Dr. Mary Gardner joins the show to talk about when pet owners don’t believe in euthanasia. This can be an emotional experience full of hard conversations for veterinarians. Let’s get into it!
You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
LINKS
Links to Amazon.com are affiliate links and help support the show. (They’re also much smaller than normal links and easier to copy when typing up show notes!)
Lap of Love Pet Hospice: https://www.lapoflove.com/
It’s Never Long Enough: A practical guide to caring for your geriatric dog: https://amzn.to/3TpvhNi
Nine Lives Are Not Enough: A Practical Guide to Caring for Your Geriatric Cat (Old Cat Care and Pet Loss): https://amzn.to/40aEviE
Dr. Mary Gardner Homepage: https://www.drmarygardner.com/
Dr. Mary Gardner YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrMaryGardner
Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
There is nothing better to Dr. Gardner than a dog with a grey muzzle or skinny old cat! Her professional goal is to increase awareness and medical care for the geriatric veterinary patient and to help make the final life stage to be as peaceful as possible, surrounded with dignity and support for all involved.
A University of Florida graduate (AND ANDY’S CLASSMATE!), she discovered her niche in end-of-life care and is the co-founder and CIO of Lap of Love which has over 300 veterinarians around the country dedicated to veterinary hospice and euthanasia in the home.
Dr. Gardner and Lap of Love have been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, The New York Times, the Associated Press, The Doctors and numerous professional veterinary publications. She is co-author of the textbook “The Treatment and Care of the Veterinary Patient”, co-author of a children’s activity book focused on saying goodbye to a dog called “Forever Friend”, and the author of a book dedicated to pet owners “It’s Never Long Enough: A practical guide to caring for your geriatric dog”. Dr. Gardner also won VMX Small Animal Speaker of the year in 2020!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to the Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I’m here with my friend, the one and only Dr. Mary Gardner. You are going to hear us talk. We’re going to reminisce about the old days, but we’ve got a great episode today.
Mary is amazing. I always learned so much when I talk to her. We are talking today about hospice care when pet owners don’t believe in euthanasia. And so it is a bit of a heavy topic. But also know that Mary and I, we’ve been friends for 20 years and we are pretty tight. And so you’ll hear us talk pretty candidly and we do joke around because that’s who we are.
And also everybody who’s been in vet medicine knows that sometimes you have to have a little levity when you talk about heavy subjects because it’s just how you go and how you cope. And so you’ll hear us joke around a little bit about maybe dark stuff on this episode. Know that it comes from a good place. Know that it’s a coping mechanism that we all have for having hard conversations of this type.
So anyway, I don’t want anybody to be bothered by that, but we do enjoy each other a lot and we do make light of our profession as best we can. So anyway, guys, that’s enough of that stuff. Let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to The Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Mary Gardner. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Hi, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s so good to have you back. I love having you on the podcast. For those who don’t know you, you are a classmate of mine from the University of Florida. We have known each other for-
Dr. Mary Gardner:
19.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… Oh gosh, almost 20 years now.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
We need a 20-year anniversary.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Next year. Yeah.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Next year.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, we do. There’s other people that we met who could also…
Dr. Mary Gardner:
I’m so [inaudible 00:02:12].
Dr. Andy Roark:
They were also in our class. But mostly just you and me, I think mostly just you and me. We should get together. You are also the co-founder of a Lap of Love Pet Hospice, which is almost certainly the largest veterinary hospice company in the world. And so I am so glad you’re here.
You and I have had many philosophical conversations over the years, and I always really love to hear your perspective on these things. And I saw was a social media post recently, and a young doctor was asking for guidance because she had a patient who, in her opinion, needed to be put to sleep.
And the owners, “Did not believe in euthanasia.” And she was really struggling with this belief that she was prolonging suffering by not performing euthanasia. But the owners, well just said no. And it wasn’t a question of necessarily them understanding, I don’t think, but they did not think that that was a thing that should be done.
And so it reminded me of a case that still bothers me that I had way back at the very beginning of my career when I had a dog with kidney failure and it had acute renal disease, and this dog’s kidneys were shutting down and it was sick and it had been vomiting as dehydrated, and the owners refused to put this dog to sleep. And I remember it went in uric at one point and you could just see it suffering and it still bothers me today.
