33: A Tribute to Goliath: Love, Loss, and the Journey Home

In this deeply personal and emotional episode, I share the story of my beloved dog, Goliath, and the profound impact he had on my life. From his role in guiding me through past heartbreaks to his final journey with me to Colorado, this episode is both a tribute to his unwavering love and a reflection on the deep connections we share with our pets.

Goliath was more than a pet—he was a protector, a companion, and a symbol of resilience. His loss has been a solitary journey, and in this episode, I talk about navigating grief, honoring our emotions, and the bittersweet reality of moving forward without him. If you've ever loved and lost a pet, I hope my experience offers comfort and validation for your own grief.

Thank you for listening and allowing me to honor Goliath's memory.

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Transcript

Darla Ridilla (00:01.518)
Hello friends. Today, I'm gonna talk about something really difficult that has just happened in my life. I know that I mostly focus on relationships with people, but today I wanna focus on the relationships we have with our pets. It's March 20th, 2025. 11 days ago, I moved here to Durango, Colorado from Arizona.

And when I came here a few weeks ago, I had a deep knowing I intuitive to a point and I came here a few weeks ago looking for an apartment with my dog Goliath. And as I crossed the state line, there was this distinct feeling of I know he's been sick for a couple of years. He was almost 13. Yes, I am going to lose him. But there was a deep knowing in me that

I was going to lose him sooner rather than later. That his initial purpose was to get me through my last divorce in 2019. And we've been together 10 years. And his final purpose was to escort me home to Colorado.

What I didn't expect to happen is two days ago on March 18th, he died. And I would like to record this episode both as a tribute to him.

But also to talk about how important pets are in our lives. I have had to face this death alone. I haven't built a community yet. I have an acquaintance through a business contact, but I have not built a community of friends. And he suddenly took a turn for the worst and I had to make a decision Tuesday morning that

Darla Ridilla (02:00.364)
He was dying anyway, and he was suffering. And I didn't want him to suffer anymore.

So the history with this dog is back in 2015. I was living in Pojoaquin, New Mexico with my last husband. And my husband was gone 50 % of the time for work. He did home health care. He specialized in dementia as well as, as,

Darla Ridilla (02:45.27)
He did home health care and he specialized in dementia and hospice care. He was doing an assisted living situation where he would live with his client at their house an hour away, four days a week, and then he would come home for four days.

We had next-door neighbors who were cooking crack. I could smell it. I saw the traffic in and out. I knew what they were doing. And they were shooting their guns in the yard. I am all for guns. I love them myself, but I'm not for shooting them in close proximity of other people. And even though I called the police a couple of times, they didn't come out because basically the drug dealers role.

Just like Ketcho Breaking Bad, I lived in New Mexico for two years. Meth and drugs are a huge problem in that state.

And I was lonely. So we decided that I was gonna get a dog. I had gone 11 years without one, which is a huge mistake in looking back, but it's what I did. And we went on a rescue in Albuquerque, an online rescue, and we're looking at a couple of dogs. And he actually chose him. I had picked out another dog and my husband wanted, his name was Bubba at the time. And there was a picture of Goliath with a baby, a toddler.

It turned out the lady was getting divorced. I suspect there was some abuse going on because we had some issues with him in the beginning of wanting to attack dark-skinned men and he was very protective of me at all times. In fact, when the day I told my ex-husband that I wanted to get separated and get a divorce and I told him he had to leave, Goliath actually sat on my foot and stared him down like, will not hurt my mom.

Darla Ridilla (04:37.71)
And he loved his dad. I mean, he absolutely adored his daddy. But in that moment, he knew what his role was. And he certainly took that role on. He was extremely gentle and loving to anyone in our lives once he got to know them. But we did many, many trips. I did many, trips with him alone. And it was such a comfort because no intruders were getting past him. So when we got him, he was about 120 pounds and he averaged that weight most of his life. He was up to 140 at one point.

