Latest / Every Pawprint! Every Story! / Thirty Years of Dogs, Chaos, and Heart: Mic’s Story

Transcript

Thirty Years of Dogs, Chaos, and Heart: Mic’s Story · Every Pawprint! Every Story!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon and welcome to Every Paw Print, Every Story Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Brand new podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pilot podcast that I'm launching.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's every Paw Print has a story.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a weekly conversation space where people honor pets they've lost, celebrate the joy pets bring, and support one another through pet grief.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode centers on our guest memories, uh, the rituals that keep those pets present in daily life, and the lessons of love and loss that pets teach us.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited today to share with the audience a good friend, coworker Mike Seaton.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, welcome to the show, Mike.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he's Mike's up in Chicago, Illinois.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Go Bears.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um Go Bears.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, but let's jump into it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about stories about the fur kids.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: What um, you know, t tell me how many fur kids we have today and and how they came to be a part of the the family and the household.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: All right, great.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me, Dan.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so I've got three dogs right now.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um my my oldest is a 10-year-old uh Cocker Spaniel.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my middle one is about a seven or eight now.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's about seven and a half.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yorkie, uh, which is my my wife's little puppy, little baby.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh mine too.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll get into that.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then now we just recently acquired a uh I don't know what he is, but it's uh it's a pit bull mix.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: We adopted, and when I say we, I mean my wife and my daughter adopted a a pit bull mix, and he's about six months old today.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So okay.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Quite a variety of age needs.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have had, I'll just say we have had a dog for the last probably uh I don't know, 38 years.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So when we moved to when we moved to Tampa, um we got our first dog when we were both uh 19.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we weren't married then, but we got a dog then and didn't stop and never stopped and had dogs ever since, continuously.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first dog 38 years ago.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this was the first one before you got married.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was our baby, yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: What what kind?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: He was a Rottweiler Bassett hound mix, an awesome killer dog.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I went to Tampa, Florida to try to turn pro skateboarding.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um so my wife found this dog, and it there was Tampa was known for um stray dogs.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we found a shelter and uh adopted him.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then shortly after that, I'll get to the point, but uh shortly after that, he didn't live very long.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: He unfortunately uh we had ponds surrounding our apartment building, and he used to run out, and we'd always worry about an alligator or something getting him because they were around, and uh he ran out and got hit by a car uh one day.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh someone opened the door and he took off.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he took off because he used to sit in the window and watch me skateboard, and he thought I was out there skating and he just took off.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So my wife couldn't catch him.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: He went down the stairs and right into the parking lot and got hit.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a bad story.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that was unfortunately our first experience with a dog.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's uh that's that's unfortunate.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: How how long did you have him before that happened?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was only about nine months old.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So he was nine months old, but how long did you guys have him?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, we had him maybe he was about a year because we maybe we had him for about nine months or so.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So but after that, that was a pretty hard grieving uh time.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife was uh let's see, I was out of town.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was down visiting uh family and friends down in southern Florida, and uh my wife went to Target, uh still kind of grieving and was walking uh into Target and saw a man sitting, like I said, Tampa was known for stray dogs, saw a man with a bunch of dogs uh in a cardboard box.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: She sort of looked, but it wasn't the time for her to, you know, uh stop and look at dogs, especially with our our loss.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But um, she did her shopping, came out, and she did think, you know, I wonder if that guy's still there.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: She came out, did not see the guy, but then looked and saw the tiniest dog uh ever sitting on the curb by itself.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So she went and sat down with him, and he was black and brown, just like Oliver was, looked like a mini Oliver.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh turned out he ended up being like a mini pinned slash cheweenie type of dog.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my wife scooped him up and brought him home.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the start of our new love of this little dude that was what I became known as my my favorite dog, uh Shiloh.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So uh he was a tiny, like I said, mini pin chihuahua, chiweeney, whatever they call it, mix.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, was he smart and unique.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was so small, I could fit him in my cargo pockets.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is in the 90s.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So he fit in my cargo uh pants pockets.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: He fit in my shoe, and I have pictures of him on my turntables, tiny little dog.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: He only grew up to be about eight pounds.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that guy could do uh every trick in the book, play dead.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I could have I could say watch him, and he would be like, you know, like a guard dog.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'd tell him to watch people.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: If people got near me or touch me, he'd growl and snap at him, but never bite him.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that was his little game.