🐾 The Pets We Loved and Lost

Some pets make us laugh. Some drive us crazy. And some leave paw prints on our hearts that never really fade.

In this episode, Sheri and Randy take a walk down memory lane, sharing stories about the dogs and cats that shaped their lives—from childhood companions to beloved pets they still miss today. They talk about the joy pets bring, the heartbreak of saying goodbye, and why animals often become even more important as we get older.

Whether you've loved a dog, cat, bird, fish, or any furry friend in between, chances are there's one pet you'll never forget.

Join us for a heartfelt conversation about companionship, loss, unconditional love, and the special bond between people and their pets.

❤️ We'd love to hear from you. Tell us about a pet you'll never forget and what made them so special.

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

#RetirementWithSheriAndRandy #PetsWeLovedAndLost #PetStories #RetirementLife #Dogs #Cats #PetLoss #Companionship #SeniorLiving #Podcast

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Theme music by: Sheri Todd and MakeBestMusic

Written & hosted by: Sheri Todd

 Recorded somewhere between healing and humor.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you pushed that play button and you're choosing to spend some time with us. So appreciate it. Now, I got a question for you. What's the one pet that you've never gotten over? Do you remember like the the most important pet that you had? The one that you'll never forget.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah, that was um that was um uh yogi.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Yeah that was uh Yogi was the biggest fluff ball. He was a Pomeranium. Yeah, and he wasn't very nice either. He was kind of mean.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

He was fine with me, Connie. He was okay with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

There's a few times he nipped at my.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah, he nipped at everybody though, a little bit. But um he was a great dog, man. I I just I got him when he was a puppy, and we drew um I won't go into all the detail, but anyway. You and Connie. Yeah, me and Connie picked him up together and brought him back. I think I paid like 400 bucks for him or something like that back then. But he was um he was a great dog, and it was really sad the way he passed away.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

But um you took um yeah, I used to used to always take him on car rides, alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Always take him on car rides and do things together and he loved to go in the car. Yeah, he loved the car. Look out the things, take his face out. And I just he was a great animal. I miss him to this day.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

He tried he died tragically. Do you want to tell the story? You want me to tell the story?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, you tell it because it really bothers me when I tell it.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

What happened was it was um Randy's granddaughter's birthday, and a bunch of us met at his house, and we were gonna carpool. And Randy tells our brother Ted to go check the uh the back door, the patio door, make sure it was sh locked and and everything. So Ted goes in, and all of a sudden you hear Ted go, Randy, Randy, Yogi, Yogi. And Randy just barrels into the house, and we're like, ah, now what's going on? And all of a sudden we just hear Randy screaming. And what had happened is Yogi, there's a fence around the pool, and somehow Yogi got through the fence and fell into the pool and drowned. So Randy was very devastated. Um, Randy also had been drinking, so it was heightened. You would think that Randy had lost his whole family, the way he was reacting. It was way over. I thought the neighbors were gonna call the police. This is how loud he was. He was throwing things. He was he was you couldn't console him. His wife tried, mom tried, I tried. Maggie, I think our niece, I think was the only one that kind of was able to calm me down. But by then I think you just passed out.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I was just tired. I passed out. I'm tired of tired of screaming.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