And these last few months, he was down to 95. He was getting old, he was getting grumpy, but we still had some amazing times. But when I came here a few weeks ago, I had this deep, deep knowing that once his purpose has served, you know you're going to lose him. I thought maybe I'd have a few more months, maybe two or three months, maybe a little more with him. And last Sunday,

There's a local dog park and here's the irony in all of this is that when I came through here in November of 2023, I had spent Christmas in a ray. I had gone through a breakup a few weeks before that and I decided not to stay home during the holidays and be sad. So Goliath and I did another road trip. We were famous for this, for going on road trips and taking pictures in national parks. And we stopped in Durango on the way home. I just happened to see that there was this really large dog park.

by the river. It had snowed. The trees were covered in ice. He loved snow. When we lived in New Mexico, we lived in Los Alamos for a while and we were at 8,000 feet. So we got a ton of snow in the winter and he absolutely loved it. He absolutely fell in love with this park. I could just see the joy in his face. And that was a transformational trip for me in many ways. If you've heard me talk about

The trip that I read John Kim's single on purpose about learning to get to know yourself before you love yourself, that was the same trip. I had read that book on the way out to Array. And I realized while I was there that I had already planned for my ashes to be spread in Rocky Mountain National Park. And I realized that my other ex-husband, my second ex-husband,

Darla Ridilla (06:59.726)
who was a narcissist and abusive had been stalking me and I had left Colorado in 2014. Not something I wanted to do. I love this state, it's home to me, but I feared for my life and my mental health. And I'm not as strong as I am today.

And I knew on that trip that I needed to come home. And it went from, I'll do that when I'm retired, to I'll do it in a couple of years, to if you've heard my story about when I went camping at the end of January for three days and turned my phone off, I decided to pull the plug now. So.

We get here, we came on March 9th. I came with just a carload of things and my furniture and all my other possessions will follow in a couple of weeks. They're still in Arizona. So I took them to the dog park a few times. During that week, I ran a lot of errands to get my personal things in order, but we had to stop at the dog park and...

Last Sunday was this beautiful sunny day, fairly warm for Durango in March, know, 50s. It was pretty nice. We ended up spending two hours there. I originally know he like, we'll come here for an hour. I want to go sit in a coffee shop and work for a while. But he was so active that day. He has arthritis that he has, where he had laryngeal paralysis as well. So his aeroblade was always partially blocked, which...

really interfered with his endurance and physical activity. But he was very active with the other dogs. He actually like ran for a few seconds with a couple of dogs. And there's this this path along the river that goes up to a ridge and then it continues on a trail there and it's all fenced in all off leash. I don't even know how many square miles or whatever it is, but it's it's the biggest dog park I've ever seen. And he kept

Darla Ridilla (08:56.866)
like wanting to go on the ridge and a path and I was getting concerned because we would have to walk all the way back to the car and his arthritis does bother him and he'll tire out and he was for the past few months kind of like dragging his rear left leg because he didn't have full mobility but he was there was just something I did get a weird feeling but it was just something in his face very playful he would walk a few feet and then turn around and look at me like come on let's go because I kept saying

I don't want you to go too far. I don't want you to overdo it. But he just kept looking back like, come on, come on, let's go.

Darla Ridilla (09:38.082)
and it was in a wonderful two hours. Just before we got to the gate, he was walking by my side, side by side. We were very psychically connected as well over the years. And I reached out and I pet him and I took pictures. And I was so excited that night that he was doing so well. I recently switched him back to a medication called Labrador, which is a monoclonal antibody and it...