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he was super, super smart.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could put all of his toys down there and he would go, I'd go get the gator and he'd get the gator.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'd go get the bear, you'd get the bear, get your carrot.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: He would go get it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was super, super cool.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that little dude, everyone, he he I took him home back to Chicago, and everybody knew him and my roommates, and I would let him off the leash at a party.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have the leash, uh, you know, one of those retractable ones in my back pocket.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually people are like, let him go.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: He'd just wander around the party, and I'd see him in pictures with people, they're holding him.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got like tons of people, like when he passed away, people were like mourning him all over Facebook.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: My friends, like tons of people were like, Oh, poor dude, that dude was awesome.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you one other funny story.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: When we were in Chicago, um, downtown Chicago, driving around, I saw one of my friends.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: We were at the six corners where all these streets meet.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: He used to ride and look out the window, tiny little guy.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting there and I see my friend Matt, and he's like, Shiloh, you know, Shiloh.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Don't do that.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: As I go to turn out of the peripheral, I see Shiloh's feet out the window.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: He ran out, jumped out the window, and ran across and jumped into my buddy's arms.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when I turned, why finally turned around and got back, he was shaking and you know, doing his shivering thing because he almost got hit by a car like several times.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, he did get hit by a car.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: This dog was crazy.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: He did get hit by a car, and I took him to the uh uh to the immediate care vet care, and he had like a broken rib.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so he got thankfully he was so small, he got rolled over.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't get the car like grazed him, like he was so small that yeah, like it bumped him around, but he didn't get smashed.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he was so short, the car was like, you know.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think something like nicked him, you know, and made him roll, but that was it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he wasn't technically hurt.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's fortunate, that's good.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there was no tire and there was no tire involved in that, too, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's no tire involved, nothing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: What nothing at all, but I could tell you even more crazy stories.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: This dog.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: We lived in a loft on a roof, and we had a lip.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're about three stories up, and I had loft parties out there, so he used to love going on the roof deck, and my neighbors got like a husky, and my dog would jump up on this two, two-foot-tall lip around this roof gap, and up there was a ledge about a foot wide.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Shiloh would jump up there and run around the lip, like perfect poise, and like look around the city.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So this husky came over, not knowing what he was doing, and was like trying to play with him.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Shiloh was standing on the lip and running.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: This dog jumps, and I was like, No, no, no, no.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Jumps like over the clip over the ledge and landed on a car two stories down.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: They had to go take them.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: My dog was just sitting there staring at him, like, you dummy.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's there isn't ground up here, dude.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: What this dog just jumped over.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was the craziest thing I've ever seen.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: That dog was okay, right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was okay, yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't he landed on a car and survived somehow.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't get hurt at all.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, this is the crazy story, but that's another crazy story with little Shiloh.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: So now you see how he he's become my favorite.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Keep keep going.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: What other crazy stories?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: We get we got a ready-made book starting right here, just listening to these stories about Shiloh.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's really it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Shiloh was uh he was a game changer as far as dogs.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've I haven't really had a um he could jump on counters.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the dude, my brother-in-law, wasn't my brother-in-law at the time, taught him to speak, and then thought it was funny that he could jump on a bar top being so small.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: He had height.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: People said they used to hear him meow, so they're like, This guy's got he's a cat, he's got like nine lives.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: He never never ended up dying to like heart failure, like 13 or 14 years later.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's how he ended up dying.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and unfortunately, I wish I had done something sooner, but I was so young in my dog um, you know, I guess experience that I didn't know his suffering was worse probably than I imagine.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was so selfish that I didn't take him, you know, to whatever, just ease his pain or whatever.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just you know held on to him for dear life.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I had young kids at the time and uh you know I could I probably didn't show him as much attention as he needed during his elderly life or his elderly years, but um if I could change that, that's what I would do knowing now, you know, that dogs need constant, you know, medical attention and and so talk to me a little bit about that though.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You meant the medical condition.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you see so heart failure?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but 13 is still a pretty good age span.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um he might have been a little older than that.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just you know, this is so long ago.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blending years together, so yeah, might have been older than that.