Giving Dogs a Good End with Helen St. Pierre

Helen St. Pierre joins Victoria to share her inspiring journey from shelter work to founding Old Dogs Go to Helen, a sanctuary dedicated to providing end-of-life care for senior and special needs animals. They explore quality of life and how to support aging pets with dignity.

They also talk about disease trajectories in aging pets, signs that indicate it's time for end-of-life decisions, the euthanasia process and what to expect, and supporting pet owners through grief and decision-making.

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Transcript

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TRANSCRIPT:
Victoria (00:08)

The work that my next guest does goes straight to my heart because I am a lover of senior dogs. Her name is Helen St. Pierre. She runs a New Hampshire based nonprofit sanctuary called Old Dogs Go to Helen, which is, I love that name. And it is dedicated to providing a loving home, medical care, and hospice for senior and special needs dogs.

The organization focuses on ensuring elderly dogs live out their final days in comfort and dignity. I'm so glad that you have the time to speak to us today, Helen, and welcome to the Positively podcast.

Helen St. Pierre (00:53)

Well thank you so much for having me. You know, when I used to do these, I used to have my podcast recording set up in the old dog space, but it was impossible because all you could hear were these little old dogs hacking in the background all the time and people would be like, what is, what's going on back there? I'm like, no, no, no, everyone's fine. So now I, now I go to my bedroom bunker to do these so you don't have to listen to old dogs, you know, breathing around all the time.

Victoria (01:18)

And breathing

can be quite loud. The snoring could be quite loud as well. And they sleeping. mean, okay. So look, you run this sanctuary, you have a family, you run this sanctuary. And I would love to know your story and how you started doing this.

Helen St. Pierre (01:22)

Yes.

Okay.

Yes, because you don't wake up one day and go, think I'll focus on death. And that's what I'll be teaching and talking about all the time. But the way that I started was, mean, my bread and butter, my career is my business, which is dog training and behavior consulting, which is my, my own training facility in business called No Monkey Business Dog Training here in Concord, New Hampshire. When I first started as a dog trainer over 20 years ago,

I actually started my first ever real work with dogs was at a very, very ⁓ poor high kill shelter ⁓ in Colorado in an area where like cows outnumbered people. We're talking ranch country, that type of thing. And it was a municipal shelter where animal control ran out of it. And we also did public healthcare, spays and neuters. We also did.

public euthanasias, had a crematorium on site and we euthanized our dogs for ⁓ space, not just, you know, was, we're really talking that very old school. And that was how I began my animal career, which was difficult, but it sort of started my trajectory because what we found when I was in there for years was we would get dogs brought in by animal control and we had a run of five kennels where the dogs that would come in,

a lot of times off of the reservation or stray dogs that were from ranchers, we had five kennels. If our kennels in the back were full, we would have to go through the kennels in the back and choose which five dogs we would euthanize that day to make room for the five dogs that would come in. Okay? And we don't like talking about this, but this is still, this still happens today. exactly. So what

Victoria (03:23)

it still happens. It happens every week at our local shelters here.

Helen St. Pierre (03:29)

happened obviously was that we had to pick the dogs that were the least adoptable, the either behaviorally compromised, medically compromised, you know, all of those things. And so I did that for, for three years. And ⁓ I went from like the lowly kennel tech that was just scooping the poop and cleaning up to kennel supervisor up to manager. And then I was euthanasia certified. So I was actually doing the euthanasias. And if you start

your career in that way. It will do a couple of things, but for what it did for me was it made it so that my work in shelter and rescue became something that I revolved around. Even though I was doing training for the public, I spent and still spend a lot of time in shelters and rescues, volunteering, training staff, assessing dogs, all free of charge. It was like, I've got to give back what I had to take.

And initially I started with young dogs. You know, the dogs that we all tend to focus on as trainers, you know, the dogs with behavior problems and all of that. And then when my senior dog passed at 15, my very first ever dog passed at 15, I really missed having a senior dog presence in my home. There's something about a senior dog in the home that just sort of, especially with the social facilitation with other young dogs, they sort of set the tone like, no, we're resting now.

Victoria (04:50)

Yes.

Ease up.

Helen St. Pierre (04:53)

Right, please

just lay down. ⁓ And so I messaged the shelter and I said, listen, the next time you get an old dog in that just needs a soft landing, just let me know. And of course, 15 hours later, they're like, hey, Helen we got one. ⁓ And I took this little dog in who was extremely emaciated and needed a rebuild. And he was in kidney failure. And I had him for about six months. He passed away. It was awful. But of course, I was like, all right, let's do it again.

and then let's do it again. And I started taking on these dogs. And of course I already had a public persona locally because I was a trainer. So I was sort of advertising what I was doing and showing people, look, I'm taking in these old dogs. And once people know that there's a crazy lady that takes in the stinkiest, oldest, medically compromised dogs, your phone starts to ring a lot. And I would take in one and then I had two and then, you know, I would take this

I took was a giant mastiff, you know, guy with it was bald and had all these issues. And my husband said, you know, I'm trying to lift this dog upstairs. Could we get a small one next? And I said, yeah, sure. And then I got another. Then I started with senior St. Bernard's and it basically just. And then it just. So what ended up happening was ⁓ the community wanted to be a part of it. They wanted to help contribute. Once I started, I was very actively.

