently. I recently came across a fascinating article from the A KC Canine Health Foundation about an agile product, or excuse me, an agile project that's happening. And it's a research initiative that's developing a wearable device specifically for competitive sport dogs. So as you were sharing in my introduction, I compete at the national and international level with both of my dogs. My 14-year-old is now retired, but both of the things that I wanted to talk about today, my story and one of my product recommendations focuses on helping keep our dogs doing what they love longer. And so looking at this research study that I just recently came across, the wearable device is specifically for competitive sport dogs, but it will also lend information to pet dogs and their longevity as well. And I learned that there are more than 1.2 million agility entries each year.

Speaker 2 (04:49):

Wow.

Speaker 3 (04:50):

And yet around 40% of the dogs that are playing in the sport of agility, experience, injuries over their lifetime. So this research and this wearable device that they're developing, it has a goal to detect early signs of over-training fatigue and injury before they become major problems. And what really stood out to me was that they developed this lightweight sensor and a companion app that identifies subtle variations in a dog's movement, like changes in the way they enter the weave poles or take jumps. And these differences that they can track in the device might actually be early signs of strain or stress. And so they're not just collecting the data for the sake of it. The long-term vision is to give handlers trainers and veterinarians real-time insights to make smarter training decisions, and that'll improve the safety and longevity for our canine athletes. What I love about this too is that all of this data also translates over into our working dogs. So our detection dogs, our explosive detection dogs, narcotic detection dogs and police canines for petroleum apprehension, all of this data can also be used to help with the longevity of these working dogs. So I just think that it's a really exciting step forward for anyone who loves dog sports or working dogs and wants to keep their dogs both competitive and healthy. So it was an article from the Canine Health Foundation.

Speaker 2 (06:17):

Yeah, that's really good. I would imagine that would also help, for those of you that are in the competitive world, it helps you optimize their performance too, potentially, right? Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:30):

Creating efficiency inside of our training so that our dogs are faster, stronger, and better at performing either their sport or their job.

Speaker 2 (06:40):

Excellent. I love that story. Yeah, I usually pull a news story, but today I thought I'd share, it's sort of a personal story and it kind of ties back to National Pet Memorial Day, and I wanted to give folks a few ideas about ways that you can memorialize a pet, but also if you know someone who's recently lost a pet, these are things that you can help to honor their pet so that they feel like their pet was recognized by others. One of the things we did, and Ron, I sent you a picture of this, our producer, Ron, I don't know if you have it, but when we lost chili, chili was our black lab mix. And we lost him a few years ago to Hemangiosarcoma, and he was about 10, and it was very unexpected. And so it was a very difficult loss as they all are.

(07:35):

But what made us feel a lot better was building a little memorial inside our home for chili. And all we did really was we put his favorite toys. We had a little little sofa table and we had a memorial candle there. We had several of his pictures, we had his favorite toys, and of course we got several sympathy cards from friends, so we would place them there. And it just made it up big. There it is. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see a picture of it. And there's tulip in front of her brother's memorial. And it was just a beautiful little thing that every time you walked past it, it kind of made you smile. So I think that if you're going through the loss, if you've just gone through the loss of a pet, doing something like that can make you feel better.

(08:22):

And also as a friend or family member to someone who has just lost a pet, to send them that sympathy card or maybe even shoot them a text message or a photo that you have of their pet and just to share a memory you have about their pet that always makes the dog mom or the cat mom feel so much better to know that other people have great memories of your pet. And of course, you can make donations to your favorite local animal shelter. Certainly flowers, there's some really great pet sympathy floral arrangements that you can send to a friend. And of course, I think a lot of people share their story on social media where they'll just kind of compile several of their favorite photos and tell a little story about their pet. So

Speaker 1 (09:13):

Beyond the leash, exploring the untold stories of pet passion and professionalism.

