Navigating Pet Loss and Grief with Nancy Gordon, LCSW, CLC

In this episode, Amy interviews Nancy Gordon, LCSW, CLC, an international best-selling author and expert on grief and loss who specializes in helping people navigate the grief and loss of a pet. They discuss anticipatory grief, changing pet loss narratives, the impact of our language when losing a pet, and more.

To learn more about Nancy and how you might work with her, go to https://nancygordonglobal.com/

Transcript

Season 1 Episode 2: Nancy Gordon_Pet Loss and Grief

Announcer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know, do have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet. So, sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk Rescue Adoption and pet Parenting done right.

Amy Castro: Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro, and in today's episode we're going to discuss a difficult subject that most pet parents don't really want to talk about, and that is the death or impending death of a pet. But no matter how we feel about the subject, the bottom line is our pets just do not live as long as we wish that they would.

And it's important that when their time on this earth is coming to an end, that we are as prepared as we can possibly. So, our guest today is Nancy Gordon, and Nancy is a number one international bestselling author, [00:01:00] speaker, and a transformational, life-changing expert who knows firsthand what it's like to deal with not only loss and grief, but the anticipatory stage of grief.

Once we know a pet's time is coming to an end. So, Nancy, thank you so much for making time to be with us here. 

Nancy Gordon: Oh, I'm so honored to be here and happy to have this conversation because it's so needed in the world. 

Amy Castro: Definitely. Definitely. I know that you're a licensed clinical social worker, and you have been for many, years.

How did you change direction in your career and really focus in on specializing in pet loss and. 

Nancy Gordon: My career as a licensed clinical social worker and a certified life coach has been spanned about 43 years. And from the very beginning I learned that no matter what presenting problem a client brought in, there was always an element of loss and [00:02:00] grief involved.

I've been involved in helping people heal and recognize loss and grief in so many. D. from so many different sources. It could be a divorce somebody came in with, or loss of a job, or loss of health loss of people, parents, that sort of thing. So, loss and grief has always been a big part of my work.

The pet loss came about. With my two service dogs as they began to age and have more chronic and some disabling conditions that when my dog toaster at the age of 14 really started suffering with compressed discs and difficulty walking and pain. And [00:03:00] I really saw over time, it wasn't overnight, but over time that she was becoming more and more disabled and more and more close to that.

Time when I could see I, I'm going to lose her at some point and I may need to assist her at some point. And from the age of 14 when that was really occurring and she just survived a lung cancer surgery, I realized I couldn't face it. So, my anticipatory grief, which is knowing she just survived cancer.

Seeing her, compressed discs, really impacting her stability and her mobility. I started that process of anticipatory grief, seeing that she's going to be gone [00:04:00] maybe sooner than later, and my first response was, this can't be happening. Denial shock. It's like I, I knew consciously we all know that our pets are probably going to die before us, but what that really means and what that experience is really is it's shocking.

It's I can't believe this is actually going to happen. I've got to stop this. I've got to stop her from dying. And so for two years I was in that stage of anticipatory grief, not in an intense way at first, as it wa as it became in the last two months when I was realizing I'm, going to have to make a decision about helping her.

Assisting her. That whole journey of anticipatory grief I was familiar with in that my mom [00:05:00] had a two-year cancer journey. That was my first real experience with the loss, serious loss, major loss of a person in my life. And so that two years while my mom was dying it was really interesting, the parallels between Toaster's journey.

Of her debilitation and then dying. And my mom's was very similar and it was actually both a two-year period. By the time my mom and my mom died first, before toasters. So, the first year and a half, I was very aware with my mom of making everyday matter. I changed my behavior.

I changed how I was in the relationship with her, and that happened to occur at a time where I was experiencing my own journey through the consequences of a major car accident six years earlier, and I had to. closed my practice [00:06:00] ultimately after six years because I was just getting so debilitated, I couldn't work.

And so, I started that journey and I was in my own anticipatory grief of seeing myself decline and realizing I'm going to have to. Close my business. And then my mom, so I, just had closed my business like less than a year earlier, and I got toaster. I found toaster, and then my mom three weeks later got diagnosed with terminal cancer.

and 

Oh wow. 

And so I was already on disability Now I was already not working, so I could spend every day with her, which was a huge gift. But all of that I've been in, I've been through every every major loss I've had and I've had a lot of 'em have included that this stage of anticipatory grief.