Victoria (06:07)

A Mastiff and a Saint Bernard wow.

Helen St. Pierre (06:18)

telling and explaining to people the costs. This is what it costs to keep senior dogs healthy at this age. And this is what end of life looks like and these kinds of things. And when the community started to want to help, I had a wonderful ⁓ attorney reach out and said, we're going to make you a 501c3. We're going to do this whole thing. And Old Dogs Go to Helen was born. And when about four years ago, I said, I need more space because they were sort of just starting to

take up my living room. I mean, it was just sort of like stepping over small dogs and I have young children. So there was a lot of incontinence going on and I was like, we need a space that we can designate. We found this home, which is on 20 acres, which has its own designated old dog space. But now we do senior and hospice for livestock. We have senior and hospice goats and pigs and horses. We have senior guinea pigs. mean, basically it's senior parrots If it's old and it needs a soft landing and towards the end of its life.

it comes here. I haven't gotten a giraffe yet, but we'll see. So that's kind of the story. And I still do all my training, but the senior dogs and the hospice work ⁓ keeps me in line in my perspective in what I'm doing.

Victoria (07:28)

Wow. Wow. Okay. All right. So you have these senior dogs, these, these other animals on your property. And I'm thinking this right now and I'm sure the listeners are too. I've like, how a exhausting is that for you? But also isn't that emotionally overwhelming because these

Helen St. Pierre (07:29)

It's a lot.

Victoria (07:54)

animals are sort of towards the end of their life and it is end of life care really. And so you're seeing a lot of death a lot of the time.

Helen St. Pierre (08:04)

Yes, so hospice work is just like in human hospice work. We are a very often a revolving door. We have dogs that come in that have maybe a week or a month. Our average stay is around three to five months, although that can totally vary based on

the condition that the dog comes in and then I always tell people when they bring us a dog like do not tell me that this dog is going to be fine and has a lot of life left in him because that will mean that in two days he'll crash. You don't jinx it. You don't say anything. ⁓ And yes, it's very emotionally taxing but ⁓ in my work in euthanasia and I'm an end-of-life pet doula and a certified euthanasia, ⁓ peaceful euthanasia pet professional, I know that

The fulfilling side of knowing these animals have had a good end of life experience and a good quality of death. ⁓ In the research that we have on euthanasia and on grief, it shows that the better the quality of death goes for both the caregiver and the animal, the more likely you are to choose it again, euthanasia specifically. And that's a great example of what we do here. Because they get a good end of life, it doesn't mean that it's not emotionally taxing.

but it's very fulfilling because I know what the alternative is otherwise. Those of us that know what it looks like when you have a senior 15, 16 year old dog medically compromised in a shelter that doesn't get companionship, that doesn't get the same one-on-one attention, I know what the alternative is. So my husband and I have said like, we sacrifice the emotional toll to know that we're giving these animals.

what they really deserve and need. And listen, dogs have put a roof over my head for over 20 years in terms of training and all of that and literally paying for the house that I'm in. So this is my way of paying back to them and giving them that.

Victoria (10:05)

Do you get, hard question I know, but you get a little desensitized to it?

Helen St. Pierre (10:11)

That's a great question. No, I'm just better at being rational about it. If I got desensitized to it and it didn't affect me, then I would say that I shouldn't be doing it anymore. I'm just much more able to ⁓ make decisions because I've become so attuned to watching end of life care and being a part of it.

Are there some that I connect with more than others? Like in hospice care, like you'll ask of this with hospice nurses and they will absolutely say there are some patients that I really connected with and others that I didn't connect with but I'm still absolutely there to help them pass peacefully. So you're not necessarily desensitized to it but you're more familiar with the process so it's not as scary or as jarring. I know what loss is. I call myself a grief lasagna. ⁓

It affects me, it's like an rubber band that you're able to stretch and move through, if that makes sense.

Victoria (11:13)

Yeah,

it makes complete sense. Absolutely. So, okay. For people who don't know what a death doula is, what is that?

Helen St. Pierre (11:21)

Yes.

Well, an end of life pet doula is the same thing as a beginning of life doula for a female who is about to give birth. Doula is basically an assistant ⁓ who isn't offering medical advice or like your veterinarian or anything like that, but is there to assist you through the emotional process, through the ⁓ decision making process and offer support and perspective that might ease

the difficulty and staying completely neutral and objective I will say to people who call me for end of life consults, you know, you can be as emotional as possible. Like if this is your animal, you love them. I'm going to stay as rational and objective to help you because if we're both crying and emotional, it might not help you. You really need someone that can say to you, well, let's look at these lenses of quality of life and talk through it. So.

A doula really can help people feel that they have support in those decisions through end of life and an understanding of also what the physiological process of death looks like because we don't talk about that at all. We only ever really talk about death when we experience it. And unfortunately, that's a really big missing piece that I see is that we aren't

Victoria (12:35)

No.

