Speaker 1: Hey, this is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2: It's all behaved with Arden Moore, this show that teaches
you how to have harmony in the household with your pets.
Join Ardina. She travels coast to coast to help millions
better understand why cats and dogs do what they do.
Get that latest scoop on famous spaces, they're perfectly pampered pets,
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You'll get the latest buzz from Wagging Tongues and Tails Garner,
great pet tips and have a dog one fer flying
fun time. So get ready for the paws and applause
as we unleaseh your oh Behave hosts America's pet edutainer
Arden More.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Oh Behave Show on Pet Life Radio.
I'm your host Arden Moore. Now on today's show, we're
going to talk about pet youth in Asia. Yep, youth
in Asia literally means good death. But how can we
make saying goodbye to our pet pain free? How do
we make the goodbye memorable and one that is definitely
filled with compassion. There's a trend going on. More and
more pet parents are opting to say goodbye to their
pets not inside a veterinary exam room, but actually in
their own home. There's a growing demand for compassionate, knowledgeable
veterinarians who can perform at home pet euthanasias and go ahead,
grab the tissue box. But this is supposed to be
an empowering this is going to help us all. And
the person here to help us is one such veterinarian.
She is doctor Megan Metter, and she is from lack
of Love. Welcome, Welcome, doctor Megan. Thank you got it
here all right? You say the word euthanasia and all
sudden people to stop in their tracks. But what's your
take on euthanasia?
Speaker 3: My take is that euthansia is one of the most
beautiful and compassionate gifts that we can give our pets.
You know, these pets give us a lifetime of love
and companionship and joy. And when we bring these guys home,
just like your human children, you have the responsibility that
you're always going to do what's best for them, always
going to make the decisions that's in their favor. And you,
anitia is us that when they're old and their quality
of life is no longer there when they're suffering from
pain or chronic illness or even acute illness, and that
suffering is just not going to get better. Euthanasia that
last compassionate gift that we can give them that is
truly during work from their best interest to end their suffering.
Speaker 1: Everyone, we're speaking with doctor Megan Better and we're going
to dive in a little bit more. But we're going
to take a quick break. And you all know the drill.
I mean, you gotta sit, you gotta stay. We'll be
right back.
Speaker 2: Time for a pause for very ones, actually sit and stay,
all behave, We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2: Talk pets on petlifradio dot Com. All behaviors back with
more tail wagging Ways to achieve harmony of a household
with your pets. Now back to your fetching host, America's
pet ed You, Tayner Arden More.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the old Behave show on pet Life Radio.
I'm your host, Arden Moore. I am very honored to
have on our show a veterinarian by the name of
doctor Meghan Meta, and she is with Lap of Love.
And you're thinking, what the heck is Lap of Love? Well,
years ago there was a couple of veterinarians and we'll
have doctor Meghan fill this in. I met one of them,
doctor Danny, when she was launching in one state Lap
of Love. I understand you now are in like over
forty states. So doctor Megan, what the heck is Lap
of Love?
Speaker 3: So Lap of Love is a network of doctors across
the country. And as you said, we're not an off seat,
but we're in most states where you can call us
and at upno appointment, and we will actually have a
doctor come out to your home and put your pet
to sleep in the comfort of your own home. And
we're not just about the actual process of giving the drugs.
We actually are there for you every step of the way,
from the moment that you call in and you're not
really sure what you or what the next steps are,
to helping guide you through end of life discussions, to
that actual moment where you say goodbye, to the after
care your pet, to even helping you hear pet law
support and bereavement and grief and that sort of thing.
We help you hear the entire profit and our goal
is to keep you out of the clinic setting for
euthanasia so that your pet can pass in the comfort
of their own home and their favorite spot with their
favorite people around them.
Speaker 1: It's funny, as you're speaking my cat, pet safety cat, Casey,
who is a therapy cat, so he goes to memory
care centers and schools and libraries. He just climbed into
my lap. You have some power, girl. I don't know
about that. Maybe it's your power, I don't know, but
you know, let's talk a little bit about yourself, because
you are a veterinarian and you graduated from one of
my favorite vet schools, Tufts University. Go tell people your
backstory because they're going to be curious, as maybe say
a cat named Casey, how you went from one field
a veterinary medicine to this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I had jokingly say I went from one
end of the spectrum to the exact opposite. When I
was in VET school, like you said, at university up
in Massachusetts, I knew that I wanted to be an
emergency veterinarians, where I kind of worked everything in that direction.