And so you have so much experience with euthanasia and hospice, and you take hospice very seriously as far as ongoing care, not just euthanasia. And so you’ve worked with so many people and you’ve seen this across your whole organization, and I just wanted to start to get your perspective on what it’s like to work with pet owners who say, “I don’t believe in euthanasia,” or things like that? And so let me just start this at a high level and say, is this a thing that you see?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
So usually not so much at Lap of Love because if they’re calling a euthanasia company, they want it. However, with that being said, a lot of people assume hospice means I don’t want to euthanize, so I just want to hospice them. And that was a huge just misconception, I think when we started it over a decade ago is when people heard hospice, they said, “Well, you’re prolonging suffering.” And I’m like, “No, no, no. You don’t understand. Almost all of my hospice families want euthanasia. They just want to live well until that time.” And that’s what hospice really is. It’s not about how you die.
So there are some people that call us because they don’t understand that and we’ll get to it, but they think of human hospice because we do not have euthanasia in human medicine. So they kind of then think, “Oh, well that hospice is what I want.” So that would be the only time when people call us at Lap of Love that don’t want euthanasia. And then they’ll say, “I just want hospice.”
And I think that will be a point I’ll bring up. Let’s talk about hospice, palliative sedation, and things like that with the family if they don’t want to. Now you said this post was they were adamant that they didn’t believe in euthanasia?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. So again, that’s just what I took away from the post was that the pet owners said, “We do not believe in euthanasia. We want our pet to pass naturally.” And that’s where they came from. And so I have a number of questions of morally, philosophically, how do you look at this in a way that makes you feel okay? Is there a way to make you feel okay?
And then getting into some action steps or approaches of what do you do from a communication standpoint with the pet owners? What do you say to them? And then honestly, what do you do?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Okay, so first-
Dr. Andy Roark:
I say, yeah, easy questions. Should be pretty easy.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
God, I hope I remember all of them. So first, ethically, morally, like that whole world, right? So our degree is to end suffering and prolong it from ever occurring. So we definitely want to end suffering. Do I believe in euthanasia? Of course I do, that’s part of the company. Do I understand or I don’t know if understand is… I respect some people who think differently than me.
So if they think differently than me and they don’t believe in it, so then what can we agree on? And we will always agree that we don’t want the pet to suffer. So I always get to that point, “Okay, I’m fine, but let’s talk about what is suffering.” But that’s the action items. So it not for everybody, there are some veterinarians that actually will not euthanize an animal. So yeah, there are some-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Really?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
They don’t believe in it just religiously, whatever it may be. So there’s that. And there are some religions that do not believe in killing animals. And there are vegans and things like that that are very anti it. So I think it’s important to not judge and just really have a good conversation. And so I think there are different levels of not believing in it.
There’s truly, I do not believe in killing animals. And on my non-sassy day is, or on my sassy days internally, I think, “So you’re a vegan because are you okay with your steak tonight or your chicken sandwich? But you’re not okay with Rusty?” But I don’t say that ever. This is just after a long week, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I would not say that.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
I’m sure everybody on this call, you have that long week where you’re just want to shake them because they’re not making any sense and you’re being a hypocrite. But I will come off my judgment mountain for a second and just say, “All right, there are some people who do not honestly believe in euthanasia.” Then there’s others that are scared of euthanasia. And I think that’s actually more of what we see. And it just turns into, “I don’t believe in it,” because they’re petrified of it.
Hello. They love their animal and they never want to say goodbye. So they’re also on Denial Island, and they just don’t understand. This may be the first time. They’re confused. There’s a lot of crap going on that we don’t know about in their lives. And so I think it’s really important to have a non-judgmental conversation with them first, understand what are their concerns? What are their fears? Where are they coming from?
Dr. Andy Roark:
How do you do that? I think this is great. I think you’re exactly right. Just sort of try to dig into this and explore a little bit of, “When you say you don’t believe in euthanasia, what do you mean?” Do you have wording or a way that you try to set the conversation up? I like your idea of working around to, “We both agreed that suffering is unacceptable.” I like that a lot.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
My first thing I say, “Let me just try to understand on what your belief systems are.” So I will just simply ask, but you have to do it in a kind non-judgmental way. You have to say, “I just want to make sure I do the best for you and what your wishes are. You do not believe in euthanizing animals? I just want to understand.” Or “Do you have some concerns, questions, fears?” Whatever that may be. And if they’re rock solid on do not believe, then okay, I’m not going to do some of my other stuff.
