06/12/2026
Yesterday I received a distress call from a good friend.
They'd been called in by a friend of theirs - their dog was with a sitter and wasn't doing well. My first question: what's happening health-wise?
The answer stopped me cold.
This dog had been having active seizures for over two days. Falling unresponsive for five minutes at a time, at first. Then longer. Then more severe. The sitter and the pet parent were in contact throughout. No one called a vet.
By the time she was seen at the 24-hour animal hospital yesterday- this sweet girl was euthanized later last evening.
I am enraged.
Over two-plus days of active, visible seizures, with no prior seizure history, and neither the sitter nor the pet parent thought to call a vet hospital and ask if this was an emergency. If you watched a human collapse and go unresponsive - even if you weren't sure what you were witnessing - most people with basic common sense would call 911. At minimum, you'd call Health Link. You would do something.
This is not about being perfect. Nobody is perfect, me included. This is about basic, fundamental common sense.
You get what you pay for. In every service, every product, every care provider you choose. Every single time.
This sweet girl was let down. By a sitter who had been caring for her regularly, for years. In a community where 24-hour animal hospitals exist. What happened is not acceptable. Full stop.
Pet parents - I need you to hear this.
- Would you leave a child with someone you'd never vetted?
- Would you leave an elderly person, or anyone who can't advocate for themselves, with a stranger?
- Would you leave an infant with someone who had no idea how to safely hold a baby, let alone handle an emergency?
No. You wouldn't.
Yet so many pet parents drop their dog off with just anyone. Someone they haven't vetted. Someone they don't know. The cheapest option they could find, arranged as an afterthought, last minute.
I believe sharing your life with an animal is one of the greatest privileges a human being can receive. Unconditional love. Unconditional acceptance. Those words get overused - I know. But sit with them.
If you have ever received that from even the most extraordinary human being in your life, you know how rare it is. These animals give it to you freely. Every single day. They're your therapist. Your constant. The ones who are always there - by choice - through everything. At the end of every day, they love you without judgment, without condition, without keeping score.
And then - some treat their care like the cheapest value menu option you can find.
This same friend said it perfectly back in January, and I haven't been able to shake it: when you ask someone to care for your pet, you are not asking someone to store a plastic storage tote in the back corner of your basement.
Read that again.
If your animals give you the cold shoulder at pickup after you've left them with someone who didn't deserve that responsibility - you deserve the cold shoulder. If they wreck your favorite things when they get home - honestly, you deserve that too.
I believe deeply in the human-animal bond. I pursue it formally. My girl is my everything. My soul. I built Wiggle Butts Day Home to support the humans and dogs who get it - who truly prioritize it, who do everything to protect it. I do not take my responsibility lightly, to care for deeply profoundly important creatures in a human’s life, and the trust that is placed with me to do so. That's what I'm here for. And after more than two years, it still doesn't fit neatly in a couple of sentences, and I've made peace with that.
I'm not here to judge anyone. I'm not here to force my views on the world.
I am here to call out the basics when I see them failing. I am here to support and to educate. I have the privilege of having many vet med professionals as friends and partners, and what I know as fact is that they see this kind of thing far too often. Preventable situations. Often preventable outcomes.
If you are in doubt - make the phone call. You'd do it for another human. Do it for the animal you call your everything. Make sure your actions back up that claim.
I also shared a triage guide from one of the local animal hospitals yesterday - screenshot it, save it, keep it somewhere you can find it fast. And if you share your life with an animal, or care for animals - please, at minimum, pursue basic pet first aid training. It matters. It can be the difference.
This sweet girl, if she had been given the care she deserved, would have received immediate medical attention. And very likely - she would have been supported to cross over sooner.
Rest in peace, sweet girl.🐾💕🌈