I did an internship, which is extra training. We're not
required to do one, but I chose to do one
after school. I didn't or an internship in rotating spinalmal
medicine and emergency care. I went from that into a
job in emergency medicine, and I worked in South Florida
and Puthwest Florida my entire career, and I worked at
several differ in the hospital, but essentially my job at
each one of those hospitals was an emergency critical care butterineerian.
So I'm the one that you know if your dog
unfortunately gets really really sick, or gets hit by a car,
or needs emergency surgery or something like that. I'm the
person that you would see and I would help arrange
your you know, get get your pet out of that
immediate crisis, and hopefully transfer your pet into the critical
care and intensive care that they needed. And I did
that for twelve years, and I loved it. I loved
the pace, I loved the intensity, I loved all the
cool stuff that I got to do. But towards the
end of that, I started to suffer from really significant burnout,
to the point where I just didn't really want to
be a veterinarian anymore. That's not good exactly. You know
when you spend your whole life working for your dream
or your everything, you know, and then to decide that,
oh no, I don't want to do this anymore. So
I started looking for something else that I could do
and the way that I can make an impact. And
at the time, this was during COVID.
Speaker 1: Oh the fun time in our lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, rockly, but I was looking for a way to
get out of the hospital setting and do something where
I could, you know, work in a completely a different setting.
And you know, Lap of Love where I live in Florida.
That's where Lapla Blow started. And so they've been around
for the majority of my career, and I'd always work
for clients to them and had really good positive reviews
coming back. So I thought, you know, what the heck,
I'll try it and see how it goes. And I
did not realize that I would love doing it as
much as I do. I really enjoy my job. I
feel very fulfilled doing it. You know, it's such an
important feature of our life with our pets that often
gets overlooked, I think, so it's good to kind of
shed some light on that end of the fact. I'm
rather than the hero swooping into stable life.
Speaker 1: You traded your super Woman tape for one very compassionate hug, right,
I mean, you're there. This is kind of be a
little dicey tricky for you. I don't want to say
the word dicey. This has got to be a little
tricky for you because you're coming into a home and
you may not know this animal that is ready to
say goodbye. But you're a human being. I don't think you're.
Speaker 3: AI, are you right most of the time now, So
I mean you've.
Speaker 1: Got to size up the family, and you're kind of
a grief counselor for them. But you're also a medical
professional to be able to make sure that the euthanasia
is going painless and without hurt to the animal. Can
you can you talk about that a little bit, because
I think you mentioned that there's some new protocols and
medicine that actually makes the process pain free but compassionate. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we do a very different protocol than what is
typically done in hospital setting. And I'm not knocking the
way we do it in hospital. It's done for a
reason and everybody kind of does it the same way,
and we've all you know, it's the way we've always
done it, and that's how we do it typically. You know,
if you take your pet in for euthanasia, your staff
is going to put you into an exam room that
feel a lot of times very cold, very sterile, not
very personable because a lot of times before you've been
for medical care. You're not there for personal things. You're
there for medical care, so it feels very sterile. A
lot of times they take your cut away from you,
which is something that we try to obviously avoid. So
I'll put an IVY catheter into your pet, which often
can be a very strustful experience for your pet and
they bring your pet back to you where you may
or may not be given time to stay goodbye or
time to spend with your pet. And your pet may
be in a lot of distress from whatever reason you're
bringing them in, or they're pain, anxiety, illness, et cetera.
And we typically give one injection that puts your pet
under anesthesia very very quickly, within seconds, and then we
typically give the Euthanesian injection very quickly after that. So
that's in the clinical setting, correct, Yeah, And so what
you experienced as a pet owner is very quickly your
pet goes from here to not here, very very quickly.
And I didn't realize how traumatic that can use. The
families spend real I heard talking for them in this
setting and seeing, you know, talking to them when they
they're now on the other side from what I've experienced,
and finding out that they just don't like that. It's
very it's great upsetting what we do, what lack of love, guys.
And we have a set of drug protocols that we use,
and obviously this is tailored to each individual patient as necessary.