But really any, and you’ll have some that are just like, “I don’t think it’s time to euthanize.” So there’s the difference between, “I will never euthanize,” and also, “I don’t think it’s the time,” that you’re staring at this potato chip of a cat that’s barely moving.
We’ve seen maggots coming out of their faces and the owners are still like, “I don’t think it’s time.” So that’s also part of this. So there’s a myriad of situations. And I really have seen maggots come out of a cat’s face before. So that’s why I bring this up.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, I could have gone my whole life not knowing that.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
So bad. So you have to find out where they’re at and if they’re nervous or they just don’t want to say goodbye, and then there’s different avenues that we’ll go down. But let’s go with the, “I don’t believe in it.” So then I say, “Okay, could we agree that we don’t want Rusty to suffer though?” And no one’s ever going to say no. They’re all going to say, “Yes, that they don’t want him to suffer.” And then my next action item is, “What to you is suffering for Rusty?”
And if there’s multiple people, I actually want them to write it down and not talk out loud. I say, “I want you to take a piece of paper. I want you to write down what are qualities that make suffering be present? What are some of the things that are happening or would happen in the future?” And sometimes just doing that, they get like, “Oh, maybe he-“
Dr. Andy Roark:
Everything on the list they’ve seen happen. They’re like, “I’m writing down yesterday.”
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Correct.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, I can totally imagine that.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
The first thing is to establish they don’t want him to suffer. So I always, “Okay, I agree. I don’t want Rusty to suffer either. I agree.” Just keep saying it. So let’s talk about what are the things that we would consider him suffering? And then you write it down and let’s talk about it and share it. And this, by the way, is also very good for the owners that don’t agree. So the mom and dad or the spouses or whatever that don’t agree with each other.
So I say, “Let’s write it down together.” And then we have to say, “Okay, are any of these things happening right now?” Now there’s also Denial Island where like maggots coming out of the face. It’s not happening, or they just don’t think… I get so many. There’s this dog that walks around my neighborhood and I swear it’s as slow as a slot. One wind and it’s knocked over. And he’s like, “He’s just slowing down.” I know it’s time soon. And I’m like, “This dog needs to be on stuff for gosh sakes.” But he’s on Denial Islands. So got to be gentle.
So that’s my first step. And then let’s talk about those things. Are they suffering? So my next action item is doing quality of life scales together. Because whether we’re going to euthanize or do palliative care and I explain that palliative care is ensuring that their pain and anxieties is taken care of. So wouldn’t you agree that we at least need to manage his pain and anxiety?
So then I like to do quality of life scales together. And that’s where I say, if it’s the person who’s on the fence about euthanasia, these are fantastic to do because then you’re going to draw a line in the sand with them.
There’s so many quality life scores out there. Lap of Love, we have some. I have my own in my book separate, Ohio State has some, so you can just quality life of scale and see tons of them. But it allows you to draw a line in the sand with the families. If they don’t want to euthanize it allows you to manage how their pet is doing for pain relief and anxiety relief. Pain scores and things like that too are really good.
Now, the voodoo magic also is to talk about natural passing. And I usually flip them at this point. So I say, “All right, I want to,” and you have to sound like you want to support them, “I want to support your decision.” And you know what I do? If somebody’s so anti it, “Okay, but we’re going to make sure your pet’s not suffering.”
I lost my sister last summer, Andy, and we didn’t-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, I’m so sorry.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
We don’t have euthanasia. Her last two days, we should have had her in hospice for weeks before, so don’t even get me on that path. So two days before, and she just had a lot of morphine and I was like, “Okay, because we don’t do euthanasia, so let’s make sure she’s not feeling pain.” And she is sedated a lot. And that is something that you can do is palliative sedation and talk to owners about what we do in human medicine.
So if an owner is anti it, “Okay, but it is my job to make sure that that pet is not suffering.” So I want to talk to the owner about what natural passing is going to look like for the disease or the ailment their pet has. So a natural passing for a dog with arthritis, well, we got years ahead on us. This is going to be a lot on the caregiver. This is going to be flipping the dog, making sure there’s not bed sores, [inaudible 00:14:26], there’s poop all over. You go through the list and I have to explain to them that Mother Nature usually does not take care of arthritis. That’s not a disease you die from typically unless you’re in such severe pain.