Speaker 2 (09:18):

Okay, everybody, please join me in welcoming Adam Greenbaum. He's a second generation entrepreneur and pet industry innovator, most recently known as the founder of Love Baxter. I love that name. It's a compassionate digital platform designed to guide pet parents through end of life and grief. Now, it was inspired by the loss of his beloved Boston Terrier Baxter. In October of 2024, Adam noticed a critical absence of structural support for pet grief and leveraging his experience working with thousands of veterinarians. He built love Baxter to provide reliable, empathetic resources from Puppyhood to the last breath. Now, previously as CEO of Whisker Cloud, Adam was leading a vet focused tech company and he created tools used by over 10,000 vet clinics. His personal journey with Baxter and his ongoing devotion to his next dog, Sophie drives his mission to ease the silent pain of pet loss for all of us. So welcome, Adam.

Speaker 4 (10:18):

Thanks for having me. Great intro. Appreciate it. And

Speaker 2 (10:21):

Anytime

Speaker 4 (10:22):

I get to hear Baxter and Sophie's names, I am happy.

Speaker 2 (10:26):

I know I feel the same way about, I love to talk about all the pets that I've had in the past and just makes my heart sing. Losing Baxter obviously was your catalyst. Can you describe what you experienced in those final days and how it led you to build this platform?

Speaker 4 (10:41):

Yeah, I mean, it was odd. I spent every day talking to veterinarians, helping veterinarians grow their business. And Baxter had three vets. He had a general practice veterinarian, he had an internal specialist, he had a dermatologist. And what was interesting, he was a 12 and a half year old dog. And we used to joke when he would be two hyper at the dog park that same year, six, seven months before he was gone, my wife and I, our joke was we would tell people, oh, he's just a puppy, we're sorry. And people would be like, oh, we get it. We get it. I mean, he was so full of life and so full of energy. And my wife and I went on our dream vacation to Japan, spent nine days there, came back and he had a swollen nose. And that was kind of the first like, oh, that's weird.

(11:27):

And the next six months were eyeopening, upsetting, shocking. And he was gone. And I think the big thing that I took away from it was we were spending tens of thousands of dollars doing tests, doing this, doing that. And we never realized we were actually trying to keep him alive. That conversation wasn't had with us. So as we were searching through his symptoms, things that were going on, things like that, we just thought he didn't feel good. Something was up and we were just trying to make him feel better. He was dying. And not only was that communication not being had with us, but the information we were looking at online, nothing was like, Hey, if this is all happening, your dog could be dying. So I think the big thing for me that kind of spurred me into action was Baxter passed away on a Monday morning and the Wednesday before we sat down with his internal specialists and we were told his blood work looks great, it's perfect.

(12:28):

We beat this thing. Now that is where a lot of this came from is that conversation because I've spent years helping vets communicate online, grow their business, build a brand. And I think a lot of it has to do with how you communicate and the words that you use is really important, especially around the end of a pet's life. So when you say things like, blood work is perfect, no dog's, blood work is perfect. We have a seven month old Boston Terrior puppy upstairs. I don't think his blood work would be perfect, but the word perfect was used. So we breathe a sigh of relief, we feel good, and then we go home and he collapses the next day, and then the next four days we're just chaos. And he was gone. And it was hard and it was a lot. And that's just not how you want to say goodbye to a dog. That means everything to you on this earth. And if you're the vets, it's just not how you want to communicate. So I think better communication's needed, I think more resources are needed. It's just, it's a mess. The deeper I've gone into the end of life space, unfortunately the worst it's gotten. So that's also frustrating. That was my really long answer.

Speaker 3 (13:37):

That's so challenging to think about the language that's used and how they talk about it might be perfect blood work, but there might be other factors to consider as you move towards those end of life stages and bringing up those questions might be a little bit of a challenge. You've said that pet loss isn't spoken about human loss. What core resources and rituals does love Baxter offer to help normalize and support this grief journey and process?

Speaker 4 (14:07):

It offers everything. So funny story is I would search the internet and I would find nothing. And then once he was gone, I was searching just outlandish stuff. I would never search things that spiritual things like signs from beyond. I ended up getting one from him, which if you would've told me before all of this, if you would've said people or pets give you signs from the afterlife, I would've said never. And then I literally have it here on my desk. The sign I got from him, I was walking with my best friend who came to visit me three weeks after Baxter died. And he was like, how are you, man? I said, I don't believe in, don't believe in all that stuff. But I thought maybe he would try to communicate, maybe he would try to let me know he was around and we're crossing the street by my house here in Newport Beach, California.

