Comfy Critters Home Vet

10/11/2025

Grief deserves space, not silence and shadows.

To love deeply is to grieve deeply. There is no way around it - only through it.

When we share our grief, we honour the truth we often want to forget: that everything we love, we will lose. No exceptions.

But it is grief, not denial, that lets the heart stay open. It is grief that lets us remember sweetly. It is grief that keeps love alive.

This family gave their Big Dog the gift of a gentle goodbye, surrounded by honesty, tenderness, and care.

"Dr Allie was the light in a very dark moment."

Let that light remind us: grief is not something to hide. It's how we honour what mattered.

🕊️

04/11/2025

The most beautiful goodbyes aren't quiet or perfect

They're full of life, laughter, tears, treats and the kind of love that fills the whole room

The perfect last day isn't about erasing sadness

It's about letting love and grief sit side by side, exactly as they are ♥️💔

Because when we make room for both, we honour the whole story

This is what I try to create for the families who invite me into these moments

A space to celebrate, to feel, and to let love lead the way home

🐾🩺🕊️

16/10/2025

Grief isn’t something we’re meant to do alone.

When we pause long enough to feel it. To breathe, to let the tears come, we give love the space to keep moving through us.

Rituals help us do that.

They give shape to what words can’t, turning goodbye into something we can hold for a moment - a breath, a bubble, a quiet act of letting go.

There will never be enough words to capture the depth of our grief, but sometimes, a small gesture like this helps us hold it - just long enough to begin to breathe again.

This is what I share with the families who invite me to help their pets find peace:
a space to stop, to honour, to feel, and to remember that love never leaves. It just changes form.

For everyone who has lost someone special - whether animal or human - may this remind you:
you’re not alone in your grief, and your love still lives everywhere around you.

💔

07/10/2025

When love has filled a whole lifetime, the goodbye becomes something sacred.

We set the scene together.
Candles, a playlist of specially-chosen songs in the background, and a smorgasbord of treats laid out for him: chicken, muffins, and a few sweets (but the chicken was the clear winner).

At 17, he’d lived a whole lifetime of love and stories, so we lay around him and just talked.

His parents shared memories.
We laughed through the tears and talked about all the ways he had filled their lives with love.

The room was full of warmth and calm.
That deep kind of peace that comes when love has been lived fully.

I left that evening with my heart full, reminded how beautiful it is to honour a life that’s been so well loved ❤️

04/10/2025

At the end of every home end-of-life, there’s a quiet moment that often goes unseen.

After the final breath, when the room softens and the tears come, we take a little time for gentle body care. A slow, respectful ritual to honour your pet.

It’s not rushed. It’s calm. It’s done with the same tenderness you’ve shown them their whole life.

We brush their fur, smooth their ears, wrap them softly, and make sure they’re comfortable one last time with a favourite blanket or treasured toy.

Sometimes there’s silence, sometimes there’s laughter through tears as we share memories and tributes.

Always, there’s love and gentle reverence for this little one who has brought so much joy and meaning into our lives.

This ritual matters.

Touching and caring for your pet’s body after they’ve passed can be deeply healing. It helps your heart and hands catch up to what your mind already knows — that their body is still here, but their spirit has gone.

It allows you to say goodbye with gentleness, with intention, and with love.

In those small, sacred moments, there’s space for stillness, gratitude, and grace.

It’s one of the most meaningful parts of what I do — a quiet act of reverence that reminds us: love doesn’t end when life does. 💔

19/09/2025

Routines change so suddenly when a pet passes.

The quiet moments we used to share like the morning walks, the cuddles on the couch and even the simple act of filling their water bowl — can feel impossible without them 💔

Winston and his mum had a special routine.

Every morning they’d head into the forest, walking beneath the tall gum trees. Winston nearly always found a stick to carry on his way.

When he passed away suddenly, the thought of getting up for that walk without him was heartbreaking for her.

I gently encouraged his mum to still go the next morning. But instead of looking for a stick, she could bring home a gum leaf instead.

I suggested she could use a craft cutter to make little love hearts as a way to keep him close.

She didn’t do it just once.

She’s still walking every morning, collecting a leaf, and creating these beautiful handmade hearts that honour his memory.

I had a plaque made to celebrate Winston’s beautiful life (thank you ) — but it’s her daily ritual that touches me most.

A quiet act of love that transforms grief into remembrance, one leaf at a time.

You don’t have to let go of the routines you shared.

You can carry them forward in new ways — letting love and memory walk beside you.

17/09/2025

In 2016, a whippet named Walnut was nearing the end of his life.

His owner invited the public to join them for one final walk along the beach.

Hundreds came. Strangers. Families. Dogs of every kind. It was a sea of quiet love and gentle goodbyes.

This is just one example of what’s possible when we pause and make space for love, for memory, for goodbye.

A pet bucket list isn’t one big moment.
It’s a handful of small, meaningful ones.
Personal. Intentional. Full of heart.

I’m lucky to witness the deep bond between pets and their people every day.

We talk about what their pet has meant to them, how they want to honour that love, and how they’ll celebrate before saying goodbye.

Some beautiful ideas families have shared with me:

• A final drive-through, eating all the chips and nuggets before they got home
• A family and friends' BBQ in the backyard focused on celebrating the pet
• A photo shoot with their pet and family at home, to remember them just as they are
• One last wagon ride to their favourite beach
• Finally being allowed to sleep on someone's bed without getting roused on
• A whole roast chicken on the couch
• One final car ride, windows all the way down

The list doesn’t need to be long. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

It just needs to feel like love.

If you’re walking this road now, I’ve created free printable bucket lists for dogs and cats.

One for early palliative care, one for those final few days.