But okay, your dog has heart failure, your cat has kidney failure. Let’s talk about how they will die naturally from that disease and let’s avoid some of the horrible symptoms that they’re going to experience. And then I say, “And let me talk about the day and when they pass.” I have a little mini movie that I play in my talks and my lectures that’s a cat that’s dying of kidney failure. And it takes about three hours for this cat to die. And it’s just paddling and it’s head is back.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s a long lecture.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
I show a clip of it. And I don’t show that to families.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… lecture just right there.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
But what’s interesting, Andy, is that so many of us in veterinary medicine have never really watched a pet die slowly. We always intervene. So if we’ve got a pet dying, we intervene.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure, of course. Yeah.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
So we’ve never sat there and said, “Okay, this is the end stage of kidney failure, lymphoma,” or whatever it may be, “and let’s watch them slowly die.” We always intervene. So it was interesting to watch this video to see the cat pulling its head back, paddling, things like that. And so I’ll say to owners, “It may be extremely peaceful. It may be in the middle of the night and it might be totally fine, but I want to prepare you so that way you’re not startled or scared when you see some of the things that happen in natural passing.” And that usually they’re like, “Well, what’s that Dr. Mary?” So then I’m like, “Okay.” They don’t know.
Dr. Andy Roark:
They don’t know. I think you’re right. I think people have this beautiful idea of, “I’ll wake up one morning and they’ll be peacefully nestled in their bed.”
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Peaceful.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that will be that.
Hey guys, I just want to hop in really quick and give a quick plug. The Uncharted Veterinary Conference is coming in April. Guys, I founded the Uncharted Veterinary Conference in 2017. It is a one-of-a-kind conference. It is all about business. It is about internal communications working effectively inside your practice. If you’re a leader, that means you can be a medical director. It means you can be an associate vet who really wants to work well with your technicians. It means you can be a head technician, a head CSR. You can be practice owner, practice manager, multi-site manager, multi-site medical director. We work with a lot of those people.
This is all about building systems, setting expectations to work effectively with your people. Guys, Uncharted is a pure mentorship conference. That means that we come together and there is a lot of discussion. We create a significant percentage of the schedule, the agenda, at the event, which means we are going to talk about the things that you are interested in. It is always, as I said, business communication focused, but lots of freedom inside that to make sure that you get to talk about what you want to talk about. We really prioritize people being able to have one-on-one conversations to pick people’s brains, to get advice from people who have wrestled with the problems that they are currently wrestled with. We make all that stuff happen.
If you want to come to a conference where you do not sit and get lectured at, but you work on your own practice, your own challenges, your own growth and development, that’s what Uncharted is. Take a chance, give us a look. Come and check it out. It is in April. I’ll put a link in the show notes for registration, ask anybody who’s been, it’s something special. All right, let’s get back into this episode.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
So I also share my own dog, Neo, who you might have met back in the day, my Doberman.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I remember. Remember when you invited me to your house and I went out to my car and I came back in and I found myself locked out so I went to the back door and I opened the back door and Neo came to meet me, the Doberman Pinscher. And I thought, “Oh no, this is how I’m going to die.”
Dr. Mary Gardner:
This is how you’re going to die. So he had Cushings, he add adrenal tumor which I had removed and then it wasn’t benign. So he was doing chemo. I go full bore on all my animals. They’re getting everything. Anyway, it was the day after Thanksgiving and at 2:00 in the afternoon I went to go help a cat say goodbye.
And I came home and Neo was dead in my house and he died without me. And it broke my heart because I wasn’t there to say, “I love you.” I wasn’t there to make sure it went well. I wasn’t there for so many reasons. And so I don’t share that so dramatically with families. But I say, “If you want to be present, if you want to say goodbye, if you want to ensure that it’s as peaceful as possible, the only way we can guarantee that is with euthanasia. So I just want you to know that you may not be present. You may come home and it’s not going to be in the…”
Neo was just stuck in the hallway. His legs were stiff. I couldn’t get him out of the hallway. It was horrible. So it may not be, “And I want to prepare you that you could go run to Publix and come back and Rusty’s gone. And also here are the symptoms that you may see.” And listen, if it’s heart failure, I’m going to say, “He will drown in his lung fluid and it’s not going to look good. So we need to avoid any of that.”