It deals with the pain at the nerve level and studies have shown that it actually extends the life of the dog. And it was more expensive, but I decided it was the better option than increasing the Gabapentin he was on because it made him kind of sleepy and dopey. And I didn't want him drugged up in the last few months that I had left with him. And I'm so glad that that last month he was with me, that he was alert and he was actually doing better. was able to get back on the couch. He was really improving. But as I look back,

Two or three weeks before we left Arizona. He started having major anxiety attacks And I had to give him a sedative acepromazine to calm him down at 1.3 days in a row and as I look back that was the beginning of the end the stress of the move was affecting him he was just about to turn 13 and then We went from 3500 elevation to 6500 and a colder climate

And what the vet told me is that alone for an older dog, just the change in seasons can take a tax on the body. When you combine the three, the stress of the move for both of us, the elevation change and the climate change, his body, he just couldn't handle it. And what I didn't realize on Sunday is that he was actually rallying. He was already in the dying process. Now I look back, I saw it because there was one night, a couple nights before that, we're already here in Durango.

and he started breathing weird. And he'd done this before and we don't have any furniture so we were sleeping together on an air mattress and I kind of pulled him towards me and he just let me. Normally he was really grumpy and he would grumble, grumble, and he just let me slide him like he was limp. He was very much awake and alive but, and I remember thinking, God, that's so weird. That's odd.

Darla Ridilla (12:02.113)
And I think...

that he was already in the dying process at that point. And for whatever reason he held on. I'm grateful for the gift on Sunday, but what was absolutely crazy is we left the dog park at like 4 p.m.

and the next morning, he started to throw up blood. He threw up eight times between 430 in the morning and nine. And it was more blood in every time. I knew something was really wrong. Initially, we thought he had just gotten into something or hoped that he had just gotten into something at the dog park. But he didn't respond to the two medications that we gave him. And in fact,

The next morning by Tuesday morning, he was significantly worse. In the back of my mind, I kind of knew he was an organ failure because I worked at a vet and I've seen this before, but I didn't really want to believe it. And I got him another vet appointment that morning. in that hour and a half between the time I made the appointment and we got there, he significantly degraded to the point he could barely stand up.

He didn't want to drink water. like I had to rouse him. And I think the only reason he even got up or drink any water at all is because that pleasing nature that dogs have.

Darla Ridilla (13:30.732)
And when he couldn't stand up, when we were leaving for the vet, that was the moment of truth for me. I knew he wasn't coming home. I knew it. It was really hard to get him in a car. A 95 pound dog is heavy.

But I managed to help him up. And he had a very peaceful death. And I just dropped off a thank you card at the vet. I was a brand new client. I had an appointment later in the week to have another labrilla injection for him, but we had not been there. They saw me within an hour the first day and an hour and a half the next. They were extremely kind. They didn't rush me. They gave me all the time I needed.

And it meant a lot because...

I had to watch my dog die by myself. I didn't have a friend and I didn't have a family member. And I'm having to grieve by myself. There's no shoulder to cry on. There's no one to hug me. There people, like my daughter's been fantastic. I've talked to her a couple of times and that support from afar, but there's no physical comfort and I have no other pets. So there's...

no one to share this grief with. I've had to bear it by myself.

Darla Ridilla (15:00.183)
And I think...

Some of that strength comes from all the work that I've done on myself, taking my power back by coming back to Colorado in spite of the danger of my second ex-husband and his stalking and potentially violent tendencies, which I think are very, very real.

Darla Ridilla (15:25.538)
While I'm strong enough to handle it, I'll be honest, I wish I didn't have to. I'd really rather not. But this is what I've dealt with.

Our pets bring us so much joy, unconditional love, and there's such an important relationship in our life.

Darla Ridilla (15:45.906)
And in the end, he'd been there through my divorce. During COVID for two years, I cried over my ex-husband.

And what makes this even harder is this is a double loss for me. So my last ex-husband, I still love.

Darla Ridilla (16:09.24)
very much. But I know that we can't be together.

that the time we had is over. And we shared this connection with this dog or quote unquote child. I knew.

whenever I made the call to tell him that Goliath was gone, it would be my last one. So on Tuesday, I not only lost my soul dog, but I also lost the man that I loved.

