Latest / Every Pawprint! Every Story! / Cat Rescue Stories And A Family’s Fresh Dog Grief

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Cat Rescue Stories And A Family’s Fresh Dog Grief · Every Pawprint! Every Story!

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Episode of Every Paw Print, Every Story.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Dan Popovic, and for those of you new listeners to this podcast, a little bit rundown on what this is about, what this show is about.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: 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.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Each episode centers on, I guess, memories, the rituals that keep those pets present in daily life, and the lessons of love and loss that pets teach us.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: This podcast, the goal of this podcast, is really to inspire, guide, support each other, but just really hone in on the significance of that bond with our fur kids, be it cats or dogs.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: And if for you listeners, if if you're watching this episode, this is special already.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: We've got Jill in, or Jill short.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll call you Jill.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Got the cat got the cat propped up.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: Haven't done a lot of interviews yet with cats, so I'm excited to jump into this.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: So Jill from Dover Delaware, welcome to the podcast.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: How are you?
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm well, thank you.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: It's nice to be here.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: No, thank yeah, thank you.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being part of this.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, let's jump into it.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Who do we have propped up on the shoulder there?
1:18
SPEAKER_00: This is Noodlebean.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: And Noodlebean is in a lot of my posts on LinkedIn simply because she always likes to jump up on my desk and look at my screen.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there was one I did about a couple months ago where she was literally trying to type something on LinkedIn, and that was real.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: She is my ham.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: That's well, did the did the typing in the actual make it to a post, or did you have to edit it and change it up?
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course I had to edit it.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm a content creator.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Now, Noodlebean, I'm I'm curious.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: The how did the name come to be?
1:53
SPEAKER_00: So we like to we were experimenting with naming our cats after food.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And this one is Noodle.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And as you can see, she has a little black bean right here.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: So her name is her nickname is Doodle Bean, because you know, we never call our cats by their names.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: They're just doodle or flu for this one would be doof because this is actually my husband's cat.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she chooses me because he sleeps, he works midnight shift.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: So midnight shifts, wow.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: It sucks.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: So is that a calico?
2:30
SPEAKER_00: She is.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: She's a dilute calico.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: So if you look at her, she's got bits of orange and black on her head, and then she's got a little bit of black down here.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, that's what they call them when they're mostly white is dilute.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: I think I was gonna say, yeah, she definitely got a lot of white.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: I had a calico earlier, and not as much white as this one.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, how old is how old is Noodlebean?
2:55
SPEAKER_00: So we're not quite sure.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we adopted her as an adult.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: She was what we call a pet smart fail.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: We were in PetSmart looking for things for our dog um when our dog was alive.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: This was a few years ago, and we were stationed in Georgia, and um we were walking by the cat room.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: We didn't see any cats in the cages, so I'm like, cool, not today.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And uh then we hear this loud.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, we go to look and we see her just yep, she knows the story.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So we just see her looking at us, and we're like, okay, we'll pay some attention.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: So we did.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: And my husband's not a cat person, but when we left her and we left the store, he's like, I gotta go back.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And I go, What?
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah, I have to go back.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And I go, why?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, for the cat.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're joking, right?
3:43
SPEAKER_00: We already have like two cats and a dog.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: You want to add a third, you want to add a fourth to the mix?
3:48
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yep.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So we did, and we've had her about five years.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: That's mittens in the back.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: He's got a whole, he's got his, he's got lore too.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: But this one, yeah.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: She uh she's just she's always been a really social cat.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: She's very obviously clingy.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she likes to be on my shoulder.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: If you hold her, she has to be on your shoulder.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: She'll claw her way to it, literally.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
4:17
unknown: Yeah.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I think she's ready to go down.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: All right.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: So then turning our attention to mittens, since mittens did that drive-by uh what uh the story behind that name.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we also got mittens in Georgia.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, not really got.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: I found them as a kitten.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: So um on our last installation, we had a stray cat colony.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Most installations have them, especially when you're on the east coast and the south.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh his mom was a well-known cat with like half her tail missing, and his dad was an orange cat that we knew that would circle the neighborhood.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: They were both very well-known feral strays.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people in the neighborhood fed them.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And uh, we had gone for a trip back in, this was back in 2019.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: We had gone for a trip up north.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: My father, unfortunately, had suffered a heart attack.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, he lived through that one.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were there for about a week, uh, making sure he was okay.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: And we came back.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And right as we're pulling into our carport, um, we see this little thing race across the carport, and then we hear a loud.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And we thought that it was my younger daughter's game on her tablet, because you know, we put her on her tablet on drive.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't like long drives.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So my husband goes, Oh no.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And I go, What?
