Epissode 524: In Honor of my dog Tanner

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Greene.

Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, it is not Wednesday.

Happy whiny palooza Thursday.

We have been traveling. We took our son back to school and we stopped there and we unloaded the car, time number one, and got rid of all his stuff. And then we kept going all the way to Rhode Island, and we finally took Ella to Brown, which she has been asking us to tour. I think that was her number one— yes, choice, choice to tour at the moment. At the moment. So Seth took her to Syracuse while I was at a cheerleading competition with Lily on a different trip. So on a different trip, she did tour Syracuse University, and this is her second tour. So we finally made it happen. Um, feeling a little silly that I didn't plan anything for the way back because we weren't far from Girls, Ella and Lily, what are they fighting about?

So much quality togetherness. So anyways, yes, because we were close to Boston.

I didn't— I didn't— I was too distracted by Tanner to plan a meaningful trip. I literally wanted to run to Brown and run home to him. Did not know we would be where we are today with no Tanner, which I was crying before this. I don't know why I think I can do this topic, but I'm gonna do my best to hold it together. You're gonna do your best to hold it together? Well, I can't talk when I'm crying.

Okay, we'll take turns.

Okay, let's try it. Let's— if you need to cry, you need to cry. I'm gonna try not to cry. Okay, I'll save it. I've cried enough. I would like to stop crying, but let's be realistic here. Yeah, so anyways, if I would have thought this through, I would have stopped in Boston for a tour of some Boston schools, of some Boston schools, because it was only an hour away from Brown.

I tell you, if we had known, we could have taken another day.

I— yeah, like, I was in a rush to get home, and I didn't. And, and when Tanner passed away last week, I didn't reprocess the trip. Because I was not processing well.

Right.

So, Ella wrote a beautiful blog, um, Lessons from— what? Lessons from My Dog? From Tanner?

Something like that.

Ella wrote a beautiful Teenage Tuesday blog. She did not want to do this with us today, which I totally understand. It is at winewithlisa.com. Go read her beautiful blog that she wrote to her about her dog. About our dog. I wanted to do Tanner. I was going to just skip this week because, um, the girls are off and we were away, and I was like, I'm just gonna skip this week and do it next week because I'll have more time to process, process. Um, but I realized we would be back tonight, so even though I didn't want to do it while we were away last night, I was like, we'll postpone it a day and do it tonight. So So thank you for your patience and understanding that sometimes the schedule changes.

Flexible.

We gotta be flexible with life, with life and stuff that comes up and dog being sick and dog passing away and traveling and girls off. And there has been a lot going on.

Yes.

So, um, I do wanna tell you guys that I grew up with dogs. I have always loved dogs. I am a total dog person. Faith, I know you're listening. She's right there. I love my cats. Faith has been following me around.

She's your new shadow.

Anyways, I wanted a dog. I love my cats. I wanted a dog. Um, so my friend posted her dog that she got.

And in, in Rebecca's defense, she did ask me for a dog for like 15 years of our marriage, and I had my first cat when I was 16, and then I had always had cats and said, no, we're too busy, you got too much going on, we don't have time for a dog.

And then, so I should— so Seth had mentioned to me that if he was gonna get a dog, I think Seth— Seth, did you know that eventually we'd get a dog?

No.

Okay, you didn't?

I did not.

You didn't?

No.

So even though I wanted a dog, you didn't think we would get a dog?

I didn't. You asked if I knew. I did not know that we were getting a dog.

Did you have a feeling one day we would get a dog?

I don't know. I did— I don't know.

So, so he had mentioned that if he was going to get a dog, which he didn't want a dog, that he would get a Golden Retriever. And my friend posted her new Golden Retriever puppy that was like the cutest thing ever, and I showed him and I was like, there's one left, can we go see this dog?

And I knew we were going to come home with a dog.

So we did get Tanner.

Yeah.

Um, he was born October 3rd, 2018. I was waiting for you to finish.

Oh, okay, sorry, didn't realize that. 2018, yes.