You can find them here:
https://www.comfycrittersvet.com.au/blog/pet-bucket-list-end-of-life-palliative-care

Walnut's story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-13/walnut-the-whippet-joined-by-hundreds-for-final-beach-walk/8021208

14/09/2025

I read a beautiful eulogy for a beloved pet and wanted to share it here.

Does it resonate with you?

🤍🤍🤍

Comfort in Quantum Physics
For anyone who doesn't find comfort in the idea of heaven or the rainbow bridge, maybe you'll find comfort in theoretical physics.

Jennifer B. Lee - Sep 12, 2025

Dear Reader,

From a young age, I saw how comforting it was to believe. To know, with every fiber of your being, that you'd see your loved ones again. That they were watching over you. That there was some plan—even if you didn’t understand it. And I envied everyone who believed in something bigger.

I was raised by a fiercely logical, Jewish atheist mother and a Southern-Christian-turned-Jewish, staunchly atheist father who read quantum physics and string theory for fun. There was no Heaven in our house. No fate. No Rainbow Bridge. Just entropy and biology. Just science.

I wrestled with my disbelief until I was sixteen, hiking with my dad on Mount Rainier discussing the death of my friend. I told him I wasn’t ready for him to leave me and asked him to promise he wasn’t going to die anytime soon.

He looked at me and said, “I can’t promise I won’t leave. Because I will. One day. I don’t get to control that. But what I can promise is that I’ll never really be gone.”

Then he knelt and drew diagrams in the snow. He explained how string theory suggests multiple realities. How Einstein’s theory of relativity means time may not be linear. And how quantum entanglement might mean we’re never truly separated.

That conversation has carried me through every loss since. It was the first time I understood that belief doesn’t have to be religious. It can be theoretical. It can be scientific. And it can be possible.

So if you’re like me and don’t find comfort in the idea of Heaven, maybe you’ll find comfort in quantum entanglement.

When two particles become entangled, they remain linked. Change one, and the other reacts instantly. Across galaxies. Across time. Einstein disapprovingly called the theory “spooky action at a distance.” Today, we call it what it is: proven physics.

So if two electrons can be forever altered by a moment of contact, how could I not be altered by a lifetime with my dog?

She was written into my nervous system—into my routine, my sense of safety. Our bodies knew each other. We moved in sync without thought. Our rhythms were intertwined. I loved her, fed her, held her. I memorized the thump of her heartbeat. And when it was time, I breathed in her last exhale of life.

I simply can’t believe that all of that just ends.

Maybe we don’t have proof yet, but it seems impossible that we’re not still entangled. We are bound not just by memory, but by matter.

I believe our atoms remember each other. That the stardust we came from—whatever speck of the universe birthed us both—knows that we belong together. And in every version of existence, in every tangled thread of time and reality, our atoms remain entangled. And they will always find their way back to each other.

Maggie and I will find each other across galaxies, across realities, across planes of existence.

Even if I never hold her again in this life… Even if I never see her baking like a potato in the grass or feel her head pressed into my chest as she dozes off…Our connection didn’t end with her last breath.

It just moved.

And this is not the end of our story.

Somewhere, somehow, in some reality beyond this one, I will find her again. And she will know me…

In every life. Every universe. Every version of existence.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/173064155?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawMzdwxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsEVrSinF1MumvtaAjyToGf_HACxGvQn7AgLKh4bzQB_vgz6JIPcZ0ccrn5F_aem_m3yIjGgNGedODUzDMm2h3Q&triedRedirect=true

For anyone who doesn't find comfort in the idea of heaven or the rainbow bridge, maybe you'll find comfort in theoretical physics.

03/09/2025

Today, Ollie was farewelled the way every pet deserves: gently, peacefully and at home 💔

At 15, his body was tired, but his heart was full, surrounded by the people who had loved him for a lifetime.

They gave him the most beautiful gift. A calm, familiar goodbye with time to hold him close, whisper their love, and be still.

Afterwards, he was tucked in tenderly. Blankets, flowers, shaking hands. A farewell as gentle as he was.

Love like this doesn't end when their heartbeat does.

Grief follows - heavy, quiet, aching.

It settles in the spaces where they used to be.

And it stays.

It shows up in the stillness of the house, in the empty spot on the bed, in the routine that suddenly isn’t needed anymore.

As painful as it is, we need to let grief in.

Because when we let it in – when we truly sit with it – we begin the long, slow work of integrating that loss into our lives.

It doesn’t mean “moving on.”

It means carrying love and sorrow side by side.

Ollie was deeply loved.

And that love will stay with his family, always.

02/09/2025

I've got a new CBD oil flavour: and I think it gets a big lick of approval from Rose 🤣

One of my favourite parts of being a Comfort Care Vet is getting to see pets in their own space and surrounded by love at home

Back when I worked in a busy GP clinic, I’d be lucky to have 20 minutes with a pet and their person

Now, I get the time to get to know them, learn what makes them comfortable, and share in the beautiful bond they have with their families

When clients send me updates like this peanut butter + carrot treat moment, I’m reminded why I love this work so much 🤗

It’s not just about medicine. It’s about connection and comfort and supporting pets and their people through the most important stage of life

I feel incredibly grateful to walk alongside families in these meaningful moments, helping keep pets as comfy and content for as long as possible, at home

25/08/2025

“He’s still eating - he's not in pain... Right?”

By the time most pets show obvious signs of pain, they’ve already been uncomfortable for weeks — or longer.

Comfort care helps you spot the subtle signs earlier — and gives you the support, education, and plan to navigate what’s ahead.

It’s not just for the end...

It’s for right now

20/08/2025

The ocean never fails to leave me in awe 😍

A recent marine fauna event reminded me how much more there is to learn as a vet 🤓

And with some big things coming up for me and Comfy Critters as we start to branch into a few more species… let’s just say, watch this space 👀