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Did he had uh breathing problems gasping for air, and I didn't know what that was, and you know, I'd take him to the vet and they'd be like, Yeah, he's got you know, is he on worm, you know, worm protection or whatever?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really know, not to be, you know, too honest, but um I also just wasn't a very good pet parent then.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was young and right and didn't know, you know, you have to keep your on uh on uh worms, you know, whatever worm prevention and all that stuff to prevent heart failure and all that.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I just I didn't realize that, you know, that that's what dogs I never you know lost a dog or took care of a dog.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I never had a dog when I was little.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's why my my wife and I went right out and got a dog when we were, you know, 19.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, we've never had a dog, so let's get one.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, well, yeah, no, and then and and appreciate that, yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this show is all about, is that that transfer.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can cut that out.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you we we yeah, we learn.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, we we learn.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um now go tell me more about the the name.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: How did you come up with the name?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's the significance behind the name, or is there a significance?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember the name, how we came up with that, but um it turns out there's a a lot of dogs named Shiloh, and there was a movie called Shiloh the Dog.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I had my way, I would have named him again a skateboarding name because I named our first dog Oliver short for or Ollie short for skateboarding Ollie.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've still tried I tried to name a kid, one of my kids Oliver, but my wife goes, You can't do that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to name another dog Oliver.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I go, There's like a time span that should be okay.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, We can't do that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, our kids never knew Oliver, so we can go with an Oliver again, but um, I can't remember Shiloh exactly how it just it just happened, yeah.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't remember how at all.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: After so, since we talked about so after after his loss, so it sounded like it was an impact.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounded like some of the lessons you learned was all right, I I gotta pay more attention, I need to take better care, yada yada.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um how long um before he passed did you get another one, or did you get another one while he was still with you?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, we we did get another dog as sort of a a Christmas thing.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: That that following Christmas, we ended up going to uh a pet store at the time and and getting a um an actual uh what was he?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Toby was a not a mini pincher.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: He was see, we couldn't really tell what Shiloh was, so we went out and got, I think it was like a Jack Russell or one of these type of breeds, a small dog.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, was he totally different.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't like to play, he didn't like to do anything.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: He had no, he had none of the same personality traits.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that was when I quickly realized Toby was never gonna be like Shiloh, but he was different in his own way.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So he'd lay on the table up in this basket we had on the basket, he'd jump up on the table, and he was notorious for stealing the kids' uh food off their high chairs when they were little.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I can tell you a funny story about that too.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my daughter one time at a family party, we had a whole bunch of people over, and she said, uh, she's like, Toby, I love that little bastard, because I would always be like, get away from their food, you little bastard.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd be like, get away.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they were young, and he would jump up on their high chairs and steal their food.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: He'd jump up and take their food.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd be like, get out of here, you know.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and she said that, and it just made everybody laugh.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, I gotta be careful.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: One would I say around my kids.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's when I learned my kids were like sponges and repeated, they literally repeated everything.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I never did that again.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So Toby, what about the name on Toby?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is that a skateboarder name, or is there something somebody I don't remember how we got Toby either, to be honest with you?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember a lot of these names.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you the newer dogs, we started naming them after you know, um celebrities and stuff we liked, actors or something.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I don't remember Shiloh, and I don't sp my wife maybe might remember that a little better, but Toby and Shiloh, I don't know where the names came from.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So would you say I can't recall.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's fine.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So th 38, you said I think you said what 38 years of of having pets.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty close to it, yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would say I would say, yeah.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's you know, I was I'm almost 50, so it's yeah, probably probably 35 years.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: 30 and over the years in the number of pets, Shiloh is the one that stands out the most.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh to me, he is.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you asked my wife, it'd probably be a little different.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, they all stand out.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: But Shiloh, I spent a lot of time with Shiloh on my own, like recovering.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I, at the time we weren't married, we broke up for a little while.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So he came back with me and was sort of like my uh my nurturing animal.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So he spent a lot of time with me recouping.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Then we ended up getting back together and and had our started our life, our kids, and all that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a period of three years.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I had three years with Shiloh on my own to do take him everywhere.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: He went everywhere with me.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: He locked himself in the cars.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: He uh he went traveling to stores.