His breathing grew ragged.
He’d lift his head, fighting for air, his flanks heaving like furry white bellows. Our 16-year-old husky mix dog Sirius White was nearing the end.
Nine weeks earlier, the vet and I had huddled outside the clinic in the rain because they were only doing drop-offs.
Our dog’s increasingly hoarse bark and panting wasn’t something lodged in his throat. The x-ray showed inoperable lung tumors.
Two months, the vet said. But there are things we can try. Chemo, radiation.
But he was so old. I wanted his last days to be peaceful.
The vet rattled off medications we could try. Steroids, gabapentin, CBD oil, Chinese herbs. I ordered them all.
My father had died of emphysema, gasping for breath in the hospital. Now the anguished memory of watching a loved one die this way roared back.
Did the vet do home euthanasia visits?
She shook her head. Too busy.
She went back inside to get my dog and I stared at the curtain of cold gray rain that suddenly mirrored the landscape in my heart.
“I couldn’t help but overhear, I’m so sorry,” said a lady I’d been chatting with. “I rescue cats and sometimes when they’re old and sick, I know a vet who comes to the house.”
Numbly, I got out my phone.
They’re very kind, she added.
And so I pecked the words Gifts of Peace into my phone, glad for the raindrops on my face.
***
Dr. Robin Holmes graduated from North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine and spent 20 years in general practice in Southern California. When her mother fell terminally ill and wanted to die at home, Holmes nursed her through hospice care and emerged from that searing experience with a newfound appreciation for a peaceful end.
“This is what we all want, to die at home surrounded by our loved ones, but so few of us get that,” she says.
Holmes had read about at-home pet euthanasia and was looking for change and more flexibility in her job. She decided this was what she wanted to do.
“It’s something I feel very strongly about, to have dignity and a choice and have it peaceful,” she told me.
When she started Gifts of Peace 12 years ago, Holmes, who lives in the San Gabriel Valley, advertised and visited clinics to introduce her practice. Today, she relies on referrals and word of mouth. After so many years, she even has repeat clients.
The business is just her and a bookkeeper and a veterinary phone service in the Midwest staffed by compassionate receptionists she’s never met.
Holmes treats mostly dogs and cats, with the occasional hamster and rabbit. As a dog owner herself, she understands and empathizes with what her clients face. Her demeanor is calm, gentle and professional. She listens and takes her time. Her mantra: “Whenever you’re ready.”
***
For the next month, Dr. Holmes’ number sat like a trapped genie inside my phone, an ominous but also strangely comforting vision as our dog’s breathing grew worse. When his pain and distress overrode quality of life, I’d call.
At first, the medications seemed to help. Sirius ate like a champ and still enjoyed walking around the block. Sitting at the head of our driveway, he and our cats basked in the winter sun. But he slept more. He panted a lot. Despite the winter weather, he wanted to be outside, chest and belly pressed against the cold ground.
He was already 3 when we’d brought him home 13 years earlier from the Baldwin Park shelter. Our kids named him Sirius White, in homage to Harry Potter’s godfather Sirius Black, who turned into a big black dog. Celestially, Sirius is also the dog star, and our dog was a definite star, a goodwill ambassador who liked other dogs, cats, and people — even the mailman, who’d pet him through the gate. With his pale blue eyes, he set aflutter the hearts of every little girl in the neighborhood, who’d pet him and coo “you’re so pretty.”
He was an enthusiastic companion to our two boys, loping alongside bikes, Rollerblades and skateboards, gleefully shredding mail packages, and trotting down the sidewalk, tail high, with a giant palm frond in his mouth like it was the biggest and best bone ever.
Sirius was also my trail-running buddy. With a 70-pound dog at my side, I felt confident traversing remote canyons and secluded regions of Griffith Park and the Verdugo Mountains.
But now as winter wound down, Sirius did too. He’d flop down beside me and his breathing was more akin to finishing a marathon than padding across the house. But like us all, he had good days and bad.
One night, our older son woke us up at midnight. “Mom, Sirius is really bad. I think you better call that vet first thing tomorrow.”
We raced outside with more Gabapentin and CBD oil, then woke to the jingle of Sirius licking out his food bowl, eager for breakfast. As we walked him around the block, he sniffed deeply and mindfully at every shrub and I thought, how can I put down a dog that still enjoys life?
Still, that day, I made an exploratory call to Gifts of Peace.
If compassion can flow through phone lines, this voice did. The woman at the other end listened and murmured soothing things, gracefully ignoring the cracks in my voice.
Then came the deets: Dr. Holmes preferred 24-hour notice but could sometimes do a same-day visit depending on her workload. She’d administer two shots — one to bring on twilight sleep, and then the coup de grâce. She’d take the body away if we wanted. Fees varied from $3-$600, depending on the size of your pet and the aftercare option you chose (urn with ashes, communal cremation, removal of body, etc.) (Most municipalities prohibit backyard burials, so check local laws).
