Why I Started This Program--"Stretch"

Four years ago, when I worked for a different hospice, I was the chaplain for an elderly man and wife named Harold and Rose. They lived in an assisted living apartment with a black and tan, rather portly Dachshund named "Stretch." Stretch came to them one day via a knock on their apartment door. They opened the door to find him waiting expectantly on the doorstep. There was no note and no one else around, so they invited him in. The day Stretch waddled in their door, their lives changed forever.

Harold was on hospice for terminal heart disease. Each time we came to visit him, Stretch was the doorbell and the official greeter. He would roll over on his back for us to scratch his tummy and then he would jump up on the couch next to Harold. Harold would pet him as we visited and Stretch would escort us to the door when we left. After his admission, Harold's condition stabilized and we had him on hospice for over a year. We all enjoyed visiting their home and Stretch loved us too.

Harold's condition stabilized, but unfortunately, his wife Rose began to decline. She began to have memory lapses that kept her from helping Harold take his medications properly. He was too weak to care for her and the stress on them both began to show. His daughter and son-in-law told us they felt as though they had to make some changes and we agreed to help. Our social worker tried to help find a suitable place to move them, but the family had already decided they would move them to a place without Stretch. We tried our best to intervene, knowing how important the dog was to Harold, but to no avail. An out of state relative took the dog away the day of the move, before we could offer additional options.

When I visited Harold and Rose in their new apartment, I was shocked at the change in him. He sat alone in a back room in the dark, quietly grieving. He missed his dog, he told me, and he worried about how Stretch was doing in his new home. He confessed that he was afraid that the relative might have taken him to a shelter. I felt helpless, but I offered what comfort and support I could and spoke to his nurse about his depression. His wife, despite her confusion, knew that he was missing his dog and she was angry at the family for taking him away.

Over the next six weeks, Harold continued to decline rapidly. He also became increasingly confused, remembering who I was, but not knowing why I visited him. I saw Harold in the hospital twice and then finally in a nursing home, separated for the first time in sixty-five years from his wife. My last visit was one I will never forget. Harold laid on his bed, fully clothed, talking nonsensically to no one in particular, staring at the television. Beside him, where Stretch always laid, Harold petted an invisible dog over and over again. He died later that night.

I started Pet Peace of Mind because I believe that we could have changed the end of Harold's life if we had taken Stretch in, placed him in a foster home and brought him to visit Harold on a regular basis with hospice volunteers. When I told this story to the leadership of HGC, most of whom care deeply about their own pets, they responded by offering their support and making the program possible.