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he locked himself in a in a gas station in downtown Chicago one time in a really bad area.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I went in to grab a drink or something and it came out and he had stepped on the automatic door lock.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had to call the fire department and everybody.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he locked you out of the car.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he locked me.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: He locked himself in and locked me and everyone else out.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's he used to get up on the handrest and hit the his little paw would hit the okay the lock thing all the time.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: These dogs have uncanny knack of hitting the pause button on the remote or all the time.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe even they still maybe he knew it was a bad air, and he like, hang on, I gotta stay in here, be protected.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So wait, wait till they come back.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I took them everywhere.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So fast forward to today.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: You we've got three today, you said.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um what what were the breeds again in the names?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Daisy, the cocker spaniel.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's my oldest.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Billy is a Yorkie, and uh this new guy, his name is Gizmo, and he's uh half pit bull.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and how did how did they how did they come to be a part of the family?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we had who did we have?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um we had Fletch.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Fletch was another dog that uh we had.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't I could go down the list of dogs.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: We've had quite a few.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um Fletch was a pretty hard one uh to lose, but we ended up I didn't want any more dogs, and we had we had Toby.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Toby was getting old.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we had Fletch, who I ended up getting for a Christmas present for the kids.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I went and um got him from someone that was on Craigslist listing free dogs, and he ended up being, I think, a a border jack, half Jack Russell and half border collie.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh looked him up, Google searched his his face, and that's what came up, and he did look like and did act like that breed.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I had uh Daisy, the cocker spaniel, and then um uh things were going strange, and my wife found Billy.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so at one point when you know uh we could tell that you know Toby was getting old.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: At one point we had four dogs, so we did have to unfortunately put Toby, you know, put him down uh because he had lived a long life and he was just you know uh too old.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we did make the decision to to go take him and and have him uh euthanized, which was terrible.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um losing him, like I said, he wasn't very a personable uh puppy in the sense that he didn't really do much, but he was my little dude and followed me and hung around with me and and always stood on my face and like gave me kisses.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I thought that was pretty cool.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how we got Daisy though was we wouldn't have had Daisy either, but my wife is a sucker for dogs, so if she could do a shelter or some sort of thing, she would.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if she had her way, we'd have even more dogs.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she called me and said, Colin and I are at this is eventually how they got Billy too, but Colin and I are at the pet store and we want you to come over here and look at this dog.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, What what what do you mean, look at this dog?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, It's uh cocker spaniel.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I go, I don't I don't want a cocker spaniel.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not the kind of dog I want.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want like a pit bull or something, you know, or a big I want a rottweiler again, you know, or something like that.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Well, just come look at her.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's great, and she's been, you know, there was a story to her.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: She had been returned twice.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: First time, first time um she was uh checked out to a family and uh they didn't realize what they were dealing with.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the second time the family was uh that took her was moving and didn't want to take her with.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we got her, we got her about six or seven months old.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I did go in there and they had a big you know discount sticker on her whim.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: She was cute, and I'm like, okay, she's pretty cute, and she just came over and played with me.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, all right.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy goes, So what'll it take?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: What'll it take, uh dad, to get you to take her home?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, I don't know.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think her sticker value is at like uh$900 for this cocker spaniel.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, I I really didn't want another dog because we already had two.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I go, I'll give you 200 bucks.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I thought there's no way they'll take$200 off of this price.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: He goes and talks to the thing, and I'm just sitting there with my kids and and my wife and playing with it, and then all of a sudden he goes, You got yourself a dog.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, What?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: You took$200 for this dog.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I got Daisy from uh pet store.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the story was she was uh you know brought back twice, so they were like, This will be great for her.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one point about her, she is the best family dog we've ever had.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome with everybody, doesn't get along, doesn't fight with anybody, no bad bone in her body.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, two is she is the naughtyest girl we've ever had.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: She gets into all of our trash.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've had to put we had to put baby proofing down on all the toilet lids.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: She'd smack a toilet lid down, jump up, and get into the trash can that we had to put on top of the toilet because she would dig out tissues and garbage everywhere.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: She'd knock the trash cans over.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's a dirty, dirty little girl, like in that sense.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so naughty, and jumps on all the tables.