How would I know when the time was right? The receptionist ticked off the same symptoms the vet had given me: not eating, immobility, reduced bodily functions, obvious distress and pain.
He’s not ready yet, I confessed, and neither are we.
You call back when you are, she soothed.
Several more times, I picked up the phone and spoke to this disembodied voice. I think it will be the day after tomorrow. I think it will be this weekend. But each time, I couldn’t commit.
“Look at his eyes following us, it’s like he’s pleading with us to help him, to do something,” I told my husband.
“What if the vet comes out and says, ‘I can’t put this dog to sleep, he isn’t ready,’” my husband said.
And so we wrung our hands and went round and round.
***
The night had been bad. I called Gifts of Peace one last time. I called neighbors who loved Sirius and they came to say goodbye. Again, it was cold and raining.
Dr. Holmes arrived promptly and immediately put us at ease. And, even a cynical journalist like me, who’d rolled my eyes at the euphemisms of this industry which could evoke an Evelyn Waugh novel, relaxed.
She carried a pillow and a blanket, which I knew were for Sirius. She was patient. She indulged our overwhelming need to tell her what a good dog he was and the funniest things he’d done.
We did the paperwork and paid. For the young girl up the street who loved him, Holmes gave us a list of children’s books that addressed the death of a beloved pet.
Once we were ready, she tucked the pillow under his head and gave the first shot. Sirius drifted into unconsciousness.
Dr. Robin said that for dogs with respiratory diseases, sedation is often enough to put them over. But Sirius breathed on. He was old and terribly sick, but he wanted to pull that sled into eternity.
As my husband and I petted Sirius and waited, I bemoaned the gloomy weather. But Dr. Robin said it was a perfect day for a husky impervious to the wet and cold and we all laughed because she was right.
After checking that we were ready, she gave the shot to put Sirius to sleep, then tucked the blanket over him and went out to her car to give us some time. I couldn’t pinpoint the moment he died, his breathing was so shallow by then, but Holmes said it only takes moments. After final goodbyes, we called Dr. Robin back and she checked with a stethoscope to make sure he was gone. She and my husband loaded our dog into her car.
I couldn’t watch that part. Cold and shivering, I went to take a hot shower, crying.
****
A week later, I caught up with Dr. Robin in a less fraught setting. While I mourned my dog, I was also curious to know how she handled what must be a psychologically grueling job.
“People tell me, you have the hardest job in the world,” Holmes said, “but I tell them that they do. I’m there to support them and make it as smooth as possible. I’m empathetic. But crying along with them is not what they need. I’m there to keep everybody together.”
Jane Murphy of Altadena called Holmes when the end came for her beloved Italian greyhound, who had renal failure and a tumor.
“I have deep gratitude, I think it’s a very merciful way to take your dog out of a very painful situation,” Murphy says. “It was a very loving experience. She’s so sensitive and has a soft presence at a time of great grief for families.”
Holmes says the easiest appointments are when everybody knows it’s time and people start to tell stories and there’s laughter interspersed with tears.
Has she ever refused to euthanize an animal?
“Usually when I go to people’s homes, they’ve talked to my receptionist or they’ve called me and we’ve talked it through, and I’ve reviewed bloodwork. Ninety percent of the time, their vets have already given them guidance.”
Only twice has she arrived and counseled against euthanasia. One was for a cat with a thyroid condition and the other an arthritic dog. In both cases, Holmes convinced the owners to try medication first.
But some visits just break her heart.
“There was an old man, and it was his wife’s poodle, and the wife had died. He told me, ‘I’m not getting another dog, I’m too old.’ On those days, I just go sit outside in my yard when I get home and watch nature for a long time.”
Other visits remind her of the mortality of her own elderly dogs, ages 14 and 15. “I saw a poodle the other day that reminded me of my guy,” Holmes says. “I’m kind of on this path myself.”
Holmes was part of an early wave of vets who specialized in home pet euthanasia. The field has grown exponentially since 2011, when 32 vets attended the newly formed International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care, says executive director Coleen A. Ellis. Today, the association has 2,026 members and its 2021 conference drew 275 attendees, with 70% of them new to the industry, Ellis says.
***
We still see our ghost dog everywhere. Each time I pull into the driveway, I’m shocked he isn’t prancing at the gate, ready to nip at the grocery bags as he escorts me inside. There is no one to eat the kitchen scraps. No one nuzzles my arm as I sit and read. And it feels so strange to walk the neighborhood without him.
But he lived long. And this is the end I would have given him. Not in a building full of nervous dogs and the smell of fear and disinfectant.
Dr. Holmes made that possible.
Source: Orange County Register
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