Every Pawprint! Every Story!
A weekly conversation space where people honor pets they’ve lost, celebrate the joy pets bring, and support one another through pet grief. Each episode centers on a guest’s memories, the rituals that keep those pets present in daily life, and the lessons of love and loss that pets teach us!
Every Pawprint! Every Story!
A Beloved Labrador Changes One Life Forever
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A dog can change your entire life and then break your heart on the way out. I sit down with John in Seattle to trace that full arc, from the goofy, everyday moments of raising a young English Labrador named James to the deeper story behind his full name: James Charles, a quiet tribute to Charlie, the Labrador John lost after 12 years together.
We talk about how James came into the family only after a year and a half of healing, and why “ready” looks different for everyone after pet loss. John shares what he learned from doing the work up front: researching breeders, focusing on temperament and health, and recognizing that rare moment when a puppy seems to pick you. Along the way, we swap the kind of real-life dog stories every owner knows, from bathroom quirks to the relief of a puppy who simply is not that destructive.
Then we go back to Charlie. John describes bringing him home during grad school, learning dog ownership on the fly, and eventually bringing Charlie into a special education classroom as a beloved classroom dog. We also get honest about the hard part: hemangiosarcoma, an emergency splenectomy, the agony of waiting for biopsy results, and the overwhelming menu of cancer treatment decisions, including chemotherapy options and quality-of-life tradeoffs. The conversation stays grounded in what matters most: comfort, dignity, enrichment through “search and sniff” games, and the honor of being there through the very end, including at-home euthanasia.
If you’re navigating pet grief, dog cancer, euthanasia decisions, or the question of when to adopt again, you’re not alone. Subscribe, share this with someone who misses a pet today, leave a review, and tell us this: what helps you keep their love close?
- Purchase the Book that inspired the Podcast
- Want to share your pets story on a future podcast?
- Send us a message: SUBSCRIBE
- All new, the first ever Pet Journal - start logging your memories with your Pet
- Click -> Pet Journal
Welcome And Why Pet Stories Matter
SPEAKER_00Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Every Paw Print, Every Story. I am your host, Dan Popovic. And for those new listeners to this podcast, just a quick update as to what it is we're doing here. You know, you might be asking yourself this question what the heck is this every paw print, every story? Naturally, to me, every paw print, every fur kid has a story. But what this podcast is about, it's a weekly conversation space where people honor pets they've lost, celebrate the joy pets bring, and support one another through pet grief. Each episode centers on a guest memories, the ritual that keeps those pets present in daily life, and the lessons of love and loss that pets teach us. The goal with this podcast is to inspire, guide, and support each other. And I'm excited today to welcome a new guest to the show, uh, John coming to us from Seattle. So welcome to the show, John.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me. And uh yeah, I just appreciate what you do. And um uh one of one of the things I love is uh I I've I've seen so much from from talking with other people who go through pet grief is that everyone takes a pleasure in kind of sharing and helping other people, you know, through it, which I think is a cool thing. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well that that's a good kickoff. That 100% agree with you. That's awesome. Um
Meet John And James
SPEAKER_00Matt naturally, with my listeners, obviously, one of the first questions we I always love to start with and ask is you know, how many fur kids do we have a part of the family today?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um I just have one boy right now, his name is James. He's a uh an English Labrador retriever. Uh he's almost exactly a year and a half right now. So we are um sort of right in the thick of adolescence, but growing up really well. Um and I, you know, I've had the joy of puppyhood over the last last year and a half. So yeah, just one. Uh I've had uh um, you'll hear more about it, but I had a Labrador named Charlie, who of course is the uh the boy who I lost. Um and uh had a few cats grew up with dogs, but uh yeah, just just one one for a kid in my life right now.
SPEAKER_00Uh and grew. It's funny you mentioned cats. That was a big, big episode that I had recently. We haven't really I have it's that was the first one that I had cats. It's been a lot of dogs. Um I'm curious how many cats have you previously had?
