 Hi everybody. Welcome. I'm Lisa Larson. We're here with podcast Pete. Hello Pete. Hello Lisa. How are we doing today? Good. How are you doing? Pretty good. We've got the cats here. We may have some visitors. So we've got kind of a thing going on. Everybody wants to be in front of the one open window. So we've got a lot of crawling. So you hear things knocking, being knocked over and all of that stuff. That's what's happening. I have to tell you a friend of mine's description of the word nervous. It's being a long tailed cat and a room full of rocking chairs. Little bit of cornpone there for you. It is. Oh my. Okay. Well let's hope that they will let me be because we're doing this later on in the day and they're probably getting hungry. So let's let's try and get through this. For those of you who have been following us, you'll know that right now we are doing a series on euthanasia and this is our second in the series. And last week we spoke about the benefits of euthanasia and why to choose euthanasia. Today we're going to talk about once we've made that choice and we know that understanding, when is it that we call the vet? When do we make that decision? So that's the genesis of what we're talking about today. Well these are going to require emotional steps. I guess my question is when do we even consider making this decision? Yeah you know I mean one of the hardest things about making this decision is and when to make the decision is that you have to marry what's in your heart and what's in your head. You know in your head you can understand that it is the right thing to do to call the vet. Of course then we have the when do we call the vet but it's the right thing to do to call the vet. But we have to marry that with what's in our heart because we really really don't want to let our loved ones go. No we don't. And as we talked about in the last one it's the altruism of it. And you know it's it's very very difficult because what I find with a lot of people is that they will tell me maybe I'm on a conversation with them they've called me to ask me is it time is my animal ready to go. And they say well I've told them they can go on their own. And the problem with that is is it's usually the case that they have told their animal that because they don't want to have to make the decision. Sure it's easy way out. Yeah it's the easy way out and wouldn't it be the easy way out if they would just all have a nice peaceful passing on their own. And as we talked about last week it doesn't always happen that way. So we do have to make that decision. So you know I think what's one of the most important things is planning ahead. And you can do that in a number of ways for one thing you can call an animal communicator. Yeah that's why people call me. They will call me to say where are they in this process how are they feeling how are they feeling physically and how are they feeling about leaving their body because some animals know that they're leaving their body and other animals don't I may have to explain it to them. Interesting. Yeah and this is something that is in the book extended in the book about where you know everybody being on the same page. But that's part of the process is trying to get your head and your heart in the same place and planning ahead and knowing who to call. So we talked last time about home euthanasia. So one of the things when I'm talking to an animal and let's say somebody's called me and the animal isn't saying oh my god oh my god let me go let me go. So it's not quite that time there's they're saying I can go on for a few maybe another day maybe another week they're not quite there yet. But I'm still going to tell the person plan ahead think about who it is you're going to call if you're going to be doing a home euthanasia find that place now call them talk to them set everything up answer all the questions fill out all the forms because on that day that you wake up and you say oh my god it's time and you realize that it's time you have to call the vet and it has to be that day then you don't want to have to be overwhelmed with oh my god who do I call what do I do what do I do you want to plan so part of that is yes talking to a communicator is certainly an option it's not required but it's an option and it certainly helps but also thinking ahead of what you're going to need to do so thinking ahead on who you're going to call who you're going to have do the procedure and and where is it going to be done and and it's just a matter of when do you make that call now you know granted this is a big decision but as far as knowing when to start this process I mean a vet's got to be involved right yes yeah oh yes yes yes yes and that's and that's a very unfortunate thing in some cases people say there are some people there are some people who say well I don't want to pay a vet to do that so they just take matters into their own hands and and that is killing your animal because that is inhumane and cruel and no a vet needs to be involved you need to call a qualified licensed veterinarian who knows how to do this absolutely that's a great question and they can expect certain things to be discussed and brought up if they do call a vet like like what um so you know a lot of it is timing we're going to do a whole episode on the procedure itself once the vet comes over to your house or once you're at the at the vet's office and what that will go through so we'll we'll do a whole episode on that but yeah that that will generally tell you especially if you've never had it done before they'll they'll kind of go through what the procedure is the shots that they give them and a good vet will give you the time that you need like I I called when I had to lift Makana up some people say put them down that I heard somebody say it's better to say lift them up so I'm I'm I'm choosing to go that route yes when I held I when I chose to lift Makana up we called a place called pause into grace and I mentioned this the last time that I talked to the woman who started that and um oh my god I'm gonna I have to try to say this without crying but she was so good she was so um empathetic because I was not ready you know I mean I was holding him and who really ever is ready no one is no you know but sometimes people will come in they'll just do it and it's all part you know it all takes place and maybe you know half an hour or 45 minutes this woman was so wonderful to me because I just I was not there and to the point where she gave him the first shot because there's usually two shots that help him relax and then there's the shot that stops his heart and she actually after she gave him the second shot and he was gone I just couldn't let him go she actually went out and she would she took a long walk and she just let me have my time with him gave you time and certainly there are signs that you look for to be sure when it's time yeah with Makana you know it was we just both of us he was sleeping in between us and both of us just woke up and realized today is the day and ultimately that is going to be it now there are other signs like you know maybe they will stop eating and it's not going to be for every animal you know I mean this is this is just very very general because every animal is going to be different but you know maybe they will stop eating maybe they can't walk anymore or they're peeing on themselves because they can't get up and they can't use the bathroom anymore they or they can't