Helen St. Pierre (12:44)

talked about disease trajectories or the process of death. And so if you've never experienced it or you only experience it every 10 to 15 years with your animals, you are going to feel very unprepared.

Victoria (12:56)

So let's say, okay, somebody reaches out to you and says, I want you to help with my dog. I'm going to hire you to help with my dog. What does that process look like? Is that in person? Is it online? Because I know you have courses that help people do this, but what actually do you do with them? You're not there at the euthanasia, you?

Helen St. Pierre (13:19)

Well, it's.

No, I mean, I have been for certain clients that are local. Absolutely. I will go with them to the euthanasia. ⁓ But I will. Usually it starts with a phone conversation. Sometimes we'll zoom, but really it's a phone conversation. And a lot of times prior to that, they've given me a brief history and an email. This is what's going on. I really need you to help guide me. Is this the right decision to make? You know, all of that. And then we will have a conversation. And that's where I...

walk them through the lenses that I look through in an assessing quality of life for my three lenses, is, you know, function, purpose and joy. And we talk about how are we looking at those and let's talk about what your dog's daily life looks like. Or we've, done this for horses or other animals too. What are we looking at? And a lot of the time, to be honest with you, I will say to them, by reaching out to me, you already know, you know you're at that point.

You just need someone to tell you that it's okay. And I think the hardest part for a lot of people is, as we become more familiar with death and as we're getting to that period, the hardest part is knowing when it's time, what's the right time. I don't want to do it too late. I don't want to do it too early. And some people really need that permission of saying it's okay to let them go before a catastrophe. And...

Victoria (14:34)

Mm. Yep.

Helen St. Pierre (14:47)

My phrase that I use all the time is, on their last best day. So let's plan what that looks like. Let's not just talk about quality of life, but let's talk about what you want their death to look like. none of us humans, none of us are getting out of this, why nobody sits with me at lunch, because I'm always like, we're all gonna die one day. ⁓ But at the same time, ⁓ we can't plan it. We can't, I...

Victoria (15:06)

Yeah, right. Unfortunately, yes.

Helen St. Pierre (15:16)

can't say to you, know, so when you die what do want it to look like? But we could say, what are things that you don't want? You, you, almost everybody would say, I don't want to be in a ton of pain. I don't want it to be traumatic. I would really like to be able to maybe say goodbye, maybe not on the day of, but know this. And

we can give that to our animals. We can give them that experience. We can give them joy the day of. I mean, if I could plan my end, I would want to go for a walk on the beach. I'd want to eat a giant cheeseburger and have a big slice of chocolate cake, say what I needed to say to my loved ones and go to sleep peacefully. that's, we can do that for our animals. ⁓ And that's what I'm really coaching people through, if that makes sense, like helping them come to terms with that. And ⁓

Victoria (16:02)

Yes.

Helen St. Pierre (16:05)

giving them that sort of permission and sometimes honestly it's them needing to know what do I say to the vet? If I have a vet who keeps throwing interventions at me, how do I tell them that I don't want to continue that and I want to focus on quality of life? And those are those other conversations. So it's very varied.

Victoria (16:25)

Yeah, those conversations are hard ones to have. And so, you know, I feel like with my Sadie and Bella, I feel like it was the right time. And ⁓ we had a vet come to the home with Sadie and if a death was beautiful, that was beautiful. She was surrounded by her family.

and Jasmine, who is my Chihuahua, and we were just with her and holding her as she slipped away. As hard as that was, I would say that that's a good, beautiful death, right? And she was also having loads of hamburger and everything beforehand. And ⁓ the woman who found her and brought her to me when I adopted her, she was there. And Sadie was like, my gosh, all my people were here.

Helen St. Pierre (16:59)

That's beautiful. Yes.

Victoria (17:18)

but it was, it was time. ⁓ Bella was a little different. We took her, we had to take her to the vet and ⁓ it was, it was a different experience. But I have to say the experience with Jasmine and all my dogs were old. Sadie was 16, Bella was 16 and Jasmine was 15. But with Jasmine who, the other dogs are my heart dogs, but this dog was my heart, heart, heart.

Helen St. Pierre (17:18)

Yes.

Victoria (17:47)

heart dog. And so I knew it, I knew it was time. knew it was time, but I kept questioning myself. And in the morning we were, we were like, we have to, it has got to happen today. So we had obviously this, this vet that was going to come to the house standing by and, ⁓ and she came and Jasmine had had a bad morning and the vet arrived around

1 PM and I remember getting up, you know, we'd snuggled with her in the morning on the bed. And then I got up, put some clothes on and from having a difficult morning with her, then snuggling. Then just before the vet arrives, she's all excited. And I'm like, this morning, I thought you were literally gonna die. And now you're springing around. And I was like, we've got to cancel the vet. We've got to cancel the vet.

Helen St. Pierre (18:33)

She rallied.

Yes, they love to do that.

Victoria (18:47)

And the springing around didn't last for very long. But then when the vet came, was like, my God, I'm killing my dog. I can't do this to her. But I knew it was the right thing for her to do. And I wouldn't say for her, even though she was out of it, she didn't know what was happening, that it was a beautiful death for her. And so I have been struggling with that of like,

Helen St. Pierre (18:55)

Yes.