SPEAKER_02Let's see, I had uh two, I guess. One who I uh I got when I first moved out to Seattle, who was uh a feral cat. Um uh I didn't know much about where to look for animals. I just got a cat from a pet shop and uh and he was awesome. He was a joy to me. I loved him, but he had some some sort of feral stuff. He like anyone who came over to my house, he wanted to scratch and sort of rub up against and then scratch. So he's he had a funny personality, but he um he was sweet. His name was Puff. He would chase um crumpled up, crumpled up pieces of paper around the house and bring them back to me. Uh so, anyways, I had that one, and then I had a um a Bengal who uh I got from a friend who moved to Hawaii, and uh they weren't allowed to bring that breed onto the island. So I got him at maybe he was maybe two years old, um, had him for his whole life until I lost him to leukemia, actually. Um and uh he was so sweet, he was just a god, a wonderful cat. And then one more, I guess, who um I my sister, um Jess lived in Portland. She moved to the East Coast. I took her cat for maybe six or eight years. Um and uh while she was gone and then she finally came back and got him back. So we kind of we kind of shared that cat. But so I guess I've had three and then grew up with a bunch more.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Now I'm curious. You you piqued my curiosity on the one story with uh you said I think you said Bengal that was not able to get a Hawaii.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so they have like a sort of they or at least the at the time they had a restricted breed thing where you couldn't bring certain kinds. So um interesting. So I had a a good buddy of mine who moved over there. I took I inherited his cat. Yeah, he was a Bengal, his name was Zico. My friend was from Brazil. Zico's a famous soccer player from Brazil. So and yeah, he was just so cool. Um, I I learned at the time like Bengals are kind of water cats. They're they have that in their in their genetics a little bit. So uh Zico used to like to like put his face under the faucet. You know, a lot of cats are kind of averse to water, and Zico was like a water lover, um, and just the sweetest guy and beautiful, kind of spotted uh, you know, uh coat and uh really playful and silly, yeah. Just a funny guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that sounds like a pretty cool cat. Um very cool.
How James Found His Way Home
SPEAKER_00So fast fast forwarding to James, so year and a half. Um pup. So how you got him straight up straight up from a puppy? How old was he when you got him?
SPEAKER_02Yep, I think I got him. I don't remember if it was eight weeks or ten weeks. I think it might have been somewhere in between there, uh yeah, eight, nine, or ten weeks. But yeah, just a brand new puppy. Um I uh spent a lot of lot of time looking into um different ways to get dogs and and looking into breeders and uh really wanted to make sure I got a dog who was going to be healthy and and had a good temperament. Um so I found a uh there's a breeder in Washington called Clover Creek Labradors, and they're kind of famous for having really, really calm, calm, mellow guys. Um and the so I ended up looking through them and found someone uh kind of adjacent to them who shared uh a mother co-owned by them and another guy who was starting a breeder program. Um, that breeder program was called, I always forget it's either called Redoc or Red Rock Labs. But anyways, this was his first litter starting out, and um and met with him, talked with him a bunch, uh, and seemed like a good match. So ended up um going up there and seeing the mom before before the litter was born, and then going up and see the litter as they were growing up, and uh, and then finally um picked out James um in a very cool way. He kind of he kind of chose me, like you hear from some people. So anyways, yeah, I get forgive me if I go on tangents, but uh yeah, got got him from a uh a breeder just a couple hours north of Seattle, um, and uh just so happy with him. He's such a he's such a good guy, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So okay, so and cool, we got to name him James, right? So you you named him now, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So James James was our choice. Um my last boy was Charlie. I'm partial to the the human names for for dogs, and uh I don't remember James and I think my partner and I, my wife and I kind of just landed on it somehow. Um I liked James and the giant peach growing up. Um we just like the names. Well, his name is officially James Charles Rutledge, middle name after Charlie, the boy who I lost. So um and uh yeah, yeah, named him James. Um this will maybe this will come up later, but uh got him about a year and a half after uh after Charlie passed. So uh, you know, it took took me, I took my my time. I needed I needed a lot of time to be ready for another guy. And um right. And yeah, he's gosh, he's just uh he's just everything I could ask for in a dog. He's you know, you know, a puppy, so there's that, but he's he's so wonderful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, we'll come back to where you were where you were about to go. So we'll hit on the phone. Sounds good. Sounds good, yeah. Um but yeah, Jay, no, I love it, love the name, and now uh yeah, we're gonna have to follow along as he grows up because it feels like James is a I'm thinking of like James Bond, double or seven. You're gonna have to start really dressing him up right and carrying that name.
