5 Steps To Help You Heal After Losing A Dog 🌈

The difference between you two. You are like oh look mom's sitting down and Kira is like oh my gosh this puppy. I tell you. Hi you gotta be right in my face. Say yeah mom of course I gotta be right in your face. Hi Kira. Oh my goodness. Should we start it off and say guess what we're doing Hey ma'am. I'm not chew on a bowl. You can lick my hand. You cannot chew on my hand. Oh my goodness. Hello. Hello. What are we doing today? We have no idea. No idea and sometimes those are the best kind of days right? We're just hanging out out here because here in northern Michigan the day I'm filming this it is actually absolutely beautiful outside. It's not hot. It's not humid. It almost feels like dare we say it. Are you gonna bite your foot? Are you gonna bite your tail? Dare we say it. Do we say what it feels like Kira? I know you can feel the happiness and joy right now because you're grass napping and you just want to be out here and you don't want to come inside. It feels like fall. I know so many of you guys don't want to hear that yet. You don't want summer to end but it does feel like fall. Like it feels like here wait I can prove it. You don't have to get up ma'am. Ready? I'm gonna prove that it feels like fall. Blue skies, tree, tree, tree. Oh what's this over here? The neighbor's tree? Oh what's going on with the neighbor's tree? Yeah the neighbor's tree is changing color. All ready. Oh my goodness. So today's video there's not a lot going on but I thought I would pull out the camera and kind of talk to you guys for a few minutes and give you a couple of little updates and things like that. I know a lot of you guys have been asking about like you know when are you going camping? When are you doing this? When are you doing that? Well I saw that acorn fall Kira. Don't you dare. You neither ma'am. Quitting the acorns. We gotta go pick them up in a little bit. So the last time we went camping was actually Memphis's last camping trip and if you didn't see it we did put up a little memory video of that in last week's video which I'll put it up in the cards and down in the video description below and a lot of you guys are probably wondering why we haven't been camping since. Well you know life does life things doesn't it? One we don't really like to take the dogs when it's too hot and humid. We like to go more early in the spring and then late in the fall which is what it's starting to be so hopefully we are gonna be going soon. So that's kind of why you haven't really seen a lot of the camping stuff and then of course we've been going through a lot. Processing losing Memphis. I don't want to bring everybody down in this video but like it's been a lot so because I know I'm going through it and I know a lot of you are going through it as well. I thought that today I would just give you guys five simple easy tips for dealing with the grief of losing a pet. And I know that Memphis wasn't your dog and she was our dog but I also know that a lot of you guys are grieving her as if she was your dog because you knew her so well. I will be the first to tell you if somebody tells you you can't grieve somebody or something or an animal or something that you've never met and they tell you you know well you've never met them so you can't be sad. That's not true. Dolly Parton passed away. I cried. Tim Curry passed away. I cried. Like yeah I never met them in person but it doesn't know we didn't know them. We do know them in a sense if that makes sense. So like I understand that you guys are also grieving the loss of Memphis you know in your own way so let's rapid fire through five tips for different things you can do to help you during your grief with the loss of a pet. So that being said the first tip I'm going to give you by the way these tips are in no particular order is your grief is valid. The way you feel is valid. The sadness that you feel is valid and yes there are probably going to be people in your life especially when it comes to pets that they say things like oh it's just a dog or it's just a cat or it's just a whatever. No ignore those people. Your grief is valid. Your bond with that animal is the love that you shared with them. Like that was real love. No different than the love you share with your family and your friends. The pets are your family. I understand that and like I said even if they weren't your pets even if it was Memphis that you're grieving your grief is valid and you need to allow yourself to know that you are allowed to feel sad during all of this. It's okay. We can all feel sad together. The next thing I'm going to tell you tip number two is grief is not like you know oh well they passed away and a month later you feel better and blah blah blah. Grief has no linear timeline. It has no timeline. It's not just a straight line and eventually you feel better. What Shelby passed away six years ago, seven years ago now. There are still moments where I walk through my house and I see something that reminds me of her and I cry. Oakley passed away seven or eight years ago now. I'll get the dates right eventually. 2018 and 2019. Shiloh passed away in 2013. Even with those dogs there are times when like you see something and it just makes you sad and that's okay. Grief can hit you at any time. It is not something that you just quote unquote get over or get past. It will always be there. You're just going to learn to live life a little bit different. Tip number three would be change up your routine a little bit. So what does that mean? Like you know Jamie and I walk the dogs pretty much every single day sometimes twice a day. Sometimes changing that routine just means walking a different path or loading them up in the car. We've loaded them up in a car quite a few times and taken them downtown and walk different paths downtown. Not only is that healing for us because it's a distraction, it's also healing for the dogs because they're getting to experience something different. So you're putting different memories in different areas and different smells into their brains. Again this is also if you have other pets as well or for yourself. The routine changes kind of... routine change can be hard but your routine is going to completely change if you've lost a pet anyway. So sometimes just you know kind of embracing that routine change. One of the biggest things that I realized after Memphis passed away was how much of a routine Memphis and I had built especially over the past few years of her you know being a senior and having a harder time going up and down steps and you know all the different things we had to do for her and when she passed away all of that routine was gone. So my routine got switched up even though I didn't want it to. So embracing even more routine change and making more of the regular things we were doing a little