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Jill, there's a cat.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And I go, and he's like, not just a cat, it's a kitten.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And I go, Okay, I at least have to put something out.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: It's like October, it's starting to get chilly at night.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: I have to put out a box and a blanket, so I do.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when I come out the next morning to go to work, I was a preschool teacher at the time, uh, I see the cat in the box.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, okay, so I race back in, I re- I fill up a water bowl and some food, bring it out, whatever, let him eat.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: I do elude it a little bit because with water because the cat is super young and I can tell.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe four weeks if we're lucky.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: So I go, I leave him, and this goes on for about a week.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'll come out and visit him a couple times a day until the last day when he comes out of the box and he comes and lays next to me.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And I go, Okay, yep, you're mine.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: So I picked him up, brought him inside, much to my husband's chagrin.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: He did not like that.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh he uh this was before Noodle, by the way.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And he's been part of our family ever since.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: I bottle fed him, took him to the vet, hole nine, he and now he's seven, and I call him my biggest a-hole because that's what he is.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: But he's mine.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: I guess I could see he looks like he's getting into something back there behind you, so maybe he's really curious, I'm guessing, right?
7:02
SPEAKER_00: He's just being a big a-hole.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna time because I'm gonna go get him real quick.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: The cat's on timeout for the listeners if you're not watching this.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh and there goes Noodlebean.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: So those are my two that are the most social.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, the one you're not seeing is Ming.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: He's a Scottish fold.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh and he'll be 14 in May.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Ming, Ming the Merciless.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Ming, M-I-N-G.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Ming the Merciless, like Flash Gordon.
7:34
unknown: Okay.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Affirming.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: That was my husband's whole thing.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: 14.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Getting up there in in uh I know cats can last a while, but getting up there.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: He's everybody's.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: He's everybody's cat.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, all my kids, he'll lay with anybody who's laying on the couch.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: He's very cuddly.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: He's always been that way.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: He's a huge lover.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: That's just what he is.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: He's not out here right now, or I'd get him.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I think he's asleep with my husband.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: But I post him a lot too.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, he's very, very distinct.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: He's a gray tuxedo Scottish fold.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: So he's got the gray around here, white here, and he looks like he's grumpy all the time.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Like he looks like uh an old man looking at you and going, get off my lawn, but he's not.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: He's like the coolest cat ever.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, he uh he came to us for uh when we were stationed in California because we were stationed at Edwards Air Force Base for eight years.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: I know, crazy, but enlisted get stationed places longer.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh he I saw him at the shelter, and my husband was like, We have to have him.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: If I'm picking the cat, we have to have him.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: And there was a wait list, so I got up at like five in the morning, and I'm pregnant at the time with my second child, my daughter.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: She'll she'll be 14 in June.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: So Ming is actually a month older than her.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: And I went and I parked in the parking lot of the shelter at like 6 30 till they opened.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So I was the first one there to get him, and he's been part of our family ever since.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: We didn't even know he was a breed until the vet told us.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of drive-based.
9:19
unknown: Biddies.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: That was that was mittens, right?
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, so me it so you m you made me think about oh gosh, isn't there that one Instagram phenom that's grumpy grumpy cat or grumpy old cat or something like that?
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, her name was Tartarsaw.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: She passed away a few years ago, but I was a huge fan.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: I still am.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I love her memes.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: And then you got that you said a minute ago, your husband wasn't a big fan of cats, but the stories it sounds like he's always saying, We need to get that one.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: We need to get that one.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So I have no idea.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe he's gone through an evolution over the years, you know, because he's about to retire from the military.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: So he's been in the Air Force 21 years as of this July.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: And we're looking at he's applying for jobs now and looking.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So, hey, y'all, my husband's looking for a job and he's a vet.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, anyway.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so he right now is a section chief uh here at Dover Air Force Base.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: He supervises 300 airmen.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, but before that, he basically fixed instruments and flight controls.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: The and they combined him with what's now known as avionics.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: So uh communications, navigation, flight controls, those are what he's done.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then when we were at Edwards, he did logistics tests and acquisitions for the government.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, special duty for eight years, but he got a lot of experience and knowledge.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: He's very well-rounded.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when he talks, it's he loves spreadsheets.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Spreadsheets are his thing, they are not mine.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: I do not like spreadsheets.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a marketer, but I still don't like spreadsheets.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And he, I mean, he knows every Excel code, he knows he loves numbers, data, data analysis.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: That because that's what he did for the longest time.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to talk offline on that and see how I can help any.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, thanks.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And then um so keep uh sticking with the cat.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: So there's a fourth one, right?