SPEAKER_02There you go. We've got the bow tie already, so that's good, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now I feel like I saw a picture. I I feel like you posted a picture recently on Sub uh Substack with him, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I put a lot up there. I can't remember if there's a bow tie picture or not, but yeah, he's he's uh um yeah, I I I take a lot of joy in sharing photos of him, you know.
SPEAKER_00He's a cutie, year and a half old. What's uh all right, so in the short time you've had him, what's the craziest thing he's done? Chewed up something or broke out of somewhere.
SPEAKER_02You know, the uh uh let's see, the first thing that comes to mind is we um, and I don't know if it's the craziest thing, but the uh just a cute thing. Uh we my last we just moved recently. Um my last I lived, I grew up, he grew up in an apartment that I just moved out of. Um that apartment just had a small little patio with like a dirt patch, um, and there was no grass or anything. So he learned up, he he grew up, grew up um learning to go potty in this little dirt patch, right? Um one of his quirks became that he would uh uh gonna go put go do his business in the dirt, and then he would scoot the dirt with his nose to cover up his business. So he always ended had like a dirty nose here full of dirt, and he's but he was very like cleanly, you know. He's like, I gotta keep my keep my territory clean. So so he'll still sometimes, if he comes across another dog's um business, he'll kind of even on the grass, he'll just like scoot his nose up next to it, like, hey, I'm supposed to cover this up or something, you know. Um that being said, uh in terms of crazy stories, one thing that's been amazing about James is actually just the lack of destructive stuff, you know, like tearing stuff up. Um, I uh I know we'll talk about Charlie later, but um but he when he was growing up, I felt like destroyed a new thing every day, you know. Uh there was a couch or a piece of electronics or something, and and my management skills weren't great back then. So um that's funny, anyways. James James has been a delight with that. He just and I think you know the management helped, but he uh doesn't chew stuff up, he doesn't destroy stuff, he's just like he's just darn easy, you know. And that's it's been a surprise, yeah. Let's hope it stays right. I'm trying to think if there's anything else crazy, crazy he's done. You know, he's he's just silly as could be. Um uh, but I can't think of anything like anything that really stands out right now on the on the spot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, well, no, I love that because I can fully relate to what you said about the uh the bathroom breaks and the nose rubbing to kind of my my Marshall does that too, and he still does that today, right? He's 11, so he's done it for the 10 years we've had him. Um it's the funniest thing, and I I'm curious if you see this with James, because what Marshall does is he'll do that, but then if he if he smells his pee scent, he like he just gets really tiptoes around. He's like, I want nothing to do with that smell, I gotta go around it, it's the craziest thing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, interesting, yeah. Yeah, I haven't seen that tiptoe thing, but that reminds me that like James will pee somewhere and then we'll walk. And on the way back, he's like, Oh my god, this pee is so interesting. And I'm like, dude, you just peed there, that's your pee, you know. So um, but I haven't seen the tiptoe behavior. That's cute. That's cute.
SPEAKER_00No, I love that. That's awesome.
Charlie’s Story Begins
SPEAKER_00All right, so you've touched on Charlie uh a few times. Let's definitely chat a little bit about Charlie. Um I can't remember if you said how old was uh Charlie when you lost him?