Okay, so we brought Tanner home. Ella was really pissed at me. Ella did not want a dog. Ella was petrified of dogs. And I thought to myself, she is not going to be petrified of— I'm gonna, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna get a puppy. Like, I purposely— you know, people talk about getting 1-year-old, 2-year-old dogs that are potty trained, missing the puppy stage. Very smart, totally understand why people do that. I wanted to get— I— Seth and I wanted to start from the beginning with a dog, from day one, from day 7 weeks or 8 weeks when they let you take it home. And I wanted to bring home a little tiny puppy because I had a feeling like, how is Ella gonna be afraid of a little puppy? And I was right. We brought the puppy home. Hi Randy. She fell in love.

They melted it the second I brought open the door.

I mean, Lily is Lily. Lily is up for—

She'll go with anything.

Anything. Lily loved Tanner. Max did not. Max is— Max and Ella are very much cat people. Definitely like their father, but they adored Tanner. So we got our dog, and, and things were great for over 6 years. And then last winter, Tanner and I fell outside, and I hurt my shoulder, and I noticed Tanner was limping. So I thought it was from falling because we took a really hard fall last winter, and I blurred out. Like, I was so focused on catching myself that I don't exactly know what happened to Tanner. I don't know if I fell over him. I don't know. I think he fell. Like, I really can't even tell you what happened because I was so busy not smashing my face into the pavement. Like, I just wanted to catch myself, and I just let go of him, and he came over, and I was hurt, and I hobbled home, and I was upset that we fell, and I thought I hurt him, or I thought we were both hurt from falling. So, um, He limped for a year, and I took him to the vet who's a dog chiropractor. I took him for acupuncture, laser, physical therapy, x-rays, medications, steroid shots. I mean, I was like, let— I was like on a mission. I was like, I'm gonna fix my dog. And everyone who saw Tanner was like, your poor dog. And I was like, people, I know, like, I, I feel— I'm the one who's with him all day, every day. Like, I feel so bad that he's like, he can't even put his foot down. So I was like, what the hell happened to my dog? So the x-rays showed nothing, the blood tests showed nothing, nobody could help me. I went to like 5 different vets. So my vet, my wonderful vet, was like, take him to the neurologist. Like, it's time to go to the neurologist. The steroid shots aren't working, nothing is helping, go take him there. And she was like, we got to do an MRI. So MRIs are expensive, people, but our dog had been limping for over a year. Like, I needed— I was like, if we waste money and we see nothing, oh well, we tried, right? Well, she freaking told us— we came back and she told us that he had a tumor like wrapped around his nerves.

Yeah.

And, um, we wanted her to take the leg off, like take the tumor and the leg off. That's what I thought was going to happen. I thought that if something was that bad. Like, my worry, my worry through all of this is he's gonna lose a leg. It's like, I'm gonna have a three-legged dog. That's what I thought. I didn't know it was worse than that. Like, I thought that was like the worst case scenario. And she's like, I can't take the tumor out, I can't take the leg off because it's in his spinal cord. I'm not gonna get it all. It had gone up to his eye. He had like Horner's syndrome going on. His eye looked all funny. So then, so then I take him home. We're all upset about the tumor, so upset because we can't do anything to fix our dog. And she's like, just give him pain meds, that's all you can do. So then I take him back in 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 2 weeks, whatever, and she wanted to check him out again. And she said, I got the report of his lungs and the cancer is in his lungs. So I was like, it just keeps getting worse, people. So you can read more at winniepluza.com. I wrote all of it out. Yes, yes.

Did you ever connect the eye issue to his limping before you took him? Yes, because one of the vets had said the eye was related to the nerves.

Yeah, our vet, our—

Before we even got to the MRI and the cancer.

Our wonderful vet, predicted what was going on.

Nerve sheath tumor.

