Some families get a chance to plan and fulfill an amazing bucket list with their pets. The sentiment is that this end-of-life, memory-making phase is filled with adventure, photos, smiles, and even tears.
A quick Google search for ‘pet bucket lists’ results in many ideas to cultivate your own amazing list for your pet. The process of making and choosing the to-do items can be as emotional and significant as checking the boxes themselves.
Deciding what your furry child’s last hurrahs and memories will consist of can feel monumentally important.
But for some, the bucket list is elusive. Sometimes illness progression is so fast that there is little to no time to plan, or your pet just isn’t fully themselves anymore and wouldn’t enjoy some of those standard checklist items.
Ideas like taking a car ride with the wind on their face, catching a frisbee, and having a playdate are often not going to work for a sick pet. And if your beloved is a cat then these ideas are even more likely completely out of the question.
If a bucket list doesn’t feel like an option, whether due to time or your pet’s health, it can feel like another loss. Another thing to be robbed of.
When our dog, Ace’s health really declined in the week before we said farewell, there was no way he wanted to be in the car. I don’t think he would’ve even appreciated being brushed and typically he loved that. And he wasn’t eating much so that wasn’t the best fallback either (although he did ultimately eat a mini chocolate donut on his way to the rainbow bridge, which made us all happy).
We were able to think outside the box a bit and did a few ‘at-home bucket list’ things. I realized that this type of bucket list example needs to exist. A list for the ones that can’t adventure. That can’t walk as well anymore. Who have lost some of their senses, but still have others. This list is for pets but it’s for us pet parents too. We’re the memory keepers and want to make as many as humanly possible.
The list – Download it. Screenshot it. Check off one thing. Check off ten things. Ditch it all and make it your own. Use it as a baseline to simply know that a bucket list doesn’t have to be about adventures. It can be about the little details too.