SPEAKER_02He was 12. Uh and and uh um just almost poetically he he made it four days past his 12th birthday. Uh yeah. So uh and uh um gosh, not sure where to start. I'd love to tell you about sort of how he how I got him and uh what he what he did for me and stuff, but uh but we can move on to the you know like what happened at the end too and stuff too. Um but let's let's say that for last. Let's go to the beginning. Sure, yeah. So so I was um uh did a career change and was going to graduate school to start teaching special education. So I I had a two-year window where I was really focused on school, and I was lucky enough to not have to um work a lot during that two years. So, anyways, I ended up with time, you know, and I had always wanted a dog. Um, and one day I just kind of just kind of got the bug in me, and I started looking and looking for availability, looked in the newspaper and found a breed of Labradors um from a couple hours south of Seattle, actually. And uh just kind of did it, went and got him. He was uh I think the last one of that litter that was available. Um and uh let's see. Yeah, gosh, I uh went and got him, brought him home in my car in a cardboard box. Um I remember him him crying the whole way home. I think I I I rode the whole car ride with my hand and sort of the back touching him in the box, you know, trying to drive with one with one hand on the wheel. I wouldn't recommend it safety-wise, but uh anyways, uh I and you know, had grown up with dogs, but didn't hadn't had one. So it was a learning process with him. Everything was me figuring it out as I went, you know. So um wish I could go back and be more prepared for it. But but yeah, so got him um while I was in grad school. Um do do do one of the interesting, sort of related things about that is that um as I started teaching, he started joining me in the classroom. Um so I worked with uh kids with more severe disabilities, and a lot of kids with um uh let's see, kids speaking with communication devices, things like that, um, and and a lot of uh just a lot of a lot of different stuff. Um but he became our classroom dog and would come once a week into the classroom. Um, and he was just a great guy. This was after he was, you know, maybe a couple years old, so had some had some brains in him, but um but he became our our buddy and and all the students, you know, he'd roll over on his back for the students, and uh we would kind of involve him in lessons, and so he was very much a part of me becoming a special ed teacher, and and uh and just that was that was a really special thing. Um and you mentioned earlier how he was destructive and chewed things up, yeah, and again, lack of management on my part if I'm now that I'm now that I'm working as a trainer, I I uh you know, there's so many things I would tell people to do differently, uh you know, using using crate training, using pens, using, you know, keeping the environment safe. But yeah, he I uh you know, he loved to chew on furniture. He um I remember one day I had a like a book full of CDs and I came home and he had like crunched the CDs up like nachos. Luckily, not ingested them, but uh right uh but uh and then like a computer. I think he chewed a hole through a computer one day. Um so just you know, big Labradors like to chew stuff.
SPEAKER_00So right what what did was the chewing? Was this a lot of times when like you might not have been around, you left, or did it also also happen in your presence?
SPEAKER_02Uh some in my presence more more when I was gone, and I would come home and be like, oh gosh, you know. So uh so yeah, again, lack of lack of crate training, lack of uh lack of sort of environmental management, but uh and then uh and uh coming home and trying to keep my cool when I found everything destroyed, you know.
SPEAKER_00I trust me, I know I know how that goes. Our first girl, Marley, did the same thing. We ended up getting her a companion, so maybe that's part of the the lessons to learn, like you talked about, because we didn't know, and she wasn't we couldn't create trainer, she fought that we tried, and she wanted nothing to do with it, so it's like we couldn't because we didn't want her to harm herself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00But then once we got Marshall, that the the the chewing up the furniture disappeared. So um but is with you mentioned training now, what you're doing now. Um can we say Charlie was the inspiration behind what you're doing now?
SPEAKER_02A hundred percent, yeah, and thanks. That that takes me back to sort of talking about uh Charlie in the beginning. So, you know, he um in the beginning, but over the course of his life, just inspired my love of dogs even more. And um eventually, let's see, career change kind of lined up with the pandemic also, so I had uh had some, you know, a little bit of a natural transition. But Charlie was very much the inspiration for me, wanting to work with dogs, starting to work with dogs, um, learning more about training and getting into training. Um and and now that's my whole world, and I've never been happier in terms of in terms of what I do, you know. I love I love teaching special education, I love the kids, but you also deal with a school district and and uh you know administration and all that stuff. So it's not just you and the kids. So um with dogs, it's very much it feels like it's just me and them and and and uh and yeah, I just um it doesn't feel like going to work anymore. You know, I don't know if I don't know if you can you know what I mean, but uh well that's well that's like doing this podcast, right?