He, he had followed Tanner obviously his whole life, the original vet. We took him to other vets for other things to try to get him more help, but our vet was like, you know, the eye issue is connected to the nerve issue that he's having. And our vet was like, I think it's a tumor. I didn't know that the tumor was going to be like— I was worried. I was like, this is going to cost us a fortune. Like he's gonna have to have, you know, if there's a tumor, we got to take the tumor out, we got to take the leg off, like this is going to cost a fortune. And I was like, well, we'll buck up and pay for it and fix our dog. Like, I wasn't thinking nothing was gonna be fixable. So, okay, so she's telling us, you know, it's in his lungs, you know, he— if he has trouble breathing, if he— it's spreading to the other leg, like You guys make the decision. I don't know how this is gonna go. Give him pain meds, make him comfortable. So, time goes on and he won't stop panting. He's crying, he's panting, and now on top of the crying and panting and completely uncomfortable, he's like wobbling all over the place. He's falling. I'm like, are the pain meds making him dizzy? He fell outside. He's trying to get up in here where we're sitting, and I'm like trying to help this 80-pound dog and wondering why my back is hurting me. So, you know, it's like 3— oh, we stopped letting him go upstairs. Like, that he did not like that.

No, because he almost fell at one point. Charis is so hard. You're a beautiful family and you did all you could for your puppy.

Yeah. So we wouldn't let him go up the stairs anymore. We were so— I was so worried he was gonna fall, and I was so worried that he was gonna get hurt and I was gonna get hurt. I was like, this is gonna be bad. And he loved to sleep upstairs, like that's his routine. So he was all out of sorts. Seth and I were taking turns sleeping downstairs with him. It's like 3 AM in the morning, I'm up crying looking at my dog uncomfortable on the floor. And I'm like, dude, come on the couch with me, like, get up here and get comfortable. And I just looked at him and I knew that we were both done. Like, I just knew. So I didn't make it to Max coming home to say goodbye for last Friday, and, um, Max FaceTimed us. Thank you.

Yes, he Ella wanted to go to school that day, didn't want to be here. Lily went to school that day. I stayed home from work, um, and Max FaceTimed us from the dining hall, um, because he wanted to be here on FaceTime for it to say goodbye. Yes.

So we had, um, Dr. Dunn come here. She's amazing. Paws in Your Heart, I believe it's called. Most amazing lady ever. Um, knew how to handle all three of us. Yeah, and the cat. Faith was there the whole time. Joy is— our cats are not happy. Joy won't stop hiding. She'll come out, she'll hide, she'll come out, she'll hide.

Doesn't come out for very long.

She's just not herself.

They've—

when I— anytime I came in the door, all three of them were waiting for me. Now it's like a ghost town. Faith is like living on her cat trees. She's not sleeping in our room anymore. Like, they're upset. We're all upset. So, you know, this huge presence from the house is missing. Not happy. Making you cry. Yeah. Okay, so I didn't tell you to think about what Tanner taught you, but I'm gonna say a few things, and then you, if you have anything to add, add your two cents.

Oh, I was not prepped for this.

You don't have to come up with anything. Okay. Um, I just realized I never asked you to contribute to the blog.

You did not.

I apologize.

That's okay.

You can write your own.

Maybe I will.

Excuse me. You can write—

I wrote him a letter.

You wrote Tanner a letter?

I did.

You didn't tell me that.

I didn't.

Oh boy, we're gonna be all sappy. I was hoping we could hold it together for this, people. We're doing our best. Oh, and you know what else? I didn't look at who's on the podcast this week. I am back from a trip. I am not on the ball this week. I can't even tell you how excited I was. I'm not ready for the person on the podcast. I can't even tell you how excited I was to get the heck out of here. I was like, get me— I didn't want to leave my cats. My cats need me. My cats aren't happy. I gotta work on my cats. If you have multiple animals and have lost a pet, how did it go with the other animals? We have not had good luck when our— I remember when we lost Checkers, Pouncer was like, done. I don't think we're gonna have that issue with our cats. Checkers and Pouncer were like super attached.

To each other.