But when I come in the home, I typically do
spend some time both medically looking at your pet listening
to your discussion, but also, like you said, kind of
from the interpersonal side, siving you up. And that sounds
very derogatory. I don't mean it too, but you're looking
for signals, you're doing your job reading people, yeah, which
is definitely something I learned from emergency medicine, being able
to go into an exam room very quickly and they like,
your pet is very very sick or very right injured,
and I need to know where you're at right now
as far as what you want to do. And so
I learned a lot from that, Kate, and that at
that I can now apply here in this setting where
I can typically read people pretty quickly, and I think
all of us at lack of blove do get good
at that pretty quickly, to try to figure out where
where you're at, where you're coming from, what your story is,
what your pet story is, and trying to guide me
through that decision. So I do spend some time doing
that before we even move to the ethanasia stage, and
it typically as much or as the whole time as
the family needs to kind of guide them through it's okay,
saying it's okay, this decision is the right thing to
do for your pet. But once we get to the
medical side of things, typically what we do as far
as medicine goes as we give a cop deal of
drugs as an injection. I usually give it into a
pet so under the skin, into muffle. Really. However, I
can get it into your put with the least amount
of breast and anxiety as possible, and that cocktail of
drugs typically puts them under anesthesia within about five to
ten minutes. So what you as a pet owner get
to see as your pet, your pin rock to sleep
very very gently, very smoothly, and like, yeah, I do too,
and I think it's from the grief side. It's very
important for people to be able to see their pet
out of pain, out of anxiety, out of suffering as
some of their last moments before their pet actually passes.
While your pets getting sleepy, I catifically make a few
keep stick items. I make a little clay coperant and
we clip them for for you to keep things like that.
Once I feel like your pets out of pain and
completely under anesthesia, I'll last first, but then I give
the euth aanesia injection and I typically give it into
the vein with a needle. I don't have the place
an iva. I don't have to go through that extra
potentially a struffle step for everybody. And a lot of
times clients don't even notice what I'm doing. They're so
focused on loving on their pet that they don't see
what I'm doing. They don't notice, they often don't even remember.
But your pet passes almost immediately, typically within a minute
or two of me giving that that last injection. So
your your pet goes from being awake to sleepy to
drowslee the under anaesthesia. And I like that. Yeah, it's
it's a much nicer process.
Speaker 1: We're speaking with doctor Meghan Medar and she is with
lamp of love and wow, I've never had it explain
so well as you just did. We're gonna talk more
after we take this quick break, so sit stay, We'll
be right back time for a walk on the red car.
Speaker 2: But of course all behave We'll be backing up last
right after these messages.
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Speaker 3: Hey everybody, this is Carl and Williams and you're listening
to ardored more on Oh Behave and I got my
baby draft Share. Do you want to slay Hi?
Speaker 2: We're back from the lot. Just check the paper. And
we had our record showing at the box, the letterbox
that is now back to Oh Behave.
Speaker 1: Here's Arden, welcome back to the old Behave show on
pet Life Radio. I'm your host, Arden Moore. There's this
gal in South Florida and she's a veterinarian. She's a
damn good one. She's also a proud pet parent. Doctor
Meghan the what's the four layers at your house?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: I have two dogs, three cats, and two guinea pigs
at my home.
Speaker 1: Okay, so never born?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: No, never born?
Speaker 3: They keep me busy.
Speaker 1: And also when you were going to vet school, because
you are also a pet parent, you're a veterinarian but
you're a pet parent, can you share about the bond
that you had with a one eyed cat named Simon.
Speaker 3: Oh, one eyed Simon was the best. So I adopted
this when I was in depth school. My first it
was around it was two thousand and seven when your
podcast started. It was that, oh yeah, look at that.
Speaker 1: My producer's dancing in his chair right now, because our
guests remembered that we've been on the air since seven nice.
Speaker 3: I was a student technician in the top Er and
Simon was a kiddie that a good Smaragan found on
the side of the road after what we think was
a hit by car up incident. He suffered head trauma
and a little bit of brain damage, and he ultimately
lost one of his eyes. Bighup of it. But I
adopted him before the loss of his eye, that after
the recovery of his head trauma. He is a black,
long haired kat roughly a year old, and I named
him Simon. Simon is a Hebrew name that means God
has heard my prayers.