SPEAKER_00It's it's just fun talking about the poor kids. Um I'm with you on that one. Um exactly, exactly. Yeah. Any
From Teacher To Dog Trainer
SPEAKER_00fun with Charlie, like any fun vacation destinations you would take them, or hiking or hiking destinations?
SPEAKER_02Good good question. Uh he loved the water. He he got uh it took him maybe a year to start swimming or something, but he became a real water dog, uh beach dog. So I uh in Seattle I live near a beach called Golden Gardens, where um uh just a nice little beach access. Um and um at some point I started taking him to Cannon Beach, Oregon, which is uh a really beautiful spot. Um a little bit famous, I think, of a town. It's sort of a little vacation town. Uh it was actually in the movie Goonies, was there was a scene that was filmed filmed there. Uh, it's the scene when the pirate ship is coming out at the end, but Cannon Beach has a big rock sticking out of the water that's kind of famous. Um, anyways, so that became um one of our spots, and then the Washington Coast in general. A couple times a year I would take him out to the coast, stay in a hotel with him. And the only purpose of going there was to let him run on the beach, be on the beach, you know, splash around in the water. And it was just my total joy being with him in that setting, you know, running around with him, letting him do his thing. So yeah, so uh Cannon Beach, different parts of the Washington coast, um, those were those were our spots.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. And that's awesome that he that he enjoyed the water. Um when you when you let him run around the beach, was he on leash, off-leash? I'm curious.
SPEAKER_02I th I feel I'm trying to remember, I think probably a little bit on, but I think mostly off pretty quickly. And and he from a pretty young age, I I I had almost natural good recall. Like I didn't I didn't you know have a great training background with that, but um he just loved being with me so much that he wouldn't leave me for much. So um, you know, he would go flirt with other dogs on the beach for sure, but he he wasn't ever a risk of like I'm I'm out of here, you know. He wanted to be with me and and my food and and stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_00So no, that's it's uh I'm I'm always envious of that because I'm always on the beach and I see that and the dogs walking alongside him, no leash, and I'm like, I don't we could never really do that with Marlene. Never knew what she would do, but man, I always wanted to just be able to walk with her like that. So that's really cool. Um four days.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. Um yeah, yeah, no. So let you lead let you lead the way, but uh happy to talk about, you know, sort of what what how there was a process gonna get in there, so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, talk that's what I was gonna add. Yeah, talk about the pro was it was it natural all of a sudden, or was it kind of something that that happened and was prolonged? Yeah, what was what happened?
Hemangiosarcoma And Hard Choices
SPEAKER_02So he um let's see. Healthy boy all all his life, you know, had um had lumps and stuff, which is not uncommon in Labradors, you know. But um whatever, and bet would always just be like um, you know, a lot of times they're benign, fatty tumors, stuff like that. So, and none of those actually ended up being a problem. But um one day, let's see, one day he it's actually after he ate a certain chew or something and got just kind of uncomfortable looking, um, didn't end up being that the chew was like, you know, lodged or anything, but um he sort of showed me with with uh not being able to lie down, um, having sort of a grimace face, you know, just like I'm I'm I'm not comfortable, right? So um, and actually happened in sort of two parts. One day while we were coming back from a walk, sort of had had that same thing, um, but then within a couple hours was fine, I think. And then maybe a couple weeks later, same thing. We were inside and kind of on the couch, and he just had that that same thing, like I can't get comfortable, don't feel good, right? So that ended up going to the vet, turning into kind of an emergency visit. Um, they did their thing and and you know, checked everything, and I think they did an ultrasound or something, but uh uh anyways, the bottom line was they found I think a tumor on his spleen. Um so Charlie had something called hemangiosarcoma, um, which is uh uh again, hemangiosarcoma. I wrote about this a little bit on my sub stack because I learned a lot about it, but um um which is a cancer, I believe, of the blood vessels. Um so uh, anyways, going back, he had a tumor on his spleen, they did something called um An emergency splenectomy, which is where they actually removed the spleen. I believe the spleen was um was bleeding or ruptured. Uh so they did something called this splenectomy, they removed it. Um big expensive surgery. Um, and and even then, some decisions to make around, you know, are we do