11:24
SPEAKER_01: We didn't talk about the fourth one.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: So the fourth one's actually what we call my grandkitty, she's my 20-year-old son's cat.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: The cat's not 20, your son's 20.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: But how was the cat?
11:39
SPEAKER_00: She we adopted her two years ago from the SPCA.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: They were doing free adoption events.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: She came spade and all of it, and then they bonded, so that's now his.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh they said she was five.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: I but we're really not sure.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: She was missing a lot of teeth when we got her, but she's still very active.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: She it was weird.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: She has maybe like five or six teeth, and then when she looks at you a certain way, she gets a snaggle tooth, and it's super cute.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: But she yeah, she came to us with like an ear infection and all kinds of stuff wrong.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: So my son took her to the vet, paid all her bills, got her better.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: He pays for her food.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: She stays in his room a majority of the time, except for at night.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: She likes us.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, she's very sweet.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh her name is Salem for the record.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: She's a black cat.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: Salem.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Salem.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: I I get it with the black cat.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, at the cemetery, but is it is is is there a movie reference or Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Except Salem was male in the 90s show, and in the current one, and he's depicted as more of a familiar spirit in the current one or in the archy com um archie comic.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: But in the 90s show, he's the talking cat.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you're you're over my head because I we don't have kids, we have fur kids, so all the stuff you're talking about is like I have no idea what would be.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: I watched this in the 90s.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: I watched Sabrina in the 90s, and then I watched Sabrina on Netflix now.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: It's actually meant for young adults and adults.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: So, not really a kid's show.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: The 90s one, I guess could be, but the current one, absolutely not.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: I do not recommend listeners show it to their kids.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a bit graphic.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: So then all four of these cats, all four of these fur kids get along.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh mittens and noodle definitely compete for dominance, but I have to kind of I have to break them up.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: I use felaway and that tends to work, but my family's not very good about consistency in terms of changing it, because we all have ADHD and autism.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: So it when they start fighting is when we know to change it.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Um what was it you said you used?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: It's called Thelaway.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a synthetic hormone that's released to try to calm the cats and like keep them calm.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: We use the multi-cat version.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm loving how many drive-bys my cats are doing.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Now, now it looks like in a little little cat battle, noodle bean might kinda take mittens out.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Noodle bean looks a little bit bigger.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: No, or am I wrong with that one?
14:27
SPEAKER_00: She they're about the same size.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, she's lost a lot of weight.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna hear my son in the background.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, he all right.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Love you kiddo, have a good day.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Um he he's going to work.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: But the uh yeah, so when they fight, it just depends.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: It depends on who like sneaks up on who, who has the upper hand.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like that scene in Star Wars with Anakin and Obi-Wan.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I have the high ground, that's my cat's.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: So I just but it's random too.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: They there's no pattern.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: They just kind of right.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: And then you and then the the the cat nip kicks in, and then they're just w all kind of craziness and all over the place, right?
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep, so she came back.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna kinda let her wander.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: We got another photo op there.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Um so we've got the four cats.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Um these are the first four with the family.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Did you have cats before?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, we did have a cat before.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh she was an orange cat.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And orange female cats are incredibly rare.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And she was like amazing, the most amazing cat.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Her name was Athena.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: We got her five and we were um gosh, that was so many years ago.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: It was like 17 years ago.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: We got her, and um, unfortunately, she got out, and we think she got eaten by coyotes because we were in the desert, and those packs would roam.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And I was so sad because she was the best cat.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they just slip out and you don't yeah, yeah.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't know.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she my son was really sad about that one, and so were we, and it was a while before we got another one.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think the the one we got after her was Ming, and that's when we had moved from um off base to on.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Because we had decided to move on installation to save gas, and because even on installation, it was 20 minutes for my husband to get to work.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: So it was living off of it was even longer.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, she was sh I don't know how old she was.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: We got her as a kitten, like super small, and she was about we'd had her for about eight months when that happened.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: And then when you say orange cat, is that uh I'll show you my knowledge on cats, not which is not doesn't go very far.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Um is that is that also a tappy?