eliminate anymore cat sometimes will will lie in that what I call the meatloaf position they just kind of lie like you know with with their arms tucked under them and their head tucked under so there are signs that are very very clear but but then not every animal does that sign so ultimately if you know certainly if you see those signs it's important but ultimately it's waking up and looking at them and you know your animal better than anybody else you know your animal better than anybody else and it's just knowing and can I share an experience there's one one client called me and she said everybody is telling me that my dog is ready everybody is telling me that I need to to euthanize him now and I need and I need you to talk to him and I talked to him and he said to me no I'm not quite ready I need I need to finish out a few more things first and I told her that and this is something that she's brought back to me many many times because she's a longtime client and she's a student of mine and she said given that right after that conversation he had this turnaround and for a week he just felt really good and we did everything that we always you know that we hadn't done for a while but that we knew he loved to do we took him to the beach we did this we went to the park we did every for about seven days we did everything he wanted to do and then I just woke up that last day and I just knew it was then all of a sudden it was time and I could tell it was time and she said you know I never would have had that last week with him if I hadn't had that conversation with you and and those animals they may be hanging on for a reason maybe it's hanging on because the person is not ready to let go or maybe it's hanging on for this reason because there's something they feel they have left to do yes so as a communicator then you have a role when someone is faced with making this decision or you have many roles don't you yeah and and it's I mean I always look at myself as part of the team you know by this time maybe an animal has has been ill for a while they have their chiropractor they have their vet they have their acupuncturist well I I like to think of myself as part of the care team or part of the sometimes it's hospice sometimes it's making the animal feel as as comfortable as possible but a lot of times they will call me animal parents paw rents will call me when they are really kind of on the precipice and they say I don't know how how close are they to being ready you know more times than not they're calling me in enough time so that I can say yes either either they've got a couple of more days maybe or something like that or there's a few times when they might I might say oh my god they're ready to go they're ready to go please just let me go you know they're telling me but what I do find is that animals will hang on for their people so more often than not what will happen is somebody will call me they'll say I'm not sure if it's time I'm not sure where we are should I be calling the vet today should I be calling the vet tomorrow should I have called the vet yesterday and I find that the animal might say well I'm not quite ready but I'm I will be ready when my mom is ready and what that tells me is that that the mom or the pet parent is is not has not married that head and heart struggling is struggling and so what I will do is I will have a conversation I will have the talk with the pet parent the animal parent and I will explain what we talked about in the last episode as well the you know why it's so important to to to consider euthanasia and to make that decision and to make it a day too early or a day rather than a day too late and and with it it's very interesting that because once I've had that conversation I will find that people will a couple of days later say you know my my cat just two days after our conversation my cat I just knew and it was time and what I find it is is that cat just let's go when they realize that their mom has married their head in their heart so it's almost a body language um no it's an energetic feel interesting it's an energetic feel and you know one of the things that I didn't mention earlier is is I've got something called the 3070 rule or the 7030 rule and in making a decision on when to call the vet this was something that a vet had shared with me before I ever did this work and I found it really useful and then he said if it's 70 percent that your animal is enjoying life eating the foods that he's like that they like even if it's a little less enjoying being with you being in the sun doing the things that they like to do and only 30 percent that their quality of life is not that good then maybe it's not time to call the vet yeah but if it's the other way around if it's only 30 percent that they're enjoying life then maybe it's time to consider making that call and I think that's a lot of times around that time when people end up calling me when they're not sure where that where that lays in that 3070 rule and that's a lot that's one of those things that I usually tell those those people so maybe the pain and the ability or inability to continue is a factor here percentage wise in this decision yeah because as we talked about before we don't want our animals to suffer yeah and it is the most altruistic thing that we can do in making that decision to lift them up and relieve them release them from their suffering so that they don't have to feel that suffering anymore yeah and we need to know that once they're there their spirit is still with us their spirit is always going to be with us they may not be the confined by their body anymore they're not wearing their clothes anymore but their spirit is still always around us and that's a really important thing for people to understand and even when I talk to animals I tell the animals that when I'm preparing them so that they can understand that once they go over on the other side they can be around they can go with their people all over the place that places that they never were able to go with their people before yes so on both sides of the aisle people need to know that their animals will be their in spirit and their animals need to know that they will be with their people in spirit so as far as people finding you and and and utilizing your gifts and services the best way is what your website yeah best way is my website pausetalk.net so tell everybody where to get this book because it's wonderful thank you very much it's pause talking a course in communicating with animals and it's on amazon and it's on apple as an ebook it's actually on barnes and noble as ebook but nobody seems to use apple apple is a good one um and amazon is great okay well this is a series on euthanasia the next podcast will be on the process itself and what to expect for those of you who have never gone through the process and i know there's some of you there who have not or those of you who have and just need to to know that you're not alone in the in in going through the process we'll go we'll go through it step by step and and the things to expect and then we'll be talking later on about grief and signs and all of that stuff but i thank you guys for joining us i thank you pete for joining me and you guys if you are enjoying this please hit that like button and the subscribe in the bell to be notified so i thank you so much and uh we will see you again soon have a good weekend see you soon thank you pete bye bye thank you lisa