And that's been really hard.

I'm very grateful for my ex's kindness. There is a side of him that's very, very kind, loving. We also had a connection and I don't know if he felt it, but I felt it on the phone call. We used to finish each other's sentences.

Darla Ridilla (17:05.89)
Just the unfortunate thing is he's an alcoholic. And even after he stopped drinking, there were still issues and it became an unhealthy relationship dynamic for me. And I couldn't say, I have a deep connection with this man, but sometimes even connections with people doesn't mean they're the right people for you.

accepting that, respecting that, and staying away. I mean, he's remarried and I don't want to interfere with that. And even if he wasn't, I can't reach out to him again for support, though he would give it because that's who he is. I can't ask for it because I can't open that door again.

Darla Ridilla (17:56.152)
But I'm glad in spite of all of this that I've worked on myself. Yesterday I took a long walk along the river. I just needed to get out of the house and the park where I parked my car just happens to be across the river directly from the dog park. And I wanted to test myself to see how I would handle that. I could see that ridge, the trail on the ridge where we were at on Sunday, just a couple of days before.

I could see the place where we looked over the river and I took a couple of pictures. And that was hard, but I did fine. And every dog I saw, just looked at longingly and one actually came up to me and I pet it and it actually made me start crying. But I remember as I was walking along the river, I heard this voice in my head. It was almost so loud that it was like someone speaking to me. And that voice said to me, you are.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be. And everything that happened this week happened exactly as it was supposed to.

Darla Ridilla (19:10.614)
and intuitively I know this. I was drawn to this town.

Goliath's love of that dog park is what convinced me to come here.

Darla Ridilla (19:26.134)
and that dog park is the last place that we went together before his health failed. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think it's kind of one of these full circle moments. And I think that's why he rallied there. I think that's why he let him inside. Maybe subconsciously he said, okay, my job is done.

And it's time for me to move on. I'm old. I'm tired.

My body is tired.

but I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. And sometimes when we follow our intuition, that doesn't mean it's an easy road.

Darla Ridilla (20:17.134)
Today is the first day I actually put makeup on.

I started writing a book last night and I think that's helped me to actually be a little bit better today. So I had decided a couple of years ago that I was going to write an adventure book about a memoir about Goliath. We have a long history of doing day trips, adventure trips. Like I said, we have this thing about going to national parks and taking pictures.

and was going to eventually originally have it just about all the adventures that I've taken with him. I mean, it's been incredible how much we've traveled together. And yesterday morning when I woke up.

to the silence.

overwhelming. And I realized this book is more than just a memoir about the good times.

Darla Ridilla (21:18.158)
This book is also going to be in real time, me documenting my grief process. Not only will it help me to sit down on a regular basis and write how I work through it. It's going to add something to the story and I hope that it touches somebody else that has lost a pet. While both of my parents are dead, I was not close to them. So I really don't count that as a normal.

death experience. I have never lost a human being, a human that is close to me and known what that's like. But I've lost pets over the years. And this one hit harder than most because there was something special about that dog. I can't explain it. He left impressions on people everywhere he went and he certainly did a lot for me and my life.

Darla Ridilla (22:17.238)
I can't imagine.

a pain greater than this.

Darla Ridilla (22:26.722)
But this book is going to be about how I work through that. And I sat last night for three hours and wrote.

and it just like all just poured out of me.

because I think we have to honor our grief. One of the things I said to my daughter yesterday is, I wanna sit in it, I wanna honor it, but I don't wanna marinate in it. When she told me something funny about my grandson, I laughed. It was the first time all week I'd laughed. And I didn't feel guilty about laughing.

I'm not gonna feel guilty that Monday morning, the second time he threw up, he threw up on my brand new carpet. I didn't know at that time he was really sick. I thought he just got into maybe the water bacteria in the water. I yelled at him and I spanked him.