Victoria (19:16)

I let my dog down. Did I wait too long? Yeah, maybe. But then I didn't wait long enough. Then was this the right vet to come to my house? Because she was, you know, she was matter of fact, she was good matter of fact, she got the job done, it just, it was, it was a bit harrowing at the end. And so I still now I'm like, and I mean, this happened, what, six months ago now, which I can't believe, but I still now I'm like,

Helen St. Pierre (19:19)

No.

Mm-hmm.

Victoria (19:47)

guilty of like, don't think that I gave her the best kind of send-off that I could have done. Did I make the right decision? It's really, I know in my heart of hearts I did, it was time, but I still felt like, am I killing my dog? Right? It was the weirdest feeling that I hadn't had with my other two, because I didn't want to let her go, even though she needed to.

Helen St. Pierre (20:06)

Right, and that's.

Yes. And

when you walk into the hospice, when you go in to see the oldies, if you, you know, and you're more than welcome to come visit, please, anytime, just don't wear anything that you care about. But when you walk in, you're dealing with dogs. No one walks in and goes, wow, these dogs are dying. You don't, that's, if you walked in and you were watching dogs actively dying, that's not my job. So, and that's...

Victoria (20:22)

Thank you. I will.

Helen St. Pierre (20:40)

part of what we have to understand and it helps bring clarity when you're dealing with the type of emotions that you're going through and what do the stages of death look like, right? Because stage one of dying is that period that we are all very familiar of seeing with our senior dogs where they just slow down, right? Where they're still capable of doing things but they're not doing things to the same extent with the same level of stamina.

And then the second stage known as transitioning is where you really start to see, it's not black and white, it's like a gradient, right? And the second stage transitioning is where you will see not just that slowing down, but exactly what you're describing in that morning where you have that moment where you're like, my gosh, it's time, right? Where there's this period where you're like, I don't know, we might be verging on catastrophic, where the dog might be crashing.

But they often rally from that, right? They come back up from that sometimes. And we see that with the oldies. But as soon as I see stage two and transitioning start to happen, I start planning the end. I don't wait for them to get to active dying, which is stage three, right? ⁓ Because what you're doing when you make that decision in transition is you're letting them go when they are still able to be present with you.

Victoria (22:04)

Yes.

Helen St. Pierre (22:04)

what we have to remember all the time, and I have lots of post-consults with people who I haven't even helped with the dog passing, but they need to talk about it afterwards, you're not escaping death. We're not going to get out of it. There's no morning that you would wake up and she would have been like, actually, I'm fine again. I'm six years old and I'm, you know, we're not going to get out of it when we're in that gradient of transitioning into active passing.

Wherever you make that decision, all you're doing in there is alleviating potential suffering. So you did the right thing. And with some people that wait too long, the biggest regret they have is saying, I wish I had done it when they still were bouncing around and jumping. Our hospice dogs walk into their appointments. They...

Victoria (22:57)

Mm.

Helen St. Pierre (22:58)

do they go for a walk on their last day, they play ball, they eat their their favorite snacks. I mean it's still obviously it still happens where they'll be crashing and there's emergencies that we don't foresee coming. But those emergencies catastrophes are the ones that continue to reinforce to me that that's what I want to avoid. I don't want those deaths. I want the deaths where I can see you're telling me you're almost ready.

Victoria (23:18)

right.

Helen St. Pierre (23:24)

Let's make this decision now before it's too late.

Victoria (23:27)

it. Okay, so then this, this next question, which I'm sure you get asked all the time. What signs are there that you need to start making a decision? What are the classic signs?

Helen St. Pierre (23:39)

Great question.

So there's, well, first off, you have to think about disease trajectories, which is something that ⁓ unfortunately in the vet ⁓ medical practice is not talked about enough, ⁓ which it's not veterinarians fault. They have such a short period of time to have discussions and then.

They sort of like, all right, here's what you do and go. But when a dog as a senior dog is diagnosed with a metabolic disorder, like a renal failure or liver disease, or even something like a ⁓ heart failure, their disease trajectory, their passing and what their phases of dying will look like might look very different from a dog that's been diagnosed with cancer and that disease trajectory.

so there's three main ones. There's cancer, there's metabolic, and then there's just overall senior decline, which kind of goes in with orthopedic issues, cognitive decline. You know those dogs that are just really, really, really old. There's nothing actively wrong with them, but they're just in that downward slope. So understanding disease trajectories is important.

We don't have to go into those in full detail today, but what I do look at, the three things that I'm constantly measuring, no matter what their disease or what we're dealing with, is the three things of function, purpose and joy. Do want me to go into those and how I measure that? Okay. Okay. So, function is the one that we tend to watch for the most, and that is just physical function. ⁓ I can't tell you how many people will say to me,

Victoria (25:04)

Yes, yes please.