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we have tons of pictures of Jake, my son, my uh my eldest son, my middle child, who's 20 now.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she was my girl, and then we had three dogs.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I started saying to Jake, hey, would you mind if Daisy slept with you at night?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we have the other two dogs help me out here.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So she's now his dog, and follows him around.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we have pictures all through the years of him growing up, and she's on the dining room table laying there every day.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, get off the table.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Pictures of her on the tables, the coffee tables.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: She just lays next to Jake, wherever he's at.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And just recently, she's a lot older now, but just recently, she was sitting on the dining room table at Christmas dinner.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: At the chair, sitting there like this, like, where's my food?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's funny.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So she's she's a character, but like I said, also the naughtyest dog we've ever had.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's laying, she's laying right here by the by the couch with me while my son goes to work.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: She'll wait for him.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have a my desk is facing the back of this couch, and she's laying on the the stoop right here.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I'll send you some pictures.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So well, we'll definitely, yeah, we'll definitely need some of those.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like third time's the charm.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So she's was two other homes before you guys, and yeah, and now we realize it could possibly have been things like that why she was just too high strung for them.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, I can't do this, I got little kids.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you, once we did have little kids, Shiloh probably partially was, I'd hate to say neglected, but like they the kids became my priority.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I tell everybody that that you know gets a dog when they have kids.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, you know, think about this because the kids are the priority.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say the dogs are not, but uh they take precedent over, they just end up doing they they more needy, they talk to you, you know.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So dogs can't talk, obviously.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you know depends.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some can, but uh I feel like they I I feel like they can, you're right, but they're not asking you for like more food, uh heat this up, you know, right?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I need this over and over and over again.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you have kids, but uh it's been yeah, yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: The dogs were my kids before that.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we you had four-legged for our kids, now you got two-legged kids.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I yeah, and I think we're coming towards the end end of our podcast segment here, but we'll probably definitely have to have you back, and and you got a lot of great stories.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: But um, one question I want to leave kind of listeners that start tuning into this podcast on uh, you know, you touched on some of it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: So from a pet loss, pet grief perspective, what's some of the things that you kind of learned or would do over again that could help somebody else that's maybe listening to this for the first time and hasn't experienced the pet loss yet or you know, the pet grief, but what's one or two things that you learn that, man, I wish I could have done it differently?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is and I know you touched on some of it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just um take care of their preventative health, I think, is just uh the thing that I've learned.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, the I learned my lessons the hard way of not knowing or not educating myself on what it takes to take care of a dog.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just that helps a lot.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because watching your dog suffer is the worst.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's the worst feeling, and it's very hard to get over uh because there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Shiloh uh and the way he suffered and the where and the point of when he passed away, he ran away and passed away in my daughter's room under her nightstand.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: So away from me.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't find him.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, how come he did that?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to figure out why they did that and wished you know I had done something sooner.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like like possibly, you know, um, I hate to say put him down, but you know, I should have understood the pain.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: So if you understand those things and you're gonna be a responsible pet owner, that's part of it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's obviously part of it.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to lose that pet.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I do tell everybody.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have this pit bull because my wife and daughter got another dog.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I did not want another dog.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, This, I can't do this anymore because you know, this is so I do know that eventually if my daughter moves out, she's 21.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do know Gizmo's probably gone with her.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like her dog.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this would this is kind of her first dog.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Although I do take care of I do take care of it more.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I do.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what and it sounds like you're more prepared over the years and you can help prepare her.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, people don't go into having a pet thinking uh they're only gonna be with me five years, nine years, ten years, who knows?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then when they're gone, what do I do next?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but no, I I want to, you know, thank you for today.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being, you know, part of the show.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for those again listening, uh in the link down at the bottom of this podcast, you'll see uh a QR code to purchase the book that I recently uh published.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh any other folks that um might be in your network would love to get on the show and interview um and just kind of talk about the fur kids, the the the lessons learned and you know how it grew our family.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: The the it's all about the the people and pet bond is what this podcast is all about.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, Mike, I I appreciate your time today.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh all the listeners will be on the lookout for the next show.