(14:59):

And we looked down, there's a wet box in the street and it's this box with the Baxter logo on it. So I would honestly, I found nothing, which was shocking, but also, okay, that's just life, I guess. So I found one thing, which was the pet loss form on Reddit. And every day there's a hundred to 200 posts on the pet loss form on Reddit. And most of 'em are people saying, I'm hurting, I need help, I'm grieving. Can anyone help with this? Hundreds a day, every day. And there is no answers and there's nothing for anyone. And I think that was like the, okay, wait a second. I'm sitting here in the worst pain of my life and there's all these people going through this. I had to speak at the London Vet Show two weeks after he died. And I brought my wife because I said, you know what?

(15:50):

We're both in pain. Let's go to London. Let's do this thing. Let's just try to get away and relax. And I'm laying in bed one in the morning in London reading this Reddit form, and I totally broke down and I just snapped. I'm like, every day in this one place on the internet, there's hundreds of people hurting. They have nothing. So I scraped five years of posts on that page and I took all the data, then I did my background's in SEO marketing, I did an SEO audit of the entire internet. There's 187,000 keywords around pet end of life, most of which are like orphan keywords, meaning no one owns them. So I took the data from that, scrape the data from Reddit, and I said, okay, what do we need to create? What are the things people are going to be searching? How do we do all this stuff?

(16:39):

And I just spent seven or eight months building all of it. I have a lot of vets helping me. And yeah, we just built out everything. That's me and Baxter at the top there. There's a picture of him at the bottom of the page. But yeah, what's great about this is we have an AI search tool. So you can search anything in that box, you can search ashes, cremation, burial, end of life. We're adding new content every day. Another fun twist is the memorial store. When Baxter died, my wife and I wanted to just find anything. There's my guy right there. He was just the best. I mean, I rescued him. He was near death and he just spent his entire life letting me know how much he appreciated it. And that photo right there was taken a couple months before he was gone at a Boston Terrier, French Bulldog meetup where he was the craziest dog at the beach.

(17:33):

So there's just a lot to it. But yeah, this site has anything anyone could want. If you just want to go in there and just search, you can search anything. You can search your religion, you can search memorial, you can search burial, you can search what questions should I ask my vet? You can search anything. We have it. And then we launched a couple weeks ago, we've had over 200 emails come into the site, and a lot of it has just been people saying, Hey, can you write a post on this? I need help with this. Can you create a resource for this? I need help with this. So I think it's really cool and it's clearly needed. The last thing I'll say, because I am going on a monologue here, sorry. But when you sign up for our software at Whisker Cloud, which we were acquired by Pet Desk, so we're part of Pet Desk, but when veterinary hospitals sign up, they fill out a survey and the survey is Tell us about you.

(18:28):

How many doctors, what practice management software do you use? And more and more importantly, what services do you offer? So the week Baxter died, I had this epiphany. I started looking at the surveys that came in. How many of them listed a thousand? I went back through the last thousand over a couple of months. How many of them listed senior pet care, end of life in home euthanasia? It was almost zero. But they all offer it. So what you were saying at the beginning, we need to talk about this. We need to train vets to talk about it. We need to train pet parents to talk about it, and we just all need to be better about this.

Speaker 2 (19:04):

Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. And Adam, you answered my next question. I was going to ask you, how did you structure the content to meet people where they were in their time of need on this topic? And you already explained it, tapping into that Reddit thread. But let me ask you this, because you've worked with so many veterinarians, your role at Whisker Cloud, what kind of advantage or was it an advantage to you in creating Love Baxter? I can't imagine it.