And yet, No one talked about that term. No one really explained what [00:07:00] was going on in the experience of losing my mom. But towards the end when she really became ill and had a stroke and couldn't speak, I was so aware of the angst and the, and. Conflict that created because it was so hard to watch her suffer, and at the same time, I couldn't bear the thought of my mom dying.

It was really difficult ex part of the experience, and the same thing happened to me with toaster. And so I began to really understand this experience, this part of the experience of knowing of impending death and loss, whether it's two years or six months or a month, there's a window of opportunity there that can make all the difference in how you.

[00:08:00] Experience, the loss, how you experience the relationship while you have it, and how you recover and, grow from the experience after the loss happens 

Amy Castro: inter interesting. I was just sitting here thinking. I, like to define, things for myself, is that a good thing or not a good thing?

And it is what it is, people do face that, but personally, I'm the kind of person who, I tend to try to shut that off so that I'm not experiencing that grief for that extended period of time. And I wonder when you talk about that window of opportunity, how does one find that healthy balance between yes, the end is coming and you want to make the most of the time that you have left, but at the same time not living on the brink of death all the time, if, does that make sense?

Nancy Gordon: Oh, total. It totally [00:09:00] makes sense. And it's, that's, I call it a tightrope. It's like walking a tightrope between this, the discomfort and the suffering. Like how do you find that balance? Like you don't want to be suffering through losing your pet at the same time. You don't want to shut it down like you would be like, when you say, when you said what you do, you just want to turn it off and not face it.

You're like my perfect client because, this is, sign me up this, is the heart of learning how to navigate grief. And the fact is we as humans, experience loss. Throughout life in many different forms. Like I said earlier, a divorce, a job change, a being fired a relationship ending, the list goes on and on.

Your kids go to [00:10:00] college, you have an empty nest. It, there's just inherent sure loss in life and in fact, sometimes I joke about life should be spelled l o s s and then learn how to navigate it. So yeah. It, really is. So, there is so much value because of that in learning how to face it, in finding the courage, in building your sort of, building your character, building your life experience around the strength that and the lessons and the gifts that learning how to navigate loss can bring you.

I talk a lot about in my book that's coming out, I miss you already Burying the unbearable loss of your pet is all about the using the anticipatory grief stage, navigating it, understanding and learning about grief and how to make that a healing [00:11:00] experience, a transformational experience instead of a tragedy.

I see so much. So much guilt with people, pet parents that I work with it's almost universal. I can almost guarantee if somebody's calling me for pet loss, they're going to have guilt issues. And not that's deserved, but it's part of the consequence of not dealing with the anticipatory grief.

Sometimes they look back, they come to me the day after, I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I had done this differently. Did that differently. And it's, too, then we work a lot on about guilt and regret and how, and self-forgiveness, self-compassion, those sorts of things are really heartbeats of this work.

So, the, pandemic has been a horrific experience globally. I have no, no, [00:12:00] qualms about that. So, what I'm about to say may sound. think it was a great thing, but it's not. However, one of my seven practices that I developed from the time of my car accident through all of these years and through applied them through my grief journey with toaster and pink that there is a way to see the glass half.

there is a way to see, what my mom used to say, there's always a silver lining in every cloud. Now and that doesn't discount the pain, that doesn't discount that the, that covid took an enormous toll on everybody's heart and relationships were lost and people died alone and horrific.

At the same time, what the pandemic gave us is an, is a window and a door to go through about dealing with loss and grief because it's un, it became unavoidable and it became [00:13:00] global, and that became a global grief. That means we all. Experienced loss at the same time over these last several years, and continuing to experience that.

So, the good thing about Covid is that it, it, took grief out of the closet and now we can educate people and he, and help support people to navigate that experience that's unavoidable, which is loss and grief. 

Amy Castro: Yes. Yeah. And you, led me right to my next point, which is when you're talking about supporting people, how in, in the work that you do, tell me what kinds of people that you are working with or that you think would benefit from working with an expert like yourself, and maybe a little bit about what kinds of things you do.

We can split those into two, two questions okay, good. Let's talk about the kind of people that you work with [00:14:00] and then we can talk about the other question. 