So that usually, actually, a lot of people get on the train then. They’re like, “I like what you’re talking about, about it being peaceful.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I would process it that way as well. Even if I had preconceived notions, I think I would hear that.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Totally.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I might have to sleep on it. But I think I would get up and say, “You know what? This is not what I want.”
Dr. Mary Gardner:
A 100%. And then I’ll say, “And I want to talk about where the emergency clinics are.” And then they usually say, “Well, why would I want that?” And I just say, “Just in case Rusty is struggling with his departure.” And I always say, “Euthanasia is not ending life. Euthanasia is ending the dying process.”
So if at any time, and I want to give them that so they don’t think I’m judgy, I don’t want them thinking they can’t come into my clinic with their tail between their legs because they’re embarrassed. If at any time this becomes too much for you or the process is too difficult for you to watch, please come to us or here go to the emergency clinic. So they could change their mind last minute because it’s not good or Rusty with arthritis is not dying.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I love this approach. I think that most people have preconceived notions about what it would mean to have a natural death or to not have euthanasia and then just honest education about, “This is what you’re in for.” And I do think that clear is kind usually and just saying, “This is what I want you to be aware of.”
It’s kind of like when we do a euthanasia and we tell the person, “Your pet may gasp or things like that.” I know it’s not the most pleasant thing to tell someone, but it’s a whole lot better than them finding out unexpectedly on their own.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
You know what I do for that? Little sidetrack. So for me, I always explain that their eyelids will not close. So they’ll remain slightly open. They will relax their bladder. And then here’s my trick. I say if anything else happens, I’ll explain it at that time. And I say that very calm and clear to make sure they hear me sit so that way I don’t have to list, “He may have a agonal breath, he may have a seizure, he may vocalize, he may twitch, he may do the, but if it starts to happen, I’ll say, remember when I said if something else happens, I’ll explain it. Let me explain this now.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I’m writing that down. I’m putting that in my playbook. That’s good stuff.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
You don’t want to scare them.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That makes so much sense.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
But I do want to scare them, or at least be open and honest for natural passing, because again, it could be completely peaceful. And I know people who have said that it was perfect, but were they there when they actually died? How many times do we hear people rushing to the emergency room and the pet dies on the way there? It just happens. And then I want to talk to them about pain management and anxiety management.
So whatever the species are the best for that. If it’s morphine, if it’s ketamine, talk to them about giving these medications. If it’s a fentanyl patch, why not? What do we do in human medicine? We highly medicate. And now you’ve had the conversation earlier about suffering and say, “Okay, irretractable pain is suffering. How comfortable are you with seeing that? And if you don’t want to see that, then we must give medication. You have to give this medication or you will see that.”
I don’t want to ever say, “Fair, it’s not fair,” because that’s all judgy words. So, “”That’s not what the experience that you want for Rusty to be.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. When people are on Denial Island, you go through your presentations or through your spiel and everything and then do you just give them some time or are there ways that you kind of circle back around every now and then? Are there things that you can do to … It seems to me like they kind of have to come to the realization in their own time?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
They do.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you agree with that?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
They do. I would agree with that. I think for those that are on Denial Island and actually a good friend, or it was a client of mine and she had her dog and it had liver failure and it was just horrible. And she called me, she’s like, “Mary, I’ve done your quality life scales and I’m on Denial Island and I need you to come help me.” She’s the one that told me that. And I’m like, “Okay.” And so I said, “Well, why don’t I do the quality of life scale for Darby from what I see and let’s compare notes?” And she literally gave Darby an excellent. And I was like, “Darby’s not excellent.”
And when I did the scale, it said euthanasia is appropriate. And so she just said, “Okay.” And she’s like, “Can I have an extra day though?” And I was like, “A 100%.” This was a Friday. I said, “I’ll come back on Sunday.” And that just helped her.
So sometimes they do need to sit back and process it, but so many clinics do not have quality of life scales on their website. That’s our number one page on our website is the quality of lifestyle. It should be on every clinic’s website, kittens and puppy stuff, the clinic you work at, you got that?
Dr. Andy Roark:
We’re going to say yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
But it’s helpful to have… I did a video that’s my number one watched video because it’s just me going through my quality of life lecture but to pet owners. And I just send that all day long to people and I’m like, “Watch this.” And they’re like, “Oh, that was so helpful.”