Speaker 4 (19:36):

Oh yeah. I mean, I ran the Whisker Talks podcast when I was there and had deep conversation with a lot of vets. I mean, I've worked with vets for the last 10, 11 years. I would say that I probably have two or three dozen very, very, very close friends who are all veterinarians through my work. And I had a lot of long conversations with them. And to be honest, after Baxter died, I went to sit with our internal specialist and I said, can we just talk one-on-one? And it was a very hard conversation. And the conversation, we both had tears in our eyes and I just said, why didn't you tell us he was dying? And she said, as veterinarians, we deal with so much loss and there's so much pressure on us, and if I had told you when a pet dies, it's a failure.

(20:26):

And if I would've told you that, it was like I would've been admitting failure. I had a little snap moment there and I said, well, okay, well this wasn't about you or your failure. This is about my son and my family and what my wife and I were going through, but also her and I, the talk ended great and we had a good talk about it. And it was just sort of like, we all understand that this is difficult for vets, and I totally empathize with them and I know what they go through and I understand that they go through four or five of these a day and it's really hard, and it's something I talk to my employees about at Whisker Cloud all the time. So I've had a lot of vets who've advised me and I've been sending them content. The first 50 pieces of content, I had vets read it, I said, anything wrong with this?

(21:12):

And they said, no, it's great. We partnered with pet Loss community to offer grief support to people on Love Baxter that was started by two amazing doctors who both focus on senior pet care. So my Sophie, she's upstairs, she's 15 years old, she has Cushings hyperthyroidism and she's still going strong. And I want her vets to treat her like a senior pet, and I want them to have conversations with us, which they still don't, but I want them to have conversations with us and say like, Hey Adam, she's 15. There's four quarters in this game and we are in triple overtime, fifth overtime. So I want the communication between pet parents who are afraid to have this conversation or afraid to do this research. I want them to do it not when their dog's 15, when their dog is eight. And I want the same from vets.

(22:04):

Do not wait until I'm in there with a 12-year-old Boston Terrier to warn me about stuff. If I have a golden retriever or chocolate lab at seven years old, please, when I come in for senior blood work, sit down and say to me, you have a golden retriever. They're seven, their spans typically nine to 10 years now your dog's healthy. We're going to do blood work, but I need you to understand what the next couple years will look like in the costs associated with it. I spent $30,000 in the final six months of Baxter's life. Not many people would or could do that and that, and we need vets to communicate better.

Speaker 2 (22:40):

Well, you've created an incredible legacy for Baxter. Thank you so much for being on the show with us today. And check them out@lovebaxter.com.

Speaker 4 (22:49):

Thank you both. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (22:55):

Wow. What a passionate and amazing guy. That kind of goes back to what I said earlier about it's so great when people that are already in the pet world create and innovate products that they, because people like you, Jamie and Adam, have such a unique perspective from being on the inside of the pet industry to make products, platforms, and information better and more accessible for us pet parents.

Speaker 3 (23:22):

Yeah, this seems like such a great resource. I mean, I've looked up end of life scales or quality of life scales that might help you make decisions about when to let your pet go. But similar to what Adam experienced with his dog still being bouncy and a puppy, I'm seeing that same thing with my 14-year-old dog. He can still zoom around like a puppy sometimes, and that makes it really hard to say they're doing great one day, and yet if they're having continuous health complications, we can't always fight to keep them at that puppy stage and we might be having to make some more challenging decisions. And it sounds like Love Baxter is such a great resource. I can't wait to spend more time looking through it. As heartbreaking as it is, I'll be coming to that decision likely within the next six to 12 months. So I'm really glad that we had this chance to talk with them and that there's this incredible resource out there to help prepare pet parents and give them the questions that they might need to ask for this. So I'm excited.

(24:29):

Alright, we are back and I have the great pleasure of introducing you to Dr. Monica Mansfield. She is a practicing veterinarian with over 35 years of experience, a graduate of Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, and she currently works at Medway Animal Hospital in Massachusetts where she's known for her gentle care and commitment to veterinary education. Dr. Mansfield is also the author of the children's book When You Have To Say Goodbye Loving and Letting Go of Your Pet, which helps young readers understand loss and grief with compassion and clarity. Dr. Mansfield, welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to record this with us.