Nancy Gordon: Okay, so the people that I work with, unfortunately, are more people who contact me after the pet loss, sometimes within the same day, sometimes a day after, sometimes a week, months, six months, a year later.

that's good that they're reaching out for some professional support and guidance to help them heal and help them use their grief journey as a transformational journey of personal growth. That's how I see it. It's a springboard to look at how other parts of their life has unhealed grief that they can.

Help to, get through differently. But what I really want to see, and one of the reasons why I'm so happy to be on so many podcasts is to open people's eyes and heart and mind [00:15:00] that. Contacting someone like me professionally for support while they're in that anticipatory grief experience can make such a difference in their whole experience of loss.

And it also makes a difference in the experience of the pet’s transition because you, we know our pets. From the collar up, the leash to our, own hands and heart and mind, our pets feel what we feel. They know what we're going through. And can you imagine how hard it is for an animal to see the, behaviors of.

Pet parents through really no fault of their own, but lack of education and lack of understanding and lack of support, and lack of know, not knowing how to do it differently. They get irritable with their pets. They [00:16:00] get impatient with their pets, who are no longer functioning in the same way that they were.

I, I, and I speak personally, I., it's one of the little guilts that I had with pink. Because of some of the things that I didn't understand or I didn't want to see about her level of functioning, cuz I had to had to help her six months or nine months after toaster. So, within nine months I lost both my service dogs.

Toaster was 17 and pink was 14. So that's a long time to be. Yes. And they were. And they were also my service dogs, which adds another component to the meaning of that relationship and the dependence I had on them. So, there's so many things you can change, become aware of that irritability. become aware of the impatience, become aware of your own anxiety.

There's a lot of anxiety, people experience, [00:17:00] and depression, both. They're almost like the same coin, different side. And they are definite parts of all the grief journeys. But in anticipatory grief, when. people are not dealing with those feelings. They get depressed, they get anxious. They don't get support.

They don't even sometimes really understand what's going on. They don't even know what they're doing. So, it's so important for people to get professional help, to get the support and the, wisdom and the guidance of people who've been through. 

Amy Castro: I was, you made me think about the fact that in just thinking about this whole concept of anticipatory grief, As somebody that has worked in a veterinary practice and working in animal rescue, that time period from the time a pet starts to decline and you think, okay, the end is getting near, in addition [00:18:00] to all the emotional factors that come into play in those situations, there's a lot of decisions that people are forced to make or that they don't make.

People always want to know like, when is the right time to. To make that decision to end a pet's life, let's say. And is it time yet? Is it tomorrow? What, day is it? What signs am I looking for? To say it's time because I don't feel like people do get great support. No.

Most people, even in the veterinary profession, don't want to be the one to tell you it's time. You need to do it today. Do you feel like, or how do you feel like. Working with an expert, would it, would that help that process for people to just get some 

Nancy Gordon: clarity? Absolutely. And that's really what I counsel people to do, pet parents to do if they come to me in that anticipatory grief stage.

And I think [00:19:00] the real key for us professionals to help pet parents through those kinds of decisions is to work collaborative. For the veterinarians to offer their wisdom and pieces of advice. I can understand that a lot of veterinarians maybe are concerned about being held responsible for suggesting or really advising or telling someone to do it.

Sure. a complicated, it's a complicated issue and for me, I think. The way to collaborate and to deal with all that is for people like me, professionals like me, to work hand in hand the pet, parent, and the veterinarian. So, a lot of times I help pet parents. Know what to ask their vet and how to ask their vet for the opinions [00:20:00] because the veterinarians are the front line in terms of that decision of euthanizing.

They're, on the front lines because they know what we don't know about this condition. And, sometimes people don't know what they don't know, what they don't know, and they don't know how to, ask for what they don't know. And so that's where a professional like me working with a vet, can help them and the veterinarian can help them by explaining, and I think this is what a lot of pet’s veterinarians do, is explain in the best terms they can of the pros and cons and the pluses and minuses and the what ifs to whatever extent that they can say, this may happen, this probably will happen.

And leave the decision up to the pet parent. One of the as, again, here's a perfect example of why it's so important to get help navigating anticipatory grief. First of all, when [00:21:00] you're in this situation, you're often, like I said, anxious, depressed, not sleeping well. When you're not sleeping well and you're not eating and you're not doing good self-care because you're caring for your pet.