bit different definitely can be helpful. Bless you baby girl! Tip number four that I have and I know some people do this some people do not. Having like a little journal to write down your thoughts and I'm not talking like you're you know you can write down your sad thoughts if you just need to get them out but like your thoughts and your memories and your things that you're going through it can be very therapeutic to do things like that. I you know do a lot of videos with the dogs on this channel the vlog channel and all those things so it's really therapeutic for me to pick up a camera and talk to a camera kind of like having a journal but I also have been writing things down simple memories things I want to remember feelings things that I want to do sometimes just journaling can really really help you process grief and kind of move through your grief again you're never going to get over it and anybody that tells you that you will is wrong you're just going to learn to live differently and the last one is going to be different for everybody this comes to getting a new pet now some people their dog's going to pass away and they're going to want to get a new pet immediately you know dog cat whatever some people wait forever some people with multi-dog households it's I feel like it's a little bit easier when you have a multi-dog household because you have other pets to distract you and take up your time but you're going to have people that are going to tell you it's too soon to get a new puppy or to adopt a dog or whatever or some people that are going to tell you oh you know I can't believe you're replacing them one you will never replace a pet that you lost that most pet owners understand and know this Memphis will never be replaced even if we get a dog that is a direct relative of Memphis which this one is and that one are I mean they're both related to Memphis we'll have a video on that coming at some point in time as well but I feel like some people are quick to say when are you going to get a new puppy and I'm not picking on you guys at all I know a lot of you guys want to know if we're getting a puppy when we're getting a new puppy and to be truthful we don't know because we're still processing a lot of what has happened most of you know after Shelby passed away it took us like three almost three years before we added Eleanor it only took us a year after Oakley passed away for us to get Kira so it again it's a process and don't let anybody tell you what's right or wrong in this situation if you lost your pet a week ago and you feel like you're ready to add a new pet today then you can do that that is a decision that you need to sit down write down the pros and cons and figure out if that's really what you want don't you need more silliness in your life I mean come on isn't that going to be the best part about adding a puppy and no we're not adding a puppy right now that's not what I'm saying I don't want you guys to jump to conclusions and think that we're adding a puppy yes eventually I'm sure we will get a puppy or foster or adopt a dog but that's not happening anytime soon and I do love you I know I harass you guys and say don't ask I do love you guys and I know why you're asking and it does not offend me it does not upset me I totally understand why you're asking because you guys know for the longest time we've been a three dog household and now there's only two so of course the curious question is are you going to get another puppy are you going to get another dog the answer to that is yeah probably but the other answer to that is I don't know when if somebody offered me a puppy today would I take it I mean I what do you think Kira if somebody offered us a puppy today would we take it um that's a hard one I don't even want to answer that one on camera would I yeah maybe probably hey quit eating a stick can't eat it you can chew on it if you can't eat it are you burying an acorn are you for you're seriously you just you you're burying an acorn just like Oakley used to bury the apples Kira that's adorable but yeah hopefully some of those made sense basically my last tip was you know if you want to get another pet get another pet if you're not ready wait till you're ready don't let anybody rush your timeline or tell you that you're moving too fast like don't let anybody else you will know when the time is right and it might be soon and it might be years from now I have had friends that have waited three years four years five years before adding another pet and that's okay you know that is something that you kind of have to figure out on your own so yeah if you guys have other tips are you seriously you're gonna bury it in this hole too if you guys have other tips is it an acorn it is an acorn okay bury it I guess that's what you want to do Eleanor let her bury that back up let her bury that um not you Kira you're good if you guys have other tips on how to deal with grief and loss when it comes to pets leave them down in the comments below you know what another tip bonus tip surround yourself with like-minded people surround yourself with a community find those grief groups Kira drop it drop it you can't eat the acorn ma'am that's what we don't want to do um surround yourself with like-minded people surround yourself with a community of people like the people here that you can talk to and things like that we do have a discord if you don't know I'll put a link down below um and we do have some pretty amazing people in the discord Kira stop eating acorn spit it out oh we got it we got it she's not eating this one either she's trying but she's not getting it right get a husky they said it'll be fun they said yeah we need a puppy to distract us I got you you're kind of crazy I got you are you what are you eating now drop it good thing you know that command drop it aha look you did find a piece I didn't find there it is okay out of the acorns let's go go go go go go all right you guys this was a very random of random style of video hopefully it made sense hopefully you got a little bit help out of it and thank you for listening to me ramble because I kind of needed this today believe it or not from the time I started filming this until now I do feel a little bit better and I'm sure once I start reading all your amazing comments on this I'll smile even more day by day it's all we can do don't rush grief you know it's a process it's a process that not everybody understands until they've been through it we love you guys we love all of you also check out our other socials down below also this video is ridiculously long so I'm going to start stop rambling now all right you guys we hope you enjoyed today's video as always thanks so much for watching thanks for subscribing stay positive dream big and we will see you again soon say goodbye pawdience love you guys thanks for being here