To each other. So anyways, I couldn't wait to get out of here. It was really, really good to not be here, and I did not want to come home. I did not want to come home to no Tanner here. Does not feel good to be home, but we came home to beautiful cards. Thank you for your cards and your gifts. I have a whole— our wonderful pet sitter made us a little crochet animal of Tanner, and left it for us. And we got, um, help me out, wind chimes and statues and cards and crystals.

There are golden retriever tchotchkes all over the place.

And, and Mia made us a beautiful drawing. Two drawings, actually. So we have like a whole altar shrine to Tanner. Okay, so I mean, Tanner taught me so many things. I'm, I'm I just mentioned a few, but there's like pages and pages. Our dogs are like— dogs are amazing. My dog was amazing. Sorry. It's okay. So, um, he was worth the wait. He was worth the wait. So I say go after what you want. So I can be too nice. I think one of the biggest— Max and I had this conversation the other day. He's way too nice. He's way too nice. And I'm like, dude, you are so much like your mother. I don't like how nice I am. Can you please not be like me? I need you to stick up for yourself. I need you to advocate for yourself, and I need you to stop being so nice about everything. He is really big on picking his battles. He is really big on putting other people ahead of himself. It's all my fault.

Hey, those are wonderful qualities though.

I don't know about that.

I think I'd rather he be too nice than not nice enough.

I mean, I love how he has the most wonderful heart.

He's very sweet.

Um, I see myself— you know how you see your qualities and your kids and you're like, oh, like, I don't like how nice I am. Like, sometimes I don't want to be nice. I've had this conversation with multiple people that I have worked on being less nice in a way that is positive. Is positive. Like, I want to be a nice person, I want to be kind, but you gotta put yourself first sometimes. And why I'm telling you this is I wanted a dog. Like, I needed to sit Seth down and be like, dude, I want a dog. Honey, husband, not dude.

Thank you.

This is from spending way too much time with Lily.

Yep, dad bro.

Dad bro. Everybody's a bro now. First it was dude, now it's bro. The slang, the teenager slang. So I needed to— I needed to sit Seth down like year 2 or 5 and be like, honey, I know that you're a cat person. I know you have no idea what you're missing. I know that you don't want a dog, but let your wife get a dog. I'm not gonna Show— he asked me when we got— when we got together, he said, please don't ever show up with an animal.

Yeah, no unannounced surprise. But look, I brought home a pet.

He had a girlfriend do that.

Yes.

I was not gonna— that's not respectful. I've had people say just show up with an animal. I don't think that's respectful to your spouse. I'm sorry, I don't agree with that.

The whole like, um, ask for forgiveness, um, doesn't work when it's a living being.

I think we should discuss it, and I think I should have sat him down and been like, let's do this. I I really want this. This means a lot to me. I don't think Seth realized how much I wanted it. Is that accurate?

Yes. So in year 2, you were having— you were pregnant. We were not getting a dog, a puppy, while you were pregnant.

Sorry, the timing happened how it happened.

Exactly. You got him when we were supposed to.

But I'm gonna tell all of you to go after what you want, and whether it's a dog or a car or a trip or a job or whatever it is, I want you to go after what you want. And Tanner taught me that. He— when I got Tanner, um, I will tell you, the first 2 weeks I cried and thought I did the worst thing ever because potty training in the winter sucked. Yes, in the middle of the night. I won't do that again.

No winter dog, no winter puppies, no winter puppies, no winter puppies.

Oh my gosh, in the middle of the night. Freezing my ass off trying to teach this poor puppy to pee outside. Nope, not doing that again. But after the 2 weeks and he was potty trained, then it was a little easier.

Yes.

Get outside. He taught me to get outside. He just wanted to be outside. And we walked every day. When he started limping and couldn't walk with me every day, or we were taking little walks like the vet would say, still walk him but do little walks. Like, I missed our grinds. Like, we used to really walk together, miles. So he got me outside, he got me to walk every— I walked every day for the longest time, no matter what the weather was. So I really love that he taught me to be outside and love nature. It was like contagious, his love for it. And he just wanted to stay outside. He wouldn't want to come in. He taught me so much patience because it became a game because he would come to the door. I think that he just wanted us to come outside.