I've had pet parents who have come to me and said, I'm not sleeping. I'm, waking up all the time to make sure they're still alive, to make sure they're okay. And so how do you make cognitively, how do you make good decisions when you're going? A situation like that, you're, if you're not sleeping well, you're not making good decisions.

You're not even right necessarily able to make, to process information. And that's again, where working with somebody can be that second set of eyes and ears to help you process. and make better decisions. And when you do that, you prevent a lot of guilt that I hear from pet parents after they've lost the pet but didn't get the help before they, they lost the pet.

Amy Castro: Yeah. [00:22:00] And in those instances where you mentioned, it sounds like the vast majority of people, it's after the pets already passed away or was euthanized you, you mentioned this idea of working through the guilt. What kind of things could you maybe share with us, maybe a couple of tips on how people if they didn't have the luxury of working with an expert.

Are there things that we can do as pet parents to navigate this process successfully? If we had to, do a couple of things on our own. 

Nancy Gordon: Yeah, so that's a tough, that's a tough question to answer because a lot of my, a part of my answer is getting support and help professional help. Okay. But that said, the more people educate themselves about pet loss and grief, the more they understand about grief in general and the stages of grief and how to heal grief that will help them.

It's a big part of my work and my mission in what [00:23:00] I do is to make a difference in how people perceive. Understand, experience, support, and heal, loss and grief. So, education is a, is really a number one. I What, you don't know you can't deal with differently. So, I think educating about the grief journey about pet loss.

And then the other thing is if they can't afford professional support, and I try and offer support in a variety of ways. So, there's group support, there's work through d y I course kind of support for pet loss and grief through my workbook of seven practices and those sorts of things as well as individual.

Work with people so they can find those kinds of resources. And also, I think finding people and [00:24:00] iden, knowing how to identify, if nothing else, learn how to identify people that can provide you support, family members, friends outside support systems to create as much of a support system as you can.

Will help You One of the, one of the most important pieces of going through grief is to be witnessed, is to have somebody that you trust to listen and not judge you for whatever it is you're going through with your pet loss., whether it's in the anticipatory stage or after, and to learn how to identify that there are people that are helpful and there are people that are not helpful.

and to not try and make a not helpful person understand you is, not probably in your best [00:25:00] interests at that time. 

Amy Castro: That, 

is such an excellent point. In my work, in doing a com communication training the, concept of, empathy is much more elusive to some than others.

And when it comes to pet loss it's, so interesting how different people have different It's just a different relationship with their pets. I've even thought about just the fact that we use when somebody refers to themself as a pet parent versus a pet owner, that the language there creates a different, a differentiation in the relationship.

And so for somebody who is who. Perceives themselves to be a pet parent, and this is my fur baby, this is my child. You already know the people in your live lives who already don't relate to that. Yes. And so, to Nancy's point you're not going to change that person into suddenly being empathetic when you're going through this process.

You're [00:26:00] going to get the it's just a dog. You can always get another one kind of response, which is like a slap in the head to a pet parent. So, I'm, glad you said that because you really do need. It's a vulnerable time for people and you're looking to at least be heard maybe not necessarily even validated with your feelings and what you're going through, but at least to be heard and supported and you're not going to get it from, people who don't have it to give.

Nancy Gordon: Yes, that's right. And that really is something that, that lack of understanding on people's parts about the value of the pet relationship also. It is filtered through almost everything. So, p people's expectations of how long you should be grieving your, pet aren't you over it yet? Like, when are you going to get another dog?

Those kinds of responses [00:27:00] are so not helpful, but they don't understand. They don't know what they don't know, which is, I think part of your point, it's if they're a pet owner and not a pet parent, they don't know what they don't., right? They don't know what it's like to have a different kind of relationship with the pet.

And I think those of us that have, and I speak for myself, I think for a long time I didn't realize that difference in my mind because of my experience with Toaster and Pink and Cats I had previously. I assumed that anyone who had a dog. Was a pet parent like me, right? Their pet, that dog was their baby.

And then I, did wander into interactions with people. Not pet, not professionally, but like people I knew who had dogs or something who were pet owners. And I was like, who are you? What? Wait, what? What? I don't get it. What do you [00:28:00] mean? You don't understand what I'm saying? You know it but there is a difference and, I think you're defining pet owner.

