Jodene Mills

My Why

The idea of Paws and Presence is as old as my heartdog, Bosco. He passed in 2012 and it took 4 years for me to even mention his name without crying. At that time I heard a lot of, “he lived a good life”, “you gave him a great life”, and “he’s been gone for how long??” from those wondering why I was still so sad. I didn’t know pet loss support existed but I sure could have used it.

For 12 years, Boscobear was my companion. Through Undergrad, through my Master’s, through the beginning and end of my marriage, and helped raise my two children. He was my constant confidant, and trusted support. I will never forget the lessons he taught me, or how safe he made me feel. I have other pets now that I love dearly and are so different from him in every way but equally special in their own ways. They’re not meant to compare, which is a good thing – no one can ever really compare to “the one”. Losing any one of them will rock my and my family’s world – as past pets have, and as future pets will.

Both sides of the exam room

I am drawn to the world of veterinary medicine because of the human-animal bond – helping the people who help animals and their families is my true calling. Supporting the team that holds it together until the door closes and still has to carry it afterward — into the next appointment, and home at the end of the day. That weight is real, and it’s cumulative, and most clinics have nowhere to put it. Supporting the people who do this work over and over is as much a part of what I do as supporting the families.

Another aspect I find extremely fulfilling is supporting pet parents through the end of life process – talking through the anticipatory grief, being with them for the final appointment if they need support, and celebrating the animal’s life (and how their human’s life was changed just for knowing them) afterward. I feel so honoured every time a family allows me “in” during such an emotional and intimate time.

I have spent years working in veterinary clinic operations. I know what a euthanasia appointment looks like from the staff side — the room that has to be turned over, the schedule that doesn’t pause, the team that holds it together until the door closes. I also know what it looks like from the client side — a family in a small room being asked to make an enormous decision, quickly, while they can barely speak.

Both of those experiences are true at once, and neither is anyone’s fault. It’s a structural gap — the appointment simply can’t hold everything the moment requires. My work exists in that gap.

I have many, many touching stories, but I remember one couple in particular. They booked an appointment to say goodbye to their senior Black Lab – but it was more than even a euthanasia appointment. The team soon discovered the dog was their son’s, and he had passed away – the dog was all they felt they had left of him, and the grief they were feeling was as much about their pet as it was their son.

We endeavoured to make the appointment as positive a memory as possible. There were tears, but there were also laughs. We let him have the chocolate he would never be allowed to have before, and the couple laughed as their beloved dog wolfed down everything as fast as he possibly could and looked around for more. After the goodbye, the couple both gave me a long, deep hug of thanks. One of them whispered, “now what?”. I responded with a hug as strong as theirs, saying, “when you remember today’s goodbye, also remember today’s laughs. Celebrate the life your dog lived and what you gave each other”.

I was able to provide a card for after-care support with a registered grief counselor, but the couple did not have the funds. We stayed in touch.

What it’s like to work with me

First and foremost, I am an animal lover who celebrates the human-animal bond in everything I do. I have been where you are – multiple times. I understand the questions you don’t want to ask, and the answers you don’t want to hear. That’s why I don’t arrive with a plan for how your grief should go, or how long it will stay. There’s no correct sequence, no stage you should have reached by now, and no version of this where you’re doing it wrong.

What I bring is information when you want it, company when you don’t, and enough familiarity with this territory that you don’t have to explain the painful basics. I’ll help you think through decisions without making them for you. I’ll say the quiet parts out loud — about guilt, about relief, about loving an animal more than you’ve admitted to anyone.