we do this or or or not? Um and at that point, Vet said, um, you know, if we don't do it, it would be a couple days, probably. You know, he wouldn't, he wouldn't make it past a few days. And if we did, um they do a biopsy and see if it is malignant. Um, but we know we might have some months or or longer, right? So um that led to a terrible waiting period of having to wait for this biopsy to come back. Right. Uh apparently when stop me at any point if I go off too much here. Oh um, but uh let's see. Apparently, when a dog has a tumor on the spleen like that, about two-thirds of the time it's um malignant. Uh so we we felt like we had we were like, oh, there's like this 33% chance that it's not gonna be, right? So we're kind of crossing our fingers, and then and then eventually the biopsy comes back. I think we had to wait a week or so or more, but um, and then they confirmed that it was malignant and that it was hemangiosarcoma. Hemangiosarcoma is fairly common, not I don't know about common, but um more common in labradors, uh, in I think shepherds as well, and and retrievers in general, but can happen in all dogs. Um and let's see, do do do do um again, stop me at any point. But uh so had our surgery, had a tough recovery from that. Um, had this in oh yeah, information from the vet at that point was that if you do treatment, um, which is basically um chemotherapy, right? Um if you do treatment, then um, well, let's see, backing up a little bit. Without treatment, uh after the splenectomy, the expectation was like one to three months. Um and we knew that going, we I think we knew that going into the surgery, but for me there was no choice about it. It was like I'm gonna do anything I can to save my best friend, you know? Yeah, um, pardon me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, I'm I'm with you.
SPEAKER_02Um, but um so uh then with treatment, the expectation becomes roughly double that. Um, so that meant like two to six months, right? Um but we and there and then there were different options in terms of treatment. So you can do sort of a a more aggressive chemotherapy where you're going in a lot to the vet and doing um, I think it was injections or something. Um there were sort of three options. I think I talk about this in that sub stack without getting too too minute, but um, one of the options became a pill that we could just give him at home when we would have to uh go in just every every sort of once in a while, maybe once a month or something for um little check-ins. But I could do the the pill myself, you know. It was I think it was a daily pill. Right. Um, I don't can't remember the name right off the top of my head. Maybe chlorambacil. I think that might be it. Um, anyways, again, moving along. Um uh so we were on this timeline, right? We had we had we we that we were you know expecting sort of um oh one of the downsides of the of the at-home treatment is a little less expectation. So um uh the more aggressive version would have potentially bought us even longer, maybe even up to like eight months or something. Okay. Um, but it also that particular one also was rough on the heart, and um, he had had some stuff with his heart, um, or there was some evidence basically that that might not be a great great match for us, right?
SPEAKER_00So um so it sounds like an overwhelming amount of options at the time, and you're probably like, wow, what what what do I do? What the heck? That's a lot to take in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think uh, you know, the bottom line is that then we had this, we had some time, we um it just became about enjoying the time we had and and and um me taking on this caretaker role, which became my such such a joy for like you know, it sounds weird, but it was such a joy to to sort of be able to be there for him and and and and sort of help him through everything, you know. Um but we had great quality of life. That's that's the important thing to say. We had after he recovered from his surgery, we um we had just you know really healthy, happy times. Um that's good. He he did at towards the end start having occasional collapses, which was sort of like fainting, um, where he would sort of stiffen up and knock over, but then be okay again. Um but uh yeah, we had we had really good um quality of life. I kept his world small. That was mostly my own anxiety about not wanting to have these collapses happen out in the world or you know, overdo it too much. So we he lived a lot in the apartment and um in our little patio, and my neighbors were kind enough to use us, let us use their little grass patch. Um, and uh to to to um I'll I'll talk uh one of the things I promote as uh in the training world is searching and sniffing. But uh we did just constantly these big blankets folded up with treats inside, so he would have to kind of search and sniff his way through the blanket, which is enriching, it's um it's tiring. So that gave us a lot of stimulation. Um, so yeah, small world, but but good health, you know, healthy times and him feeling really good.