The term pet owner versus pet parent is so good, Amy, because. It really does demonstrate that the language that we use is a huge source of education and understanding and then responding. So, like now when someone says, oh, I'm a pet owner. I'm cued already. Now, to know that they may have a different experience and understanding of pet loss than a person who comes to me and says, I'm a pet parent.

This is my fur baby. This is my baby. This is my child. I will do anything. I would die for this dog. Then it's a totally different language. And language is so important. I'm writing a book on that right now, which probably will start out as an article [00:29:00] about the language of loss.

Amy Castro: Yes. And, I know in one of your, one of the interviews I, loved, and you, can explain it to us if you would sure. Your, alternative verbiage for putting an animal down or putting them to sleep or the, whatever terminology we might use. 

Nancy Gordon: Yes. Yes. So, you're referring to the segment in Dr.

Becker's interview about the term lifts up? Yes. Instead of put down for describing euthanasia. It's, the heartbeat of my work and it was the heartbeat of my work that started, that toaster taught me. There's a whole element. One of my other practices of the seven is surrendering.

And surrendering is what you have to do when you decide to euthanize your pet. It's the letting go. It's the surrendering, it's the [00:30:00] letting go. How you do that makes all the difference for you and the pet and anyone else who's in relationship to that pet. When I as I mentioned earlier, I had a lot of denial and, resistance to really believing that toaster was going to die.

And that I even may have to help her. I. I couldn't, I actually said to myself, how can you kill your dog? How can you kill toaster? Those, that was the language I had. I can't kill my dog. I can't kill toaster. How, come people do this? For the first time in my life, I never, I never really questioned euthanasia.

It wasn't that I had a negative judgment about it, and it wasn't that I thought people were killing their animals. I just didn't really think about it. And. I just accepted it that this is what happens. But when it came to my own personal [00:31:00] journey with toaster, I had no words and no ability to be able to embrace doing that.

And so I was having a conversation with somebody about that fact. And I said, I can't put down my. I can't put toaster down. I don't know how I could bear doing that. And then I thought about the language, put her down. What about lift her up? What about make the decision and make a plan, and make the experience of letting her go of surrender, healing, and beautiful instead of traumatic and tragic.

And that's how I came up with the term lift up. And so now I have a whole methodology. That's part of how I help parents is to create a lift up, not a put down. 

Amy Castro: God, that's beautiful. That's [00:32:00] it's, you're creating a completely different experience. Yes. Starting with the words, but it, just, words have such power and by, changing the verbiage, you changed your outlook and you changed the experience.

I think 

Nancy Gordon: That's exactly right. It's a mindset shift. It was a whole mindset change for me that then, I gave toaster and pink was part of that party. Three weeks. I set the date three weeks ahead and I planned out. I did nothing but D but spent time with toaster and pink, and I did nothing but give toaster special attention.

Pink was an pink, was an attention. Literally and toaster, there's always one . And to, and toaster was loved pink so much and she was more of an introverted personality anyway, that she let pink get all so much attention. Pink would get in [00:33:00] between her face, literally in between her face and my, face and toasters sometimes on the couch.

And I didn't, I, that's what one thing that I changed in and. How I managed this letting go experience is I made sure that toaster went on errands with me in the car and I didn't take Pink toaster, went to a movie with me, sat around my neck, where pink us used to do that more. Toaster would be on my low back as a service dog.

Heating my low back and pink would be on my neck. But toaster originally was my pink was toaster. daughter. And so Toaster started out as my service dog and she helped me with my neck pain. That's where she started with me, was around my neck. And 

Amy Castro: now we know why she was called Toaster.

I was gonna ask you to tell the, to tell that story, but you 

Nancy Gordon: did. I love, I I did tell it. I didn't tell it in, complete, let me tell it. [00:34:00] Incomplete, story because it's really sweet. So, when I had my car accident, I ended up with fibromyalgia and a mild traumatic brain injury. And so, I had a lot of neck pain.

and I was, while I was working, while I was still in my practice, this is before toaster, I used a microwave neck wrap, like 24 7. So when I learned about toaster's breed, which is the Solis Quin, the Mexican hairless their hairless, en coated toaster was coated very lightly, and pink was a hairless hairless.

And she. I, learned about how the, her breed was revered in the ancient Aztec culture over 3,500 years ago as a spiritual, mystical, healing dog. And part of their healing was physical muscle pain [00:35:00] relief by putting the, their hot bodies against our skin where we had pain or arthritis, if that's in their history, written history.