Helen St. Pierre (25:19)

but he's fine because he's still eating. Or all the time. Right. Yes. So physical function we tend to look at as the first indicator of being fine. And if you think about the body and the systems in the body, whether we're dealing with an animal or our own bodies, ⁓ is we have multiple systems that have to be working copacetically in order to keep us at a

Victoria (25:22)

yeah, I've heard that one. my gosh. And I've said that myself. ⁓ still eating. Sadie was still eating.

Helen St. Pierre (25:48)

running around 99 % physical function, our respiratory system, our circulatory system, our digestive system, all of those things. ⁓ But I don't look at whether animals had good physical function as a way of determining if they are having a good life. Like if you said to me, Helen, how was your day? And I said, well, great, I got up from bed, I was able to walk to the bathroom and go to the bathroom, I was able to eat.

⁓ And I was able to move and then I went to bed and I was able to sleep. You would be like, great. So you were able to like physically function, but that doesn't determine necessarily a good quality of life, right? And unfortunately, that tends to be the lens that we are always focusing on when we're reading quality of life. So function is important, but it's not the single thing that I'm looking at. The next thing that I'm looking at is purpose.

And purpose with dogs is the same as purpose with any animal. It can definitely be genetically driven if we look at certain breeds, what their purposes were for. But purpose is what makes us get up every day and fulfill something in us. So you could say for you and I, this is fulfilling our purpose, right? But for a dog, it might be chasing the squirrels off the bird feeders every day from the slider window.

For senior dogs, it might still be that they love to go for a walk or dig a hole in the yard or, you know, chase the cat off the sofa when they're, you know, whatever it is, could be, it could be minimized and purpose can lessen as a dog gets older or their disease interrupts, but they should still have it. They should still have that what fulfills me as an animal each day. And then separately to that is joy. And

Joy does not have to fulfill purpose. Purpose can bring joy. And joy can be found in purpose, but it can be completely different as well. So like an example of joy for me, and you can think about what would bring you joy, is I love, when it's not New Hampshire winter out, sitting out in my yard with the sun on my face, watching the clouds. It fulfills no purpose in me, but it brings me immense joy. ⁓

Victoria (27:56)

You

Helen St. Pierre (28:09)

For old dogs, we tend to see a lot of sunbathing. That's joy for them. Roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sunbathing or ⁓ like finding a squeaky toy and just sitting and squeaking it right in your face. know, like they just, whatever mischief, whatever brings them joy. so senior dogs, we tend to go, well, he's older now.

Victoria (28:13)

My dog Chihuahua, mean, being a Chihuahua, yes, sunbathing was everything for Jasmine. Yeah.

Helen St. Pierre (28:37)

You know, he's still getting up and he's still eating. But how are they living? Are they still having that purpose and joy? I myself know for a fact that if I'm lucky enough to get to an old age, if I'm not able to have some form of purpose or have joy, my quality of life will be extremely depleted. And we do see this in people, right? Where they are literally just existing.

where we see this in senior dogs where they get up, they go to the bathroom, they go back to their bed. And some of that can be that we're not talking enough, which I try very hard to talk about with people and in the industry about giving our senior dogs better quality of life because we tend to be like, well, they're old now. They don't need that purpose and joy in the same way that our four or five year old dog, that if we don't give them that is gonna shred our sofa.

If they're just existing and we're only focusing on function, that to me is not a good quality of life. So I'm looking at all three of those things. If I have the senior dogs in my hospice and I'm looking at them and not just seniors, if I deal with puppy, because we have puppy hospice and all of these dogs, if they're not able to fulfill purpose or their function becomes so impeded, they're so orthopedically ⁓

declining or they've lost their cognitive ability to even have purpose and they're just walking in circles and they have no joy. That's not a quality of life. So they all have to be lining up and purpose is usually the first one to fall off the map. Usually with senior dogs you'll see them

they're little too tired to chase the squirrels off. They might perk their head up and go, see you, I'll get you next time. And they go back to laying in the sun. ⁓ But if they can still have joy, I'm okay with that, even though that tends to be for a short period of time. And that's what I'm talking about, like that transitioning phase. But as soon as joy is gone and we're simply looking at function, that to me is not a quality of life. I want to make it so that the dog is able to have function.

They're able to walk into their appointments most times, they're able to experience joy, and they're still cognitively aware enough where I take purpose and I turn it to presence. They're able to be present with me for a good quality of death. Does that make sense? I know I, like, okay.

Victoria (31:08)

It does. It

makes perfect sense. I have to take a quick break, but when we come back, I'd like to talk about the euthanasia process. Okay. We'll be back.

Helen St. Pierre (31:11)

Yes.

Yes!

Sure.

Victoria (31:25)

I'm back with Helen St. Pierre. This is just a such an important conversation to have. The euthanasia process for people who have never experienced it. Is there such thing as a good death versus a bad euthanasia? mean, like what? My grandmother used to say she, she was a, she bred beagles and she was a huge, huge dog lover. It's a, it's.

the person I think that influenced me the most when it comes to dogs, but she was like, ⁓ just let me have a good euthanasia, she'd said, with regards to herself, because she was very much focused on giving her dogs a good death when the time came. What is it? What does it look like? What do you need to know?

Helen St. Pierre (32:09)

Yes.