Speaker 5 (25:12):

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me here. As we know, life has no straight line and no straight schedule even when we think we have one so much in a veterinary practice too.

Speaker 3 (25:25):

Well, we are thrilled that you had the opportunity to join us and we'd love to learn a little bit more. Writing a children's book on pet loss isn't common among veterinarians. What motivated you to create this resource specifically for kids facing that difficult experience? Well,

Speaker 5 (25:43):

Thank you for asking. I had already had a publisher. I have a previous book called The Black Panties, tales of Animal Mischief and Veterinary Intrigue. And the publisher was open to, I had a patient that came in or the owner of a patient that came in who just had looked at me and said, you should write a kid's book. His son had just passed away. He was in the military and his son was such a animal lover and said, we had been talking about his son and honoring him and how that can help younger children than his son. And so we went from there. I called the publisher and they were like, write that book right now. And I had a very close friend who's the illustrator, Lenny Peterson who did the cartoon. He's a cartoonist, and he did the drawings and we met multiple times for how mapping out what we wanted the images to look like and how it was going to be. So we planned out quite a bit with that.

Speaker 2 (26:48):

Yeah, and I'd love to know, is that your dog or is that a patient that you've got there?

Speaker 5 (26:55):

This is a patient, her name is Brandy, and she's just so adorable. She's going to be having a surgery this afternoon and I think she prefers someone's arms. And I thought you guys would love to see this little mop top on her.

Speaker 2 (27:09):

She's adorable. She's adorable. So Dr. Mansfield, obviously in your practice, I'm curious to know how do you help families, especially families that have young children, how do you help them navigate those conversations about illness and end of life decisions just in your day-to-day practice?

Speaker 5 (27:28):

Yes, I think with honesty and with being just not trying to hide things, but I leave a fair amount of that to the parents, but I'm right there in the room where that's allowed. But I think the book helps a lot with language. I did have several teachers and a child psychiatrist look over the language to make sure that that was acceptable and fitting. And it was. I think it's been well received in that department. And I think with me, for example, the appointment I was just in before I came here, there was a maybe 8-year-old boy that was there with his dad and the cat was limping. And the first thing I do when I come into a room when there are kids there is I just kind of slide down on the floor and I start, have a conversation with the child first because I think to engage them into it and whatever their interest is.

(28:31):

And I just kind of watch for how engaged they are. I usually talk to 'em about like, oh, I heard you're an animal lover. And with this young man, I had him listen to the cat's heart when we were examining and was wondering if he could see which was the lame leg. And so try to just sprinkle that in through the exams. And over the years, I think with the kids, I've try to be the whole family approach. And so when the time comes for the difficult decisions, I think there's been already a relationship that we have there. And I usually, if parents ever ask, how do they talk to their children, I usually will encourage them to, in their own parental wisdom, they know their kids the best of all, but answering questions so it's not some buried thing. We all, the worst thing would be to have something be hidden.

(29:32):

And that in the old days, it used to be like the pet just left or the pet went off to the farm, and that's not helpful to anyone. I think for a lot of kids, this might be their first experience with illness or loss and watching the parents go through it teaches the kid, the child, sorry, I'd have to move. Brandy needs a little help here. But it teaches the child how to handle loss, how to handle grief, and seeing their parent handling these things can teach them life has some difficult things and this is how we go through it in a loving way.

Speaker 3 (30:18):

It sounds like working with the psychologists in order to translate those complex emotions into simple and comforting language has given you some extra step, extra language to use with the children as well. Beyond reading, what are some steps that parents can take to support children through the pet loss? Are there any rituals or you already talked a bit about the discussions and answering questions, but are there any rituals or additional activities that you recommend?

Speaker 5 (30:50):

Well, I think one of the things that I recommend a lot is always at the time of when we're making the decision or when it is the time to say goodbye, I always bring up what were some of your earliest memories? What do you remember from the first day that you saw her or him? And then were there ever any naughty things that your dog did or was your cat, where did your cat like to sleep with you? I try to bring up memories that make it not morose at the time that bring joy, but then the rituals for the kids might be a little different, maybe going through photos and sometimes having a memorial plant, a garden area. For some people that's really important to have a place to touch. And I think also with the kids to make it really known to them that it's going to take a while. And it takes grownups a while too, that wherever their processes and their grief or needing to talk to anyone, a teacher or a friend, we all understand and that doesn't need to be a hidden thing. It should be talked about if they're missing their pet later on.