So when I learned about that, I. I'm going to get a toy size cuz they come in three sizes. I'm going to get a toy size solo and put her around my neck and call her my twenty-four seven no microwave hotdog. There you go. instead. That's great. Instead of the 24 7 microwave hot heating pad. So that's toaster's.

Great. 

Amy Castro: Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. If people were, if people wanted to work with you, whether it was on an individual basis, a group basis, I know you mentioned that you've got like DIY resources and I, gosh, I can just think of all the veterinarians that I've worked with and hopefully are listening today to that they could benefit from consulting with somebody like [00:36:00] you.

What's the best way for them to get in touch with you to reach out? 

Nancy Gordon: Yes. I would love to work with animal related industry as a consultant and a teacher and mentor, and help with educating staff, especially frontline staff, about handling that acute, immediate, unexpected loss and grief. As well as pet parents.

Whether they're in the anticipatory grief stage or after the loss. And I have a website and a link tree where you can find a lot more information a, about me. 

Amy Castro: Okay. Do you want me, we can put that up on the screen and put it in the show notes as well. 

Nancy Gordon: Yes, So I'll, get you that information you can put up.

And I, like to work with people individually in professional time, limited structured support groups for pet loss and grief. [00:37:00] I've got opportunities for. People to focus, people who have just experienced pet loss and grief. People who have experienced pet loss and grief a long time ago more than three months, who could benefit from support.

And I work with people individually. 

Amy Castro: Oh, great. So, a lot of options to get that support. And the key to it all as, we've said, just pull it together, is. Beforehand, not after. When you're in that anticipatory stage or that's coming, that's the time to seek that help and support just to make the whole experience just so much better for you and for your pet.

Nancy Gordon: Yeah. And can I share a quick story about Absolutely. One of my clients in that regard? Because my message is it's never too late. As long as they're breathing, it's never too late. To do that anticipatory. [00:38:00] Lift up instead of a put down. So, I had a client who reached out to me from pet works.com, where I have a profile contacted me, okay?

The day of his appointment for a mobile vet to put his dog down. And I say, put his dog down, because that's how what he was doing, he contacted me and I, happened to be available to talk to him. And so he, contacted me because he had, he was experiencing so much guilt in this last day.

So, this was in the morning, in this last day of the fact that he couldn't stop crying. He was in such grief. About making this decision and letting his dog go, that he was feeling guilty that he's doing this in front of his G [00:39:00] dog and yet he couldn't stop crying. So, I said, don't stop crying. Your dog is here.

He understands he's here to support you as well. He, no, he doesn't want to see you crying, but he also. wants to comfort you and, you can comfort him. And so we talked about how to spend the rest of the day. That's I did it three weeks of that with toaster. A little less than that with pink, but he only had the day.

And it still was not too late. So we, made some, he made some plans with me about what he could do and how he could be and, how to interact with his dog and so forth. And he did that. And then he called me after and said it changed everything. It changed his entire experience and he had no guilt because even just in [00:40:00] those last hours he.

Said goodbye and parted in a way that was healing for him and his dog and his. It was such an honor. He was honoring his dog. That's how I helped him understand your crying is also honoring your dog, and he knows that he's not upset about that. and he knows he's feeling your love. He's feeling the loss.

He understands. Dogs understand so much more than we give them credit for. Oh yeah, 

Amy Castro: I agree. I agree. They 

Nancy Gordon: teach us , . 

Amy Castro: They, definitely do. Nancy, thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. I, thought, I knew everything about this process, not only from my own experiences with pet loss, but just in the rescue world.

Oftentimes we're taking in animals who don. Much time as well. But you really opened my eyes [00:41:00] today on a lot of different things, especially that whole concept of the anticipatory grief. So, thank you so much for sharing your, wisdom and your experiences, and we'll make sure that we have information up and available so that people can get in touch with you if they want to reach out.

Thank you everybody for listening today. 

Nancy Gordon: Yeah, go ahead. I just want to say thank you for saying that. That that really touches my heart to know that my, mission and my purpose and how I help people. You experienced that. That's like you just made my day. Good. Thank you. I'd like to do that,

Amy Castro: All right. Everybody Thank you for listening to Starlight Pet Talk today. Keep listening and make sure you give your pets a hug for us.