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, she was an orange tabby, so the stripes.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, kind of like a kind of like a a little bit like a tiger, right?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Like mittens, but orange.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think of the the cereal box.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Tony the tiger, that's where my head was going.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Sort of, yeah.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Um that's just everything's orange and then a little bit darker orange.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: And then uh, alright, so four four four cats today, and then I feel like I read somewhere where you recently, fairly recently lost a dog, right?
17:31
SPEAKER_00: I did.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we lost our dog Adora.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: She was nine years old and had advanced lymphoma.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Adora, I love that name.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Um thank you.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Once again, we're nerds, so it's from She-Ra.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: She-Raw's name is Adora.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's one I don't know.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: What is She-Raw's?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: She-Raw and the Princesses Princesses of Power is the recent one, but the one from the 80s was just He-Man and She-Ra.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then uh Adora, what was what was the breed?
18:03
SPEAKER_00: She was a pit brown lab mix, and you could definitely see the lab in her, but there was pit in her face, but she was all brown, so she was lab body pit face.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: And then um with the four cats, everybody got along, or did you have moments of chaos?
18:22
SPEAKER_00: The cats did not like her, she did not mind them.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, they left her alone for the most part, except for when she tried to play with them, and then they would kind of like swat and then like tell her, no, we don't want that.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's crazy because Ming, even who was raised around dogs, we had another pity before.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Her name was Coco.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she passed away years ago.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Year years and years ago.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: She was a black and white um Staffordshire bully mix.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Um thankfully her ears weren't trimmed.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: I hate that practice.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't like that people do that, just for the record.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's like declawing a cat.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't like it.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Um she but yeah, he was raised around pit bulls.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: He grew up around like dogs.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: So he I was surprised that he didn't take to Adora, and I think it was because of her energy.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: She was just an extremely energetic dog.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, she would, we had a four-foot fence at our last base.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: We don't have fencing here, but at our last installation, we had fence, and 30 seconds after you let her outside, she'd jump it.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: So we had to start like taking her out on a leash and you know, or tying her to something while she went to the restroom.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like not leaving her out there, of course.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I never would do that, but you she would run.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing else you could really do.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was hard to walk her because she was a reactive dog, she would react to everything and every one, no matter how much we tried to socialize her.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: But we adopted her at two years old from the shelter.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: She was a shelter rescue, kill shelter, actually, in Georgia.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what we didn't know at the time was she had worms.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: That's why she was so calm when we found her.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: So we took care of that thousand dollars and some change later, she was fine, and then she was super hyper.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So she was a great dog.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: My whole again, another whole family dog.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Like my husband called her his soul dog, and it it hit him so hard.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: It hit me really hard too.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm actually surprised I'm not crying talking about it.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's okay.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: That's happened quite a few times on other shows.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Some of the some of the stories get me too.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Um well, how old was it?