Speaker 2 (32:10):

Yeah, Jamie and I were talking about that earlier in the show about how helpful it is to talk about those fond memories and to have friends or a family once a pet has passed, to hear those stories from other people, it just really makes you feel good that they remember your pet in such a fond way. Speaking of great memories, I know you also wrote another book and the title sounds really fascinating. Can you tell us about that book?

Speaker 5 (32:40):

Yes. So it is called The Black Panties Tales of Animal Mischief and Veterinary Intrigue. And I wrote that actually from the perspective of when I was a brand new vet in the hills of New Hampshire, and it was very rural. It was a town of a thousand people. I was on call every other night and every other weekend, so it's 24 7. It was before there were emergency hospitals. And so we saw some pretty interesting cases and it was like we had to do everything ourselves. There were no referral docs. And so I always loved the James Harriet books and that when I was growing up and I read and read and read them, and I always thought, well, I wanted to write a book when I was a vet. And fortunately at all, I wanted to be a vet since I was three. And then I read the James Harriet books.

(33:29):

And so it was a natural thing. Well, I'm going to write that book from a woman's perspective. So I took notes when I was up in New Hampshire on that practice on a big old, unorganized, large piece of paper, and I'd be like, that seems like a good case. That seems like a good one. So some of these, the flowery and unexpected and tributaries that go this way, cases that weren't anything what you expected wound up there. And I actually kept my notes for a long time and I was on a prolonged bedrest with one of my pregnancies for four months. And so that's when I finally got it all onto handwritten paper and not just the big old place where I was trying to keep notes. And then I went to a writing group that was held regularly and would read some of the stories and the other writers would tell me things to help improve it.

(34:22):

We want more of you in that and not just a clinical thing. So getting that feel for having other people read the stories. So that came first, and I tried to have heart and spirit in that. I think if I were writing it now, it would be a very different book even if it were the same experiences. But you know how your perspective is, that's how you see the world when you're one place and then you see the world differently. But yeah, so I am happy with it. I'm grateful for the opportunity and I love the veterinarian. By the way, his name was Nick Shotzel. He was like a grandfatherly veterinarian, and he was such a wonderful man. He since passed away, but I look at him as one of my highest mentors and he was goofy and sweet and we had all these funny sayings and in a way I didn't realize how much I was honoring him by doing that, but I got to cherish him as a really wonderful influence to me during the writing and then afterwards. And so it's books are kind of cool. They're kind of like photos. They can record parts of our lives and stories that can't get a different way.

Speaker 2 (35:32):

Of course. Well, we appreciate your contributions to not only veterinary medicine, but to helping kids with grief loss, and it's an important topic. Yeah. And thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 5 (35:46):

Well, gosh, thank you for having me. And again, I really am grateful for the two of you and your whole team trying to bring out the good word about all the topics that you do and do it with so much good intent and forward facing kindness. So thank you

Speaker 2 (36:02):

So much for having me. Well, we are just trying to highlight the amazing work that people like you do, and thanks for sharing Brandy with us today. She's adorable. Thank you.

Speaker 5 (36:11):

Thank you. Alright, well have a good day everybody.

Speaker 2 (36:15):

Okay. The product of the week. Alright, Jamie of Papa Pets, we are up to the product of the week and I'm excited to hear what you got for us this week.

Speaker 3 (36:28):

Well, in keeping with my old dog theme, I wanted to talk about a product that I find myself raving about constantly lately because it's something that I use not just for my senior dog, but also my sport dog. And that product is the PE bed from Respond Animal Therapeutics and Pimp stands for pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. And it's made a world of difference for ru, my 14-year-old Australian Shepherd and Peak, my 4-year-old competitive sport dog. The pulsed electromagnetic field therapy is a low frequency electromagnetic wave that stimulates cellular repair, reduces inflammation, and increases circulation. So my 14-year-old dog, he obviously has some arthritis, he has pain and inflammation in his hips and that slows him down quite a bit, makes it harder for him to jump up onto the couch. It makes it a little harder for him to keep up with peak when we go for hikes.