But to the point of they need to process it and start with gentle, kind conversation, and information and check back in with them and do not judge. I had this one guy that was going into his clinic every single day with this cat that was the [inaudible 00:25:05] cat. And we went to go euthanize him the cat, or we went to go do a hospice appointment and the woman was in her 50s, but she had early onset Alzheimers. And when my vet started to talk about euthanasia, “When it’s time…”
This woman just went bonkers. And she was just like, “How dare you talk about killing my cat?” It just sent her over the edge. So the wife went away and so the husband said, “I can’t euthanize my cat because this is what’s happening with my wife and it’s going to set her back mentally with her disease.” And so he’s like, “Can you guys sneak in the morning and just euthanize the cat so it could look like it was euthanized?”
So I called the clinic though just because I was like, “I want to talk to the doctor like normally.” And they said, “Thank you for telling us this because he comes in every day for subcu fluids and we didn’t know why he wasn’t euthanizing this cat.” They just assumed he just was on Denial Island or he didn’t believe in euthanasia and he just didn’t know. He was up to his eyeballs in life.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
And he needed help. So we helped him. But it’s so important to just try to have open conversations and leave your judgment hat at the door because this is tough. And remember, it’s the worst decision anyone has to make. It’s the worst. So of course they’re going to have struggles. Of course, they’re not going to understand. Of course they’re want to say, “I want every last minute.” So I get it. As do I. But I want them to avoid what I had with Neo.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think it’s probably good for us as veterinarians and vet professionals to have pets because it’s always a reminder when bad things happen to your pet. And I know I’m not the only one who’s suddenly an idiot when it’s my pet. My years of medical training go. I was like, “I think he’s fine. He’s fine.”
Dr. Mary Gardner:
I remember with Neo when I was talking to the oncologist that she’s like, “So his AFAS is really high.” I’m like, “What does that mean?” I could not tell you at all what AFAS meant. I’m like, “I don’t know. What do you want me to do about it? What? Milk thistle? What?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don’t know if I don’t want to know what it means or if I forget what it means, but yeah. Boy, when you’re on the other side of the table, it reminds you of how hard it is. So anyway, Dr. Mary Garner, you are amazing.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Oh, Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Last time you were here, you had your new book was out. It was called, Never Long Enough. It was about hospice and dogs. And you have your new book now. It just came out in January. It’s called, I think, Nine Lives Are Never Long Enough?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
The dog book is, It’s Never Long Enough. And the cat book is, Nine Lives Are Not Enough. And it’s not just about hospice, Andy. It’s all about aging and caring for your senior and geriatric pet. So it’s all practical tips in the home. And I cover the ailments. So vision issues or mobility issues, not necessarily arthritis or disc disease, but what to do with the dog that can’t walk very well or a cat that’s got vision issues and things like that. And then I do talk about hospice. I have a whole chapter in quality life assessment, caregiver goals. I do talk about natural passing actually in that book.
So I have a whole chapter on it because I want to address it because it is what some people, and I talk about the symptoms, they may see the agonal breath and things like that. And then I also talk about euthanasia. So that way it might be helpful to direct people to that, just for them to absorb it. It’s on Kindle too, so they could just watch it, look, read it whenever.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I love it. I’ll put links to both of those books in the show notes so people can find them.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Thank you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
What are your favorite resources of, the quality of life scale, for example. Where else do you like to send people? What are the links that people should have access to?
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Oh, perfect. So lapoflove.com absolutely is the first one. So we’ve got a ton of things on there. And we are redoing a huge pet hospice journal that I developed back in 2012, and we’re revamping it. And it’s just a badass diary and quality of life assessment and things like that. So that’ll be out by the end of the year. And also drmarygardner.com, I’ve got a lot of good resources and my YouTube channel’s good too. So it’s Dr. Mary Gardner on YouTube, and that’s where I have my videos on quality of life assessment.
I even have me with my other dogs. I have one that’s like, “Even as a vet, it’s hard to say goodbye.” I think owners really love when we are honest about the struggles that we have, like you said. They know then we’re human also.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, man. I’ll put links to all that stuff in this show notes.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Thank you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Mary, thank you so much for being here. Guys, thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoy this. I got new tools in my toolbox. That’s a win of a podcast for me. So anyway, thanks a lot everybody.
Dr. Mary Gardner:
Thank you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that’s our episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks again to Dr. Mary Gardner for being here. Check the show notes for links to her books. I put the quality of life scale links in there as well. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well. Talk to you later. Bye.