He never actually told me. That would have been very helpful.

He couldn't talk. If he could have talked, he could have told us what was going on with him for a year.

Right.

So anyways, I would look outside and he would just be laying in the snow, just like watching the snow. And I was like, this guy is just happy to just be present with the snow. Like, be present, enjoy nature, slow down. Speaking of slowing down, I would want to like truck it outside.

She wants to power walk and get her steps in.

Like, I wanted to do like 3 miles, you know, minimum 2 miles, 3 miles. I wanted us to like go, and I wanted us to walk fast. And he was in really good shape with me, like we were both in really good shape before he started limping. But that's not what he wanted. I mean, he was doing it for me, but Seth and I laughed that he wanted us— I wanted a walk, he wanted a smell walk.

He didn't know. I would say Tanner wants to go for a sniff. Yeah, where he stops at every single tree and smells them all and pees on them all. And I don't know how his bladder held that much pee, but he wanted to pee on every single tree and smell them all. And go at 1 mile an hour, and Rebecca wanted to go at like a 10-minute mile, like, "Let's go, I got calories to burn!" Well, I was just trying—

I was just trying to get some exercise, and he was just trying to get some sniffing. I watched a dog expert, and this reshaped my brain because I would get so annoyed with him, like, "Do we have to smell everything?" And the dog expert said it's their social media. So we scroll social media, they get stimulated by smelling everything. And I also read that they get more exhausted from smelling than they do by walking, which is so interesting. So interesting. So he taught me to stop and smell the roses because he wanted to stop and smell everything and I wanted to power walk. So he definitely slowed me down. He definitely got me outside and he taught me about grief. Deep love equals deep grief. Yeah. The love, I mean, the way that he looked at us. Ah, there's, there's more. I mean, I don't have more in me. This is hard. I don't know why I thought that we could talk about this. I'm sorry. That's okay.

Probably did some.

How do we not talk about this? I mean, this is what's going on, right?

We are— we talked about it.

So, um, you know, when I started this, it was to process feelings. It was to help me through parenting and motherhood.

Original whiny palooza blog, back when Lily was a baby.

When Lily was 1 is when I— Lily is 13. When Lily was 1, I started writing. And started getting it all out. It was all inside. We've never gotten a phone call during the live before.

So we got FaceTime interrupted.

Shoot, I don't know what's going— I don't even know if this is working.

It says live, honey.

So sorry everybody, total interruption.

No problem.

Um, Seth is gonna have to edit these together. Sorry, Adrian. We've got lots going on this week. So we're wrapping it up and we somehow got through this topic, but this is what's going on with us. And if you've lost a dog, then you know, or a pet, um, or a pet, you know how hard it is. And there are family members and it sucks. So I'm trying to figure out why the screen looks so different, but we moved No, whatever, just keep going. Anyways, um, can you find out what it's called? Yes. Okay, so this week on the podcast—

tomorrow—

can you go back to— I'm, I'm about done. Okay, title: Building Confidence from the Inside Out with Teresa Paganini is Friday podcast this week. And, um, if you're not in the Whiny Pooza Mom group, go join it. It's a free supportive community on Facebook. And thank you for bearing with us. This was a hard one to talk about. I'm a little discombobulated, but we got through it.

We did.

And what else do you want to share on the good news front?

Rebecca Greene's been in the top 10 podcasts of all of iTunes for parenting for the last month. And she's been consistently in the top 5 this week, which is absolutely incredible. So thank you to all of the many, many, many people who are listening and sharing. We greatly appreciate it when you rate, give her 5 stars, when you give— write a review, when you share it with somebody. We really appreciate that. Go to winniepalooza.com, sign up for her free email newsletter and get all of her free resources and share the love with other people that you know.

Thanks everyone. Have a wonderful week. We will be back next week.

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