Well, the first one is that you want to have a conversation with your vet ahead of time. So ideally, ⁓ if you've got a good relationship with your vet, you understand or know what their protocol looks like. Because there are different protocols that different vets will use. Some vets prefer to place a catheter, an IV catheter in the dog. And ⁓ in some cases, that protocol will be if you go into the vet hospital with your dog to say goodbye.

they will take the dog away from you to place the IV catheter, which can be extremely distressing for both the dog and the caregiver. Yes, that, exactly, and that to me is, you wanna know that ahead of time. And you can even ask to say, I do not want to be separated. I will hold the dog while you place the catheter, or can we avoid that process? Which again goes into, ⁓

Victoria (32:47)

That's what happened with Bella. Hated that.

Helen St. Pierre (33:08)

when you try to talk about quality of death and avoiding catastrophes, if you have a dog that is crashing medically and they have to rush it into the back at emergency and they have to place those things and do those things, that affects the quality of death for the caregiver as well. by having these conversations and knowing what's happening ahead of time, it avoids some of that emotional trauma that we can experience. So my preference is that the dog is sedated in the exam room

with their person present with them via an IM or intramuscular ⁓ sedative. Now, those sedatives, I'm not a veterinarian, so the sedatives can vary in what they use and the dosage amount. ⁓ And a lot of veterinarians are sensitive to, if the dog has potentially cognitive issues or respiratory issues, different sedatives will make a different, ⁓ will have a different experience for certain dogs, whether that will create more.

ataxia or just for them to become dysmorphic or anything like that where they might, the goal is the dog just goes to literally takes a nice nap in your arms. But they can have reactions to those sedatives. And it's important that the vet makes you aware of, and this is where doulaing can help, where I can say they might get a little dysmorphic and they might be waving their head around or, you know, their tongue might hang out and they're up.

Victoria (34:33)

they might have,

they might gag. That's what happened with Jasmine. She had the sedative and then, but the vet prepared us for that. But when she did, I mean, she was out of it, but when she did, I was like panicked. I was like, my God, my God. And, and, and, you know, that was a horrific experience. She didn't know what was happening. mean, I don't think.

Helen St. Pierre (34:35)

Yes, yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes, and that's what I

tell people is like they have no, by the point that it's once that has taken hold, the dog is, they've had their glass of wine and they are very peaceful mentally through it. It's just the physiological response that we might witness. If we're prepared for it, makes it a little bit easier, you know? And then once the dog has gotten to a place where they're really, really peaceful.

Victoria (35:12)

Okay, yeah.

Helen St. Pierre (35:20)

Most of the time the vet will come in and they will allow you to hold the dog. Depending on the size of the dog, they may place the dog on a table or be on the floor. I usually will lay on the floor with the dogs or I'll be right by the dog's head. They will hold off on usually a rear vein ⁓ where they will then inject a ⁓ high, high level of anesthesia, which will slow the heart and stop breathing and stop the heart rate.

That takes seconds, but then they usually will wait a few minutes, sometimes a couple of minutes, and they will listen to the heart rate. And once they tell you the heart rate has stopped, they will then say the dog has passed. Now, knowing what we know now about death, we used to say that the end of life came when the heart stopped beating. But we know now that brain activity can continue for quite some time afterwards.

⁓ There's no specifics yet on that, but I purposely will stay with my animal after passing for sometimes upwards of a half an hour to 45 minutes. And I'll just talk, I'll be talking to the vet staff, I'll be talking to the dog, ⁓ and I'm just making sure that their brain, no matter, I don't know what the timeline looks like, but they'll be hearing my voice through the whole process of everything shutting down.

⁓ We tend to rush death quite frequently ⁓ and I've really started coaching people and saying, don't have to rush it, you can stay with them for a bit. We want to just get out of there. And research has shown that staying with them and allowing yourself to grieve through that for a little bit can make a big difference. In cultures, even with human passing, where the body stays for some time and they, it's only really in our culture where we're like,

make it disappear as quickly as possible. And I've actually found, even with myself, that staying with them and even with the horses and when I talk about horse and ⁓ companionship grieving, when we've euthanized horses, we will allow that horse to stay with the other senior horses for upwards of a whole afternoon so they get their time to say goodbye before we remove the body. So ⁓ there's no right or wrong, but I do tell people like, you don't have to rush out.

⁓ What you do have to prepare yourself for is the reflexes that will happen physiologically after the body has passed. There will be muscle spasms. There might be some defecation or urination. is all normal, very normal stuff. You might see gasping or twitching. That is just the body's muscles relaxing.

Victoria (37:55)

or urination, uh-huh.

It's, I'm so glad that you are very practical about it because I think it, as it is such an emotional thing to let your own animal go, to have somebody explain the process, I think is so valuable for all of us. And that's why the work you do, not just doing it yourself, but also helping others is vital. So.

I was looking, ⁓ I know, I know this already, but on your website, which is by the way, olddogsgotohellen.com, you have courses that people can take. The Good Death for Senior and Hospice Dogs, and that's donation. ⁓ The Good Death for Behavioral Euthanasia. And then you've also got seniors for adoption. So.