Speaker 1: Which, oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Really it sounds so very interestitting for his situation. I
am not Jewish, but I thought that it was beautiful. Anyway,
It doesn't matter exactly exactly, but he became my vet
school buddy and we were glued at the hip. He
traveled with me, He moved with me from home to home.
When I graduated by school, he graduated too. We called
him doctor Sir Simon. So I actually I have a
picture somewhere of him wearing a little doctor hostume.
Speaker 1: That was really cute.
Speaker 3: But he was with me through everything, and he was
such a formative experience for me. You know, he was
with me through a lot of trauma in my own life,
a lot of difficulties. Like I said, he moved with
me from graduation, from my first row, grown up job,
moving from Massachusetts to Florida, and multiple homes in Florida.
He was with me through your marriage, divorced, through starting
new job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a touchstone, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: It was. And he was even with me as I
need the transition from emergency not a senthilappla block as well.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you because this is something
that you could share from one pet parent to another.
I know you're a veterinarian, but you decided to do
something to memorize to come. I'm orate your life, your
years with Simon. Can you share what you did?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I've been working for a lot of Love
for about a year when I had to say goodbye
to Simon, and I was so grateful that I could
do it at home as opposed to taking him to
one of my friends in another clinic. And so I
did this ride to let him go at home. I
did have him pre made it and have his ashes
returned back to me. And I took some of his
ashes and sent them to a jeweler who had a
ring made for me. And it's a very simple, very
daisy It's a sofa ring with a track through the
center that has some of his ashes mixed with blue cortzstone.
And so I wear that on my right ring finger
and never take it off, and it it's the way
I feel connected to him even after he passed.
Speaker 1: I like that which gets me to this point. You
at Lap of Love, you do perform the youth in
Asia at home. As you said before, you don't stop there.
You keep in touch with people. I understand you, even
on the anniversary of the passing. What does Lap of
Love do.
Speaker 3: We even send you an email thing that we are
just thinking of you. We know it's been a year
since your cut past, but we're here for you if
you need anything.
Speaker 1: So what are some other ways that you could offer
to give people ideas on how to commemorate this life
you had with your pet. After youth in Asia.
Speaker 3: The creativity had no bounds on a plus and I
think I think you know, just going on ETP not
to plug Etsy in particular, but things like that. You
know where you have lots of different creatives that are
out there. Anything your heart desires, somebody will make it
for you. I have seen simple things that don't necessarily
involve like a piece of the pet, so to speak,
things like photos, wind chimes, garden stones, things like that.
I've seen people have some of those stuffed plush he's
made that look like their pet. Sometimes the makers will
even make a place where you can put for or
something like that inside of the bushy so that it
does have a piece of your pet, so to speak. Jewelry,
like I said, I had a had a ring made
with my kittie. I also had prior to that, before
there was a proliferation of what you can have available
now my two childhood dogs, I had indoor beats for
a bracelet, nade there scar ashes and obviously I'm a
fan of the jewelry, so because then I can, I think,
so I can wear them with me all the time.
I even you can see Simon's ring on right now.
So yeah, I had one family who asked me to
shape They had a beautiful American f from a dog
with big, schluffy white fur. They asked me to shape
a large section of fur and return it to them
so they could have a little felt figure made with
the fur, like the actual fur the pet. So I
thought that was really cute. So yeah, like anything your
heart desires, there's somebody out there who will make it
for you.
Speaker 1: You also recommend that there are some places how people
can deal with the grief, whether it's like in person
on line. What are some of the things that Lap
of Love will steer people for that, because after it,
you're still grieving.
Speaker 3: We are, and it's okay. You know, we grieve our
packs the samely we grave people. We go through the
exact same process in our brain. And it's normal for
grief to have no timeline, but it's also a normal
for it to take a really long time for us
to get through it. And on one of the unfortunate things
about grief is that it can be very isolating. So
it's important to know that there are people out there
who can help you and help either be professional support
or just be peer support. You know, people who have
gone through it just like you. We have Black of
Love has a very robust grief support system, a lot
of resources available on our website. Even for people that
don't uthanize our cut through us, you can go on
the website and find this time.