(37:32):

But when I use this non-invasive dog bed, it has a little battery that is attached to it. Treatments take usually 30 to 60 minutes. It helps with increasing that cellular repair, reducing the pain and inflammation, and that helps him keep up with peak. So it's definitely been a game changer for his arthritis and mobility and we've been using it consistently for two years and he's still able to go on hikes, keep up with Peak, who's my sport dog. And the pet bed from Respond to Animal Therapeutics has become a part of our recovery routine for her. So it helps her stay in peak condition and bounce back faster after our competition weekends and helps with preventing injury. So I love that it's not just about healing, it's about helping us continue to do what they love as they age.

Speaker 2 (38:21):

And that would really benefit any dog, right? Yes. I mean, you don't have to have a competitive sport dog or a senior dog for that to be a beneficial

Speaker 3 (38:31):

No, absolutely. It's a daily part of our routine. Now, anything that we can do that helps with speeding healing, increasing the cellular repair, decreasing the pain and inflammation, they don't have to have a major injury or a chronic illness. It's really just about being, it's a restorative device. So

Speaker 2 (38:51):

My product is really a simple product, not high tech at all, but we've obviously been talking a lot about how to memorialize pets today. And I found this line of beautiful greeting cards that are specific for pet parents and it's called Fable and Sage is the name of the company and they specialize in colorful pet themed greeting cards. They have birthday cards, happy gotcha day cards. But what I really thought was special for today's episode is that they have a line of sympathy cards. I actually have one of them here. This is just one of their many in the collection. It's called Best Friends Should Live Forever.

(39:33):

And I probably have 15 or 20 different pet sympathy cards that I keep in a drawer so that I have them at the ready to send to a friend or a family member who's lost a pet. But what's cool about Fable and Sage is their sympathy card collection includes a horse themed card. So for anybody who's had a horse that they've lost cats dogs. Whereas I think a lot of times when you find a pet sympathy card at the grocery store, if you're running out to grab one, it tends to be pretty basic and not specific to what type of pet and and then they're just beautiful. So check out Fable and Sage and their lovely cards and keep a stash on hand in case you need to send one.

Speaker 3 (40:21):

That is great. I just looked up their website really quick on the side, and you're right, they have some really lovely are in there. Pretty

Speaker 2 (40:27):

Absolutely beautiful. They're gorgeous q and a. Okay, Jamie, we got to the best part of the show. Well, I don't know about the best part, but it's our favorite part. And that's when we get to hear from our listeners and our viewers. They get to write in questions that they want asked and answered on the show, and then we do our best to give them the best answers we can. And I'm so glad that we have you here as an expert in a lot of different areas. I think we have a great question for you too, but if you're listening and you want to know how to get your question answered here on the Pets at Live podcast, all you have to do is go to the website, pets at life.org/podcast and you just scroll to the bottom of the page and right there you can type in your question and submit it to us. Or you can record a voice, you can record yourself asking the question, and we highly encourage that too because we'd love to hear your lovely voices. So with that said, Jamie, I think you have a question for me.

Speaker 3 (41:31):

Yes. Jen from San Diego, California asks, we're thinking about getting a second dog. How do I know if my current dog is ready and what steps should I take to ensure a smooth introduction?

Speaker 2 (41:46):

Okay, so this is a great question. This is actually something my husband and I have been talking about at home because we have one dog right now, tulip, and we have been considering getting a second dog. And Jamie, you're welcome to jump in and add your expertise here, but I'll give it my best shot. So I would say first you want to consider your dog's personality. Does your dog generally get along with other dogs? How do they react to other dogs on walks or at the park? Did you used to have a second dog? Is your current dog possessive of toys or food or possessive of you? And if that is the case, that's something you might want to work on with a professional dog trainer just before you make that decision to get a second dog. And secondly, let's say you decide to move forward and you definitely want to get a second dog.