20:36
SPEAKER_01: You said when when she passed.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Nine.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Nine.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh, we just got her remains back on Friday and just created a little shelf for her, and we're still working on it.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I ordered a shadow box to put like her harness and things in because like I'm not using those on another dog.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we haven't you can see the kennel back there.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: We haven't even taken it down yet.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Like it it's so recent, like it'll be three weeks as of Friday, and we can't Okay, this really was, yeah.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have two gates up too, because we didn't want she like we didn't know she had cancer, but we noticed she was starting to have accidents in the house.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And the we had to put a gate up because she would go to the upstairs carpet and pee.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay, you can't we can't have her doing that.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: So we had to put uh gate up because as she got older, she could no longer jump.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: So we had that because I have wood floor down here.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Um if she had an accident, it was just easier to clean up.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: But there was one day I noticed that she had stopped eating and it was wet food.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: So I knew that this was a fluke because she loved the food.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, so me, um, oh, another story.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm a former vet tech.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Did that in another life.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: I was 19 when I was a vet tech.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And uh I worked in Arizona, and we I saw a lot of inspiration.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Instances of labs and pits with lymphoma.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: So I went and I checked her lymph nodes, and sure enough, one was as big as a golf ball, and I said, Well, crap.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, and my husband, of course, got freaked out too, because you know, he's been around dogs his whole life.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: He's lost multiple dogs to cancer.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Okay, we have to take her to the vet.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: We took her to the vet the week before Thanksgiving.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: We found out she had cancer, and we couldn't afford the chemotherapy that they wanted to put her on.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And they had told us that um, even if she went into remission, it would only be for about a year, and then she would be right back to having cancer.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: So we opted for steroid treatment, which actually worked for like five months.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: It gave her five more months of life.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Um so we did that and she was thriving on it, except she was just hungry all the time.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And about four and about four months in, we got to a point where we were like, you know, being hungry is its own kind of pain.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Like you can't, she couldn't constantly eat, so she was getting into the trash.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: She was ripping things out, like she was taking people's plates.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't like her.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Like they would get up and go to the bathroom and their plate would be gone.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Like it, it just wasn't like her.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And so we made the decision to get her off the steroids, and then a month later we put her to sleep because we noticed the trouble breathing and like the and it was really hard.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And the vet was very reassuring, told us we had done the right thing and like and not waiting for her to be totally suffering, just like enough to where it was interfering with her like sleep and her, you know, you could tell she was in pain, but she was always excited to see you and excited to see anybody that came in the house.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, my youngest daughter took it really, really hard and still does.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she's nine, almost 10.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: And that was her like comfort dog, especially because she's going through a lot right now.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Like she's being bullied in school, and she was really Adora was really instrumental in just keeping her level.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's hard to imagine Muriel without a dog.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: My daughter's Muriel.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, man, sorry, sorry to hear that.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Um again and in the recency of that.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, it what are you are you guys just growing strong, supporting each other through this, talking to others, and just finding that that's really probably the the best way for y'all to heal right now?
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I'm currently in therapy.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: My kids are in therapy.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're not even contemplating another dog for a long time.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was a really difficult loss for our family because she was with us for so long.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was and it sucked too because the cancer was totally unexpected.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Like I thought she had a lot more life in her, but it was just one day.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: It was crazy because the day before she was fine and eating, and then one day she just stopped.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how sudden it can come on.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, if you have a pit bull or you have a lab, keep an eye on their lymph nodes and their neck right about here.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Cause that, especially as they reached around the age of like seven, eight, because that'll it is common.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: It is common.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: With that, with that specific breed, that's pretty okay.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: That's good advice.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Either of those breeds.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's good advice for the listeners.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I know we're getting close to time.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, you hit on one thing, we'll kind of come back to that, you know, is helping the listeners and what's helping you guys.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I I'm fascinated though with the jumping.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Talk was talk about a little bit some of the like the special memories that you had with the Dora that make you smile like you are right now.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: That just to me that's helped me heal through Marley's loss is just thinking about some of these crazy random things that she used to do.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh what is that with you guys with the Dora aside from the jumping over the four feet fences?
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: This dog used to escape our house a lot.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, not just the fences.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: She would literally run out the door some days.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Like you'd open the door to go somewhere and she would run.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And her favorite place to go was by this lake that was on our base.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, the problem with the lake in Georgia was there are gators in it.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: There was a 12-foot gator, especially during COVID when entomology and all them were shut down and weren't moving gators over six feet off base, because that's what they would do, is they would move them as they got bigger because they became more of a threat as they got bigger to like pets and humans.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: So there was a 12-foot gator by this lake.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: And my dog, what part of Georgia?
26:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I was in middle Georgia, Warner Robbins.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, gotcha.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And my dog pissed the gator off.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how she did it.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: He was walking, and like I could see her like doing her little like, you know, getting down and like trying to play with it.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And this thing is opening its jowls at her.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And I'm freaking out.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: My husband's freaking out because this is one of the times she escaped.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting here going, What do we do?