I had no idea he was dying and I'm not gonna feel guilty about that.

Darla Ridilla (23:30.636)
I'm not going to feel bad about moving here. On one hand, the move actually is what ended his life when it did. But just like that voice in my head said, it's exactly how it was supposed to be.

He was old and tired, but he knew his job wasn't done yet. His job was to get me here.

Darla Ridilla (23:57.772)
and he fulfilled that obligation to the universe.

Darla Ridilla (24:06.359)
And I think.

I know there's things coming from me that I was putting off because I can't travel. I couldn't leave him behind. I didn't want him to be alone. I'm so grateful. I was there with him right to his literally last breath and sat there and pet him through the whole thing.

Darla Ridilla (24:28.876)
and it's opening the doors for some speaking engagements and a TED talk that I want to do later this year, but I have been putting off even looking into doing a TED talk. And I knew it was at resistance because I knew why. I can't fly anywhere right now. I'm not even going to see my daughter because this dog can't be left alone. I was concerned about leaving him here in Colorado for a couple of days while I went back to Arizona to get my things.

Darla Ridilla (24:57.878)
And so I don't know if you've ever experienced this with a human or a pet, and it's a weird duality and it doesn't feel good, but there's actually a sense of relief. He's been sick for two or three years and there's been this constant up and down roller coaster of emotion. And I've almost lost him a couple of times over the, particularly over the past year. It's been like he declines, plateaus, declines, plateaus, but he never got back to where he was before the last decline.

and it has been very hard on my emotions. And when my daughter asked me Monday morning if I was gonna go to the emergency vet, because it was before the vet opened, the regular vet, I was like, no, I'm not. I'm not gonna take heroic measures, which is what they're gonna wanna do. It charge me a lot of money for it. If this is his time, this is his time.

Darla Ridilla (25:59.48)
I guess the moral of the story or the message for you is if you're out there and you're suffering with the loss of a pet.

I understand that I am right in the midst of immense grief. Once again, just like after my breakup in November, I've become a recluse.

I had to take care of an issue this morning that was urgent.

And I went for a walk yesterday. But pretty much I've been back here at the home. Which is weird too because his presence is definitely the absence of it.

is very much felt. But I prefer to be here and process this by myself than going out to some bar with a lot of loud drunks and loud music and

Darla Ridilla (27:05.195)
like push it under the rug. Maybe I'll go out next week and do some karaoke because that's healing for me. But I thought about it this week and I'm really not feeling it. I am going to go to some hot springs tomorrow for some self care, a day of self care. Because I do think we need to be really mindful during this time. I cleared my calendar, canceled all of my appointments for the entire week because I just I'm not in that head space and my emotions are very erratic and

seemed to crying jegs come out of nowhere and I need to honor that. I need to feel it. I need to let it bubble up. So if you're grieving a pet, be kind to yourself as well. I'm grateful I don't have a J-O-B anymore that I work for myself and I have the freedom to take the time I need without a boss breathing down my neck about a job that doesn't matter when your dog has just died. I'm grateful for that.

You might not have that freedom, but what can you do for yourself around that? If you do or you don't want to be around people, honor whatever it is your body tells you you need. If you feel tired of being exhausted, like it's so hard on the nervous system.

Darla Ridilla (28:26.744)
honor that too. If you're hungry or not hungry, honor that. If you want to sit and do nothing or the other night I put my dining room table together as just a distraction, do that. The message is do what's best for you, not what others think are best for you.

Darla Ridilla (28:52.012)
I hope that this was helpful and maybe there's someone out there that needed to hear this.

Darla Ridilla (29:00.717)
I hope.

that this was a tribute to the dog that changed my life. And I would go back to that day in Santa Fe when I met him in that park and put him in the car just like I did and bring him home knowing 10 years later I was gonna sit right where I'm sitting today because every cherished memory.

was worth the pain of his loss.

Darla Ridilla (29:34.4)
You have the power.