Helen St. Pierre (38:43)

you

Yes.

Victoria (39:00)

⁓ these courses, I know that you offer courses for professionals too.

Helen St. Pierre (39:06)

Yes, yes. So I do. We have Savoring the Sunset as well, which we've got to update for this year for those courses. But Savoring the Sunset, which is about prepping for senior, having a senior dog, which I think you really want to tell my husband what aggravates me is that we'll go into a pet store and they have a whole puppy section, right? Like we're prepped for puppyhood and seniors just kind of, we just sort of wait until there is a problem before we're...

actively talking about supporting them through that senior life ⁓ or end stage. And I think, again, that comes from our culture of fear of death. As soon as we start talking about senior dogs, like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to talk about it because that means that we're near the end of life. And that's not the case at all. Seniors can be seniors for years, but they might need support through that period. So we teach a course on that. The course on behavior euthanasia is talking about giving behavior euthanasia is a much more accepted topic now than it used to be.

But unfortunately, we don't talk enough about facilitating good deaths for behavior euthanasia. What does death look like when you're dealing with an animal that has, if we go back to that high level of function, right? Their function is fine. We're not dealing with a dog that can't walk or is struggling to breathe. ⁓ But their purpose is maladaptive and we're struggling to give them that joy. How do we give them a good quality of death?

⁓ and those questions to ask the vet and all of those things. So yes, those are courses for the public and professionals. ⁓ And then I do a lot of, like I said, one-on-one coaching for professionals and shelters and rescues and all of that. I actually did a talk yesterday with Dogs Trust in the UK ⁓ on euthanasia for them. Yes, to help them with those processes.

Victoria (40:47)

⁓ yes. Okay. And that, that actually was a question

for me was, ⁓ when you, in the shelters, the shelter here, obviously a lot of our shelters here, because there's such a massive pet overpopulation problem here, which we are trying to rectify. We're trying to change, but can animals have good deaths in the shelter?

Helen St. Pierre (41:16)

Yes, they absolutely can, but we need to become more comfortable talking about death, preparing and having literally procedures for end of life. And if we do that, you will notice that the staff morale of shelters will go up because most of the time shelter staff, I mean, the ones that are the boots on the ground, we're talking those of us in the trenches that are doing this work every day, which I empathize with.

extensively when they have or see an animal have a poor quality of death because it's not planned or it's rushed or it's done in the same medical room as we're doing the spays and the neuters and the everything's sort of just that quality of death affects the caregiver which means that they push back on it more for the next time and that is a snowball process. So the more that we talk about quality of death in shelters and we talk about giving that quality of death

we improve the morale of everybody in that circle, the caregivers, the management, the animals themselves. And that's what we're doing here at Old Dogs Go to Helen, you know? And it's really difficult. It's, know, euthanasia is being present at three or four euthanasias a week for me is not something that it's like, ⁓ I love this, but I also know again, what that alternative for that animal would have looked like.

Victoria (42:46)

What can shelters do then? What's the process that they can follow to give their dogs a better death?

Helen St. Pierre (42:50)

That's it.

So having a protocol in terms of if we've made a decision that this dog needs, we're going to euthanize this dog, having a specific team of people that are very comfortable with death that are understanding that necessarily won't be what we were calling like desensitized, but are able to stretch that rubber band, having that team be aware of what's happening and those dates set for euthanasia and then...

incorporating joy into the time leading up to it. Let's fulfill that bucket list. Let's give these dogs their joy, their purpose in that period of time. Talking about presedation for presedation for presedation. Making sure that we're not dealing with dogs that are panicking or stressed or extremely fearful at the time.

and having a protocol for that, even if that means delaying the euthanasia so that we can check and make sure that the pre-sedation that we do use is effective. There's nothing worse than doing that and then having the dog not respond well to it. We're doing it anyway and it's miserable for everybody involved. And then having support and grief after the fact. So for me with shelter dogs,

And this is really important for me with hospice dogs, the dogs that come to me that are surrendered ⁓ in their most desperate hour, you know, a 17 year old dog that's been with someone for 17 years and is now placed with me, or dogs that are brought to the shelter and surrendered and then they end up with me. I may only have them for two weeks. I may only have them for a month. Same thing happens in shelters all the time. But what happens when we euthanize these dogs is that

Victoria (44:19)

Mm.

Helen St. Pierre (44:39)

We're onto the next, right? What's coming in next? And we don't often, and the shelter staff don't often have the chance to truly honor and memorialize those dogs. At Old Dogs Go to Helen, we have memorials. So I have my big collar memorial. Every dog that passes, we take that collar off, we hang it on the memorial. We have rocks that we paint and we put them down at our memorial rock bridge.

So we are still honoring that dog, even if we only knew them for 24 hours or two weeks, that they were here and they mattered. And we need to be doing that for shelter staff. We need to give them a tradition or a culture in memorial, memorializing those dogs so that we're not, they don't feel so disposed, if that makes sense. And that makes a huge difference in morale for the euthanasia process.