So we had to eventually, Connie and I, I told Connie, I go, we can't leave you know him laying here. We you know, on the on the diving board, we need to, you know, get rid of him. So we ended up calling around, we found a a vet that would take him and and um dispose of them, cremate them for us.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Still got his ashes.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah. Randy, Randy lost it big time.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah, that was a tough one for me. And even when I think about it, it hurts my heart when I think about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Yeah. Well, any animal that dies tragically like that, it it hurts more, I think.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Well, especially when you love them that much. Yeah. You've had that happen to you.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Yes, I did have a dog. Uh her name was uh Fling. She was a great day, and I got her when I was probably in junior high when I got her. And um the reason I got her was I was seeing a therapist, and the therapist thought I had a lot of problems back then. And if you want to know all about it, you can go to Sheropee, the very first episode, not on YouTube, but actual on your podcast app, and you'll hear all about it. And uh, it is a hard episode to listen to, so just beware. Caution. Um, so the therapist thought since I was very um closed off, I I didn't talk to people, I kind of just stayed in my room. I was just pretty much uh uh recluse. I just didn't have anything to do with anybody. I refused to go to school. So the therapist thought by maybe getting me a great dane that was you don't see every day, it may bring me out of my shell, which it did, because everywhere we went with Fling, everybody would say, Is that a pony? Is that a dog or a horse? You know, I heard it all the time. But it got me to talk to people and it got me out of my shell, and it did work a lot, and she was a great protector, she protected all of us. Um she slept with me, did everything. I trained her. I I mean I said 24-7 with this dog. I love this dog. And um, one day a neighbor went into our backyard to pick some peaches or something and didn't shut the gate. So Fling would jump up on the gate and it would open, and it opened because it wasn't locked, and she left. And when she got out, she got hit by a car. Now she didn't die, but she ended up breaking her shoulder. So they had to put a plate on the shoulder to keep it together so it would heal. But because she was such a heavy dog, the plate kept breaking. And because she was such a heavy dog and it was on the front leg, they couldn't amputate the leg because she wouldn't be able to walk around on three feet. And of course, this was before they had, you know, prosthetics and stuff for dogs now. So we had to put her to sleep. And it was so devastating for me. I found that neighbor and I remember yelling at him, and he's like, I closed the gate, I closed the gate. And I go, She's dead because of you. I mean, I just totally went off on this guy. And um, it was hard. It was hard. The next animal I had was uh Julie. Originally her name was Lucy. Julie I had in Ohio. My sister had given me a cat when I got there. The cat had kittens, and Julie was one of the kittens, and she was the she was the rut. And I had to kind of help feed her and everything because the other cats wouldn't let her in and she was getting weak. So obviously I became attached and I I kept her and we had her. I mean, she was the greatest cat. She was just such a good cat. And moved all back home and she came with us, drove across the country together, and had to sneak her into the hotel rooms. She ended up getting um sick and we had to put her to sleep on mom's birthday actually. And it was not, you know, to sit there and watch them give her the shot and pass away. It's it's something that it's just you never get over it. It's just such a hard, hard feeling.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

And um I mean, animals, you love them as much as your children.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

You really do.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Um it's the heartbreak.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

It's just uh yeah, it's like I got, you know, Angel right now. Yeah. So You raised Angel like I raised Julie. Yeah, just like since she was born. It was four days. I started taking care of her after she was born. And I'm kind of want to hope hopefully I know this sounds sad, but I hope that uh she dies before I do because I don't want to go through all that pain.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

And plus, you mean you want to die before her?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Well, if I die before her, she's gonna have a tough time moving on with her life. She'll probably die very soon after I die, I think. I don't think she lasts too long.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Yeah, she don't go on anybody but to you.

unknown 7:24

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

It's gonna it's gonna hurt my heart when she passes away, though. And my thing is I don't think I'll get another animal after that either. Because I got Stevie. You know, and Stevie's got a long time left. So animals to me feel that spot in your heart that you just can't feel sometimes. You know, even though if your life's even going well.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Well, it's it's just if you love animals, you get it. If you don't, it's kind of hard to explain it. What an animal and how you love animals, they're just it's unconditional love. It's just like, especially when you get older, animals become such part of like with mom. Mom, up until her last dog, Josie, mom never had a pet, ever. No, no, ever had a pet. And she just something to take care of. And I think a lot of people when they hit retirement stuff, they just want to take care of somebody somebody, and that somebody needs them.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

We still got Josie.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Josie, the pest that we have now, yeah. Josie was my mom's dog, and I promised mom, you know, that I would always take care of Josie no matter what.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

She don't like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Josie's no, Josie never has. Josie's she doesn't like kids, that's for sure. And she don't like other animals.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

No, she's very very um took me a while to get her to like me.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

She likes you. She still doesn't like my brother Ted. She's iffy with Connie. But mom loved Josie. I mean, Josie was her life, really was. But unfortunately, towards the end, she didn't remember Josie. But what was weird, even though she didn't remember Josie, Josie laid with her always. You would see mom reach for her while she was sleeping and just pet her. Even though she didn't remember, but she still remembered that comfort from petting her. And um, yeah, so it's a purpose, it's a routine, it's an unconditional love, it's companionship, all that when you're in retirement. So pets are so important. So important.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

They really are, man. They're really a heartbeat of our lives.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

So before we go, and before you go, I would like you to leave a comment and tell me about the pet that you will never forget and why.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

That's why we're here to share our lives, and hopefully you share yours with us, and and like that's our little community, so everybody can help each other.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

So yeah, whether your pet had a fur or feathers or fins or forepaws, we want to hear about how special those those pets were to you.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

We really do.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Tell us their names and one thing about them that made them special.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

It's fun for us because we like to hear those stories.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

And other people like to listen. So thank you for listening today. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you took the time to sit down and watch this episode. Don't forget to subscribe if you enjoyed it. We hope you have a great week, great weekend, and we'll see you here next time.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yes, and like my sister says every time before we sign off, is always remember to embrace your voice.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yes, bye, everybody. Hey, thanks for hanging out with us for a bit. If this felt like your kind of conversation, go ahead and subscribe and follow. We'd love to have you back.