(42:39):

You want to choose one that has maybe a similar energy level or play style and temperament. Not just doesn't necessarily have to be the same breed or the same size, but pairing a rowdy puppy with a quiet laid back senior might lead to some frustration for both of them and for you as well. And then whenever possible, of course a arrange a meet and greet in a neutral place so that you can observe how they interact and ideally with the assistance of a shelter or training staff to help you out. So we've got this other question that came in from Mike in Chicago, and Jamie, I think it's perfect for you. So I'll read that one to you. It says, my four month old puppy is still having accidents in the house even at night. I'm trying crate training and frequent breaks, but progress is slow. What's the most effective potty training method for puppies?

Speaker 3 (43:34):

This is an excellent question, and by four months we should be able to hold it six to eight hours at a time. So if you're still having accidents inside in a crate and at night, that to me says that there might be something medical going on. So check with your vet and see if there isn't a urinary tract infection or if they're having loose stools, potentially there's a parasite or some other bacterial infection going on there. So definitely rule out any medical issues. And then my biggest advice is make sure you're using a pet safe cleaner that has enzymes in it that helps break down the odor of the urine or the feces so that the dog can't smell that they've been there before. And then finally putting them on a schedule, putting everything on a schedule related to intake and output. So offering them water at specific times throughout the day and monitoring how much intake they have.

(44:35):

So if you've just done a really long fetch session outside and it's hot and they drink a whole lot of water, observe that and know that they're going to need several more potty breaks as they move that liquid through their body. So offering water every hour on the hour, taking them out for potty breaks 15 minutes later, making sure that you're not feeding them all day long that they're eating at set meal times will help you develop that schedule so that you can predict when your dog needs to go to the bathroom. And then supervision, watch where those signals that the dog needs to go to the bathroom in the middle of a play session and they abruptly leave, scoop them up and take them outside because they're likely looking for a spot to go to the bathroom. If you find that they're coupled up with you on the couch and they wake up from a nap and start walking around, perfect time to take them outside. Or if you see that they're sniffing and circling and pacing another great signal that it's time to take them outside for that potty break. So supervision, developing that schedule and using a pet safe cleaner. Those are my top tips for you.

Speaker 2 (45:44):

So Jamie, we have come to the end of the show. It goes by so quickly. And I know this theme that we had today was a little on the sad side, but I think that it's important that we have these conversations about end of life with our pets and we had some incredible guests and I didn't know when we invited you to be a co-host of the show. I didn't know that you had a 14-year-old dog and that you were starting to think about some of these things.

Speaker 3 (46:11):

Yeah, this has been such a great episode to be a part of. I learned something valuable from each of our guests. While I don't have children, I do have family members that love my dogs just as much. So I'm really interested in looking at Dr. Mansfield's book and everything that Adam shared and that incredible resource. I will definitely be doing searching and some reading on Love Baxter as well.

Speaker 2 (46:39):

Yeah, fantastic. Tell our audience where we can follow you, where we can learn more about Popper Pets.

Speaker 3 (46:46):

Yeah, if you're interested in learning more about what I'm doing or checking out the focus treat pouch, you can head to popper pets.com to learn more. And you can follow us on Instagram at Popper Pets.

Speaker 2 (47:02):

Awesome. And we appreciate you taking the time to join us today. And for our listeners, if you are listening to us on your favorite podcast app, don't forget, you can check us out on YouTube as well. The Dog TV YouTube channel is a great place to start. Also, you can watch us on Dog TV's Unleashed channel on Amazon Fast Channels. And of course, we hope you are following us on at least one of the Pets at Life Social channels because there you get to see the fun little tidbits from each show and find out what's coming up. So with that said, to every pet that we've loved and lost, thank you for the joy and to the ones still warming our laps, we'll catch you next week.

Speaker 1 (47:43):

Pets Add Life, your guide to the latest in Pet Trends products, and the joy of the Human Animal Bond with Kristen Levine and Chris Bon, powered by the American Pet Products Association and Dog tv.