Victoria (45:30)

Yeah, yeah. Gosh, mean, we need to, we need to like spread you around everywhere, like the whole world. Okay. I'm just seeing this now. I've got like, my God. Okay. We need to, we need a blast. You need to be on 60 minutes or a CBS Sunday morning or, you know, my gosh. Okay. The last question I want to ask you, ⁓ look, we don't...

I mean, we want people to adopt older dogs, don't we as well? We don't want the senior dogs. There are so many senior dogs. I was filming in a shelter yesterday. There was this beautiful senior pity who I just completely gravitated towards. I can't adopt her, but I just was like, my gosh, you have my heart. I adopted Bella when she was 11 and she was with us for five years, such a joy. And I knew that even when she passed, I was like, I gave this dog.

Helen St. Pierre (45:56)

Hmm?

Mm-hmm.

Victoria (46:23)

who had a pretty difficult start in life, the best five years that I could possibly give her. And she was sunny and she loved her walks and she had sniffies and she had, we loved her. So I am a big supporter of adopting the senior dog and it is so joyful. I'm telling you it is joyful, but there is also the other side that it can be quite expensive.

Helen St. Pierre (46:51)

Mmm.

Victoria (46:51)

How

can we deal with that? Because we want more senior dogs. We don't want them to be overlooked in shelters. But how can we say and support people and go, it's okay, it's fine. I it might cost you a bit, like, how do we get, how do we do that?

Helen St. Pierre (47:06)

Yes.

Well, it's a great question. And I always tell people that most of the time it ends up being relative. Because if you take a puppy home or a young dog home, the cost that you will spend on supplies, training, know, potentially initial vet bills and all of that, if you round that up and then you look at usually like management care for a senior dog, if we're talking like a daily, you know,

pill for pain or, you know, maybe a dental once every two years or whatever it is, usually, honestly, it rounds out. It might feel jarring at first, but if you prepare for it and you're planned for it, it won't sweep the rug out from under you. We also have to remember that you could go through the exact same thing with a young dog. You could adopt a two-year-old dog that ends up having food allergies. Then you go through

the same thing with them, but for longer. ⁓ So it's a roll of the dice either way. What we have to try to be, which is difficult for us as a human species, is completely and totally, this is for them. It's not for me. When I bring these senior dogs home, I'm actively participating in breaking my own heart. I'm saying, I'm gonna take this amazing, wonderful dog home. He's only gonna have two weeks with me.

I know my heart is going to be broken at the end of this, but that doesn't matter. What matters is what I'm giving him in those, that time. And listen, my credit card will be maxed out. I won't go on any good vacations, but I will know what I've given him. So it's, and I know that you can't always look at it financially that way. I think that there can absolutely be more programs to help support people adopting seniors, but

Victoria (49:00)

Yes.

Helen St. Pierre (49:02)

That's also very difficult in today's day and age as well. And I won't go into the politics of financial instability in our world, but try to just perspectively look at, you're gonna spend money on an animal no matter what. ⁓ And it's worth it for the seniors to go through that. And it's also worth it if you only have them for a short period of time. Like the people that say, ⁓ I could never do it because it would break my heart. And I say to them, it breaks mine.

I, it breaks mine every day. I have to, I get so attached and then I do all these things and then they pass, but it's worth it for them. You have to put yourself aside for it.

Victoria (49:43)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I'm a huge advocate. So look, if you see that senior dog in the shelter, then, you know, they'll give you so much love. And I love the response that you said to that, cause I didn't even think of it like that. Yeah. I mean, okay. You might have this dog for a shorter amount of time, but if you're worried about the money thing and you're like, oh, okay. Well, I'm going to get a puppy. Well, okay. That's gonna, that's going to cost you some too. So I really love that response. Helen, you are.

Helen St. Pierre (49:53)

So much back. So much back.

What?

Victoria (50:12)

a delight. mean, I knew you would be. Thank you for just doing the work you do and for also now educating other people. if people want to find out more about you, is the place old dogs go to Helen.com the best place to go?

Helen St. Pierre (50:16)

you're so welcome.

Yes,

and also No Monkey Business dog training. Both of those places you will find me. ⁓ If you're interested in consulting about end of life care, really go through No Monkey Business, but either way, you're going to find me. So... ⁓

Victoria (50:45)

Yeah, because we can't forget,

I mean, as you said, you are a dog trainer. So you are doing that too. my gosh. You are so busy.

Helen St. Pierre (50:48)

Yes, yes. But

it's wonderful. keeps, look, I will be honest with you, it keeps so much in perspective when people are complaining about their younger dog doing things and I'm on the other side of it here at the end, especially with hospice puppies. It's like healthy, mischievous, naughty dogs. Enjoy it. Don't take it for granted.

It's a privilege to have that at that stage. So it really does give me some perspective sometimes when in working with those young dogs.

Victoria (51:22)

Thank you, Helen, so much for joining us.

Helen St. Pierre (51:25)

you're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Victoria (51:27)

I knew that this was gonna be an amazing podcast everybody. And I really hope that you gained a lot of information. It's a tough subject to talk about, but Helen makes it so much easier. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you again on another podcast. Take care.