SPEAKER_00So now that and that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02That's a lot of talking, sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, no, and it it and that's good, and that's um yeah, that I was I can imagine that was an overwhelming time and situation in your life with all of these options, and but it sounded like at least you had declared in your mind that I'm gonna do whatever it is within my power to keep my best friend here, but in but in a way that you know it's not gonna add more pain to their life, that you're gonna be able to enjoy it together.
SPEAKER_02For sure. Yeah, I had my eye on the whole time on that. Like, you know, is I I don't want to say I don't mind my friend suffering, but uh, but uh yeah, even even uh we'll do with whatever it took, even if it, you know, it did take a lot of money, it took um, you know, a lot of a lot of time and and uh stress, you know, but uh it was hard, but uh but again the uh being there for him outweighed everything and and just and uh and seeing my boy do okay, you know. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that that's amazing, that's awesome. And then fast forward, you you hit you hinted on him a few times to what you're you're doing today. Yeah, and I I know we've got a we'll have to wrap it up. I think we probably about another five minutes, but oh shoot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, no, like we can talk, we could do this talk all day long, right? You see how natural it comes. Um you talk a little bit about what this what this adventure for lack of a better word inspired within you and you know the path that Charlie helped you start with what you're doing now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks. Um so gosh, let's see. While I was well uh while Charlie was still around, I had started working a little bit with other dogs, um, hosting dogs in my home, um to to sort of do you know boarding in the home, um uh out walking dogs and stuff, um, and sort of starting to learn a little bit about training, but but really it was after he passed um that I well no, actually, I'm sorry, the timeline gets a little foggy. Um I actually so again he inspired me. At a certain point, I sent in an application to a dog training place. This is a himsa dog training where I work in Seattle. Um and uh that was before before Charlie's diagnosis and everything, so he was still healthy and happy then. Um I started working there as an assistant um after having started to walk dogs, take care of dogs, and just sort of get toe-dip into that world. I worked on Rover for a little while, walking dogs, okay, sort of to toe dipping into that world. Um and just sort of started loving, loving being with dogs, you know, loving um Charlie was awesome, so I could bring dogs in the home and you know, they would he would get along with everyone, we'd we'd work it out. Um so again, started volunteering started uh working at this place. Uh, and then that's when the real learning started happening in terms of training, just um uh learning from a really smart group of people. We had a couple PhDs on staff. Um, and again, a himps is all about sort of force-free, compassion-based, you know, positive reinforcement training. Uh and yeah, gosh, I mean, I think the to put it more simply, just how much I love Charlie um sort of showed me how much I love being with dogs. And then that translated to, gosh, I want to be with dogs as much as I can, and if I can work with dogs, well. And uh, and then um again around the pandemic, career change happened uh where I where I flipped from teaching into starting to do full-time dog work. Um yeah, sorry, a little bobby.
SPEAKER_00My answer there, but that's awesome. Um is it something is it more local to the Seattle community, or if somebody lived like in Georgia where I am, they could reach out and do some stuff with you?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question. Um gosh, my my first answer is I'm actually not sure. Most mostly local because we do um sort of uh dogs in class with their owners. But uh we do um they do have a couple online things, like they have a um thing called Fear and Dagression 101, which is just sort of a seminar you can do online. Okay. I maybe I could follow up with you via Substack or something to let you know if that's something that's available to people um you know across the country. But otherwise, more it's pretty local and kind of a lot of dogs, a lot of dogs around the community.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we'll we'll still share. I'll get the I'll get the links or the information from you. We'll definitely still share it in the description of this podcast so folks can you know see that and the folks in the you know West Coast can kind of learn about it and maybe connect with you. Um and then at as we're getting close to to our time or our journey on this episode, um, I'm curious. I want to go back to you mentioned earlier in the conversation kind of that time in between Charlie to James was about a year and a half. So talk a little bit about that. Was that was was his loss such an impact on you that you just needed that time to heal before you could introduce somebody, you know, another one in your life, or yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, good question. Uh just let me know if I'm cutting you off. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00No, no, go for it. The floor is yours.