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 3: It's Lapoflove dot com. But we have a Facebook group
where you can go in and we've got both people
like I'm a member of it. We've got people who
have lost pat, We've got veterin areas. We've got our
actual peer support people through us that are on that
Facebook group that can help talk. We have Zoom meetings
where you can go in and schedule a zoom meeting
that kind of like a group therapy session or a.
Speaker 1: Group support group.
Speaker 3: We also have where you can actually pay for a
session with one of our grief support counselors that's one
on one and these are folks that are especially trained
in both reef support and PAT loss support. I love it,
so they know the intricacies of dealing with you know,
the fact that we're talking about a pet, and that
can be very similar but also very different to talking
about a human. So we have we have just so
many recourses available, and like I said, you know, we
think it's so important that we all here the thing,
even to people who don't come through us as quote
unquote company.
Speaker 1: So well, I've got to also address the elephant in
the room. I've been on this old Behave show. I've
been hosting shows for a very long time, and after Megan,
this is the first time that my cat, who we're
very connected, is next to me listening to you, purring
like a diesel engine. So you can't tell me cats
and dogs aren't sentient beings don't have emotional connections with people.
But I'm just telling you from the orange tabbies of
the world, they're saluting you and all that you do.
Doctor Megan, Thank you so much, Casey goes, I'm pretty cool.
I'm like a feline George Clooney, ladies love me and
the dudes do too. Now unfortunately he knows that. So again,
how do people find Lap of Love? I know you're
almost in every state, but can you tell steer us?
So the best way is.
Speaker 3: Lap of love dot com. La he Is and Paul
of Love. You can go on there. You can type
in your zip code and we will show you what
veterinarians are available in that area. If you're in neater services,
you can give us a call. We have a chat
seat you're on our website that you can chat and
also find help. That way if you call us and
we don't have availability, will actually steer you towards other
at homeouvensia companies who might have availability who are in
your area.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, it's not just about us, it's about trying
to find what the doctor you're in your pet. So
the website, like I said, it's the best way that
can steer you towards a lap of love that in
your area.
Speaker 1: So before we go, I got to ask you this,
what is something? What quality or what have the pets
in your life, like the Simons? How have they made
you a better person? Doctor Maga.
Speaker 3: Oh man, every pet's a little bit different. Everyone's a
little bit different. I think Simon that taught me a
lot about perseverance. Just you know, hang in there. There's
always something, there's something to live for, there's something to
be joyful about. You know this one that's here in
my lap right now, has taught me a lot about
love and empathy as you can sell.
Speaker 1: What is this dog's name? What is your dogs?
Speaker 3: This is Koala. This is my heart Wala. She's licking
my face right now. I'm sitting in her chair. Oh
doc you yeah, I know this is her care.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, here.
Speaker 3: But she's taught me a lot about empathy and obviously
unconditional love. So it's you know, my other dog has
taught me a lot about She was a behavior challenge
and she's very different from any dog I've ever owned.
Speaker 1: What is her name?
Speaker 3: Her name's Coco. Her legal name is Coco Poco Bounce
because she's a three legged dog. So she has taught
me a lot about meeting someone where they're at, instead
of trying to strong arm towards me and what I want,
trying to meet them where they're at and what they
want and what they need.
Speaker 1: So well, I think Koala and Coco, you've got a
couple of good pals that've got your back and you've
got their tail. Right, that's exactly right. Hey, everybody, we've
been speaking with doctor Megan Metar. She is with lap
of love and I hope one day to get to
meet you in person, but I do want to salute
you for all that you're doing. This is something that
is beautiful and it can be memorable, and it can
be pay free. So I have three cats and two dogs.
Now I've gone through the process. I've done an at
home and I've done in a veterinary clinic setting, and
I do like the at home. So I'm just grateful
that we have options now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, thank you, and thank you for all
that you do too.
Speaker 1: I have to thank my producer, Mark Winter. He is
the executive producer of Pet Life Radio. We've been on
the air since seven This is the longest running pet
podcast on the planet. Also, please check out my YouTube.
Just go to Art and More you'll see it. I
got over one point three million views. Thank you, thank you.
Let's keep them going and until next time, this is
your flea free host Arden More, delivering just two words
to all you two three and four leggers out there.
Speaker 2: All behave to cost that around the world. It's all
behaved with Art and More. Find out why cats and
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Town miss pet experts at best selling authors, good television
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