27:22
SPEAKER_00: And of course, she sees us and runs because she thinks it's a game, and the gator's still pissed.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: So I, of course, get back in the car and drive with him because she's running like a bat out of H E double hockey sticks for the lack of for the listeners.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And we eventually catch her, but I'm like, you squared up with a 12-foot gator.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, I never seen, I thought, like, you see all the stories of Florida men, like, you don't see it about dogs.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: My dog squared up with a gator.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: And so that's one story.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, she PCS'd with us from Georgia to here this last time, and she was so I don't know if this is much of a story, but it surprised me.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: She was super patient because we were in a packed van with three cats and a dog.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And the cats were angry, but my dog was just chill.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: She was like, I like this, even though she never used to like the car.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: She likes the car now because of how many times we had to go pick her up because she would escape.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, this dog, man, she definitely gave us a run for her our money when she was younger.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: But as she got older, she didn't escape anymore.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: She didn't try.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: She just kind of her kennel was her favorite spot.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: She had a memory foam bed in there, and uh, she still does.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, we spoil all our animals.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: It just we just do.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: As as you should, right?
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's awesome.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: You're just making me, you know, there had to be a nickname in there, unless it sounds like a little Houdini or escape artist.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't come up with one, unfortunately.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I just called her Adora or Dumbdog.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, I love you, but dumb dog.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm sure my kids did, and I'm just not thinking of it right now.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, but she man.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Don't you that makes you wonder.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, because when you when you get rescues, you kind of wonder about their past, right?
29:18
SPEAKER_01: What what led them to you and seeing and listening to the story, jumping the fence, clearly she must have escaped somebody or some situation, and luckily she found you.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, luckily she found y'all.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: She kept escaping, but it, you know, luckily she had that home and that heart that your family provided her, so that's phenomenal.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have a feeling she was like a farm dog or lived on like a big piece of land because like she was definitely used to running.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pretty sure she just kind of wandered off and then got caught by animal control.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think I honestly think that's what happened.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, but when I asked how long she had been there, they were like, Oh, she's been here like three months.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and that's a long time for a kill shelter.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: So like I guess it was a miracle, but I don't know.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: She was she was spayed when we got her.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, her name was Layla when we got her, and I was like, no, that doesn't fit you.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So we changed the name.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: She absolutely um came to her name.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: She she knew her name.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: She knew to sit, and that was it.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: She there wasn't much training her beyond that.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like Adora the Explorer.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, that might have been a good one.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had thought of that.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: You say you don't have kids, but you know Dora.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: I love I love the name, love, love this story.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing that.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: I know we're we're we're coming to an end here.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: Um leaving leaving the listeners on obviously a big part of this being support and others that are going through similar scenarios or you know, caregiver fatigue, possibly end of life, you know, I guess what advice would you give family?
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Just would I know this is so recent.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: What's helping you guys kind of, yeah, what's helping you guys?
31:14
SPEAKER_01: What advice?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: So we keep talking about her.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: And I know that that is hard for some people to do because your first instinct is to bury everything down.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And as a psychology major, y'all, I'm telling you not to do that.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Your body remembers.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And I I keep I talk about her and I encourage the kids to talk about her, and I cur encourage my husband, who is a little bit more reserved, to talk about her.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like talking about her and like doing our shelf for her, like it's really helping, especially my youngest one with her grief.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, her school even gave her like this cool pet loss box.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, the school counselor did.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: It's got a journal in it.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: She writes in it.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, she keeps pictures of the dog in it.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, um, you could do things like that for your kids, especially if they're older and they can write.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: You can encourage them to write, draw pictures, um, and keep talking about them.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, they were a part of your family.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: They're not just another animal, guys.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's awesome.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: I love the journaling aspect that you mentioned too, right?
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Because I did that I did that as well, which is what led to that book that I I published.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: And so I love that.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: And especially for the kids, yeah, it's it's a way to keep that memory closer.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, because I know, yeah, as you get old as we all get older, those memories fade.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: But by that journaling, it's like it just keeps a door closer.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: So that's awesome.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it does.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jill, thank you for being on the show today, the the stories.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Um love, love the stories.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: Love the drive-bys with the cats.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully the uh the listeners can watch this versus listening to it so they can see those drive-bys.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: But thank you.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, heart goes out to the family.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: Prayers, like you say, keep talking about it.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, thank you.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Don't go anywhere just yet.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for the listeners of this show, yeah, you know, subscribe, share with friends.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, description has more details about this show, you know, the book.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: But um again, just excited to have you on this, and uh we'll we'll keep in touch.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Maybe uh the journey we'll do another one at some point up more uh, you know, with the cats and stuff.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: I would love that.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.