SPEAKER_02Cool, cool. Uh yeah, so let's see. I mean,
Grief Time And Keeping Love Alive
SPEAKER_02immediately, of course, people who've gone through it know this. Immediately it's just so much pain, you know. You um, you know, uh, I don't think I talked to anyone for two weeks after after losing him. I think I just kind of, you know, I'm just in my own world right now. Um uh you know pretty quick desi pretty quickly had a desire for you know companionship and and you know I missed it and everything. But uh and there's this idea of like you never want to replace you never want to replace someone who's so special, like you know, you know, you don't want to but um I know people do it lots of ways. Some people will get a dog right afterwards and and it's a good thing for them, and it's and so no judgment at all about that. Um but yeah, for me, gosh, I just I just yeah, um maybe part of it was about just me continuing to sort of yeah get over the grief, but also to continue to celebrate him and and uh and make sure that I wasn't sort of moving on to a new friend if that I don't know. Um I get it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and and then you know the conversation started a long quite a while before getting James and um and then just took a while to sort of get there and and be totally ready for it. Um but uh yeah, I mean process. Yeah, healing process for sure. Um Charlie taught me about dogs, and I got to take all of that to James, and now I get to take now I get to raise James with all this wonderful knowledge, which is just incredible. So I thank I thank Charlie for that. One of the things you'll hear me say a lot on Substack is is um, you know, I I I I still feel like I celebrate him all the time. I like I I I immediately felt like he's not gone because he's he's always with me, you know, and you probably you probably understand that feeling, you know, that they're they're they're net they're not even though they're physically gone, there's they're such a part of you that um that it's it doesn't feel like a total loss, you know what I mean? Um yeah, and then the other thing I say a lot is uh is with time, the painful part gets less, you know, that immediately it's just painful or so hard. With time, that gets a little smaller, but the love and the celebration keeps getting bigger, you know.
SPEAKER_00Um I love that. No, and I that that's probably a great way to close because you were gonna you you were hitting on what I was gonna ask you around just advice you might give others going through you know similar situations right now, recent experiences, and I th I think you just I I think you nailed it with you know, takes time, you know, we all we all recover differently or heal differently. Um but yeah, any any before we kind of end here, any any closing thoughts you might have from an advisor you feel like we kind of we we might have already hit on that.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, gosh, gosh, just that uh you know just that as as hard of a thing it is, it uh it's uh it's um being there, being there and helping helping your dog through these things is is so uh feels so good. You know, even the um you know uh Charlie was um euthanized and uh and you know helping him through that process felt so damn good, you know, to um to to make sure he it uh it was all peaceful and okay. It was at home. Um uh so again, I don't I don't want to go on too long, but uh um just uh uh helping helping your best friend through the whole life up until the end is uh is uh um honorable an honor to be able to do for our buddies, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Final Reflections And Thanks
SPEAKER_00No, that that's beautiful, that's awesome. Um and and John, thanks for create thanks for agreeing to be on this podcast and sharing the story. Um, you know, Charlie, you know, sounded like an amazing fur kid. Um so it's you know, it's it's doing these things is what inspires me to do more. So I will definitely do what I can do on my end to you know, share, share your work, what you're doing. We'll definitely I've got your Substack, so I'll get a link to that so other you know folks, the listeners of the show can follow you and just follow along in your journey as you talk about it. But um don't go anywhere just yet. But again, I just wanted to thank you for being on today's episode.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, and thank you for letting me ramble on a little bit. Yeah, what with uh you know I'm I'm all over the place. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you, Daniel.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, John.