Compassion / Caregiver Fatigue with a dash of Obsession and Exhaustion: When Pet Loss Follows You Into the Present
Sometimes the hardest part of caring for a dog with health issues isn’t the diagnosis, the treatment plan, or even the unknowns. Sometimes the hardest part is what it does to us. One skipped meal, one off day, and suddenly our entire nervous system lights up like a Christmas tree. It is the way one small change can pull every old fear back to the surface before we even have time to breathe. So today, we’re not going to talk about how to support our dogs. Today, we’re going to talk about how to support you.
Pet caregiver burnout can follow families long after a diagnosis or loss. Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, holistic canine nutrition, dog hospice and palliative care, and pet advocacy.
What Does a Canine Cancer Doula Actually Do?
A canine cancer doula supports families from diagnosis through treatment, palliative care, hospice, end-of-life decisions, and grief. Learn how compassionate, individualized guidance can help you care for your dog while also supporting the needs of the entire household. “Why I Do This Work”, Because I have been through this more than once, hospice is a calling—not a job.
I know what it feels like to love a dog through illness, to become a caregiver, to make difficult decisions, and to experience the silence that follows when they are no longer physically beside you. Those experiences changed me. They shaped the way I support families and deepened my understanding of how much care is needed—not only for the dog, but also for the people who love them.
What does a Canine Cancer Doula actually do? Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
At-Home Wellness Check for Dogs: How to Check their Vitals
Learning how to check your dog’s basic vital signs can help you recognize changes sooner and communicate more clearly with your veterinarian. This guide explains how to check body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, gum color, and capillary refill time, along with general resting ranges and warning signs that require veterinary attention.
At-Home Wellness Check for Dogs: How to Check their Vitals Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
Listening Beyond the “Loss”
Grief can change the way we listen to our dogs. It can make us more alert to dog behavior changes, more tender, and sometimes more afraid of what we might be missing. In this piece, I’m exploring the quiet space between intuition and old heartbreak — and how pet loss can shape the way we notice our dogs, our worry, and our need to advocate for the ones we love. Because sometimes listening closely means trusting both our dogs and ourselves.
Listening Beyond the Loss Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
Wait! High Cholesterol?
When a blood panel comes back showing high cholesterol or high triglycerides, one of the first questions families often ask is: “Do we need to change the diet?”
It is such a natural question. We love our dogs deeply, and we want to know whether we caused this, whether we can fix it quickly, and whether one food change will put everything back on track.
What Is Hyperlipidemia? Is It Really About Diet? The Liver Connection Why the Pancreas Matters Raw Fats vs. Cooked Fats Dogs, Wolves, and Why Fat Matters What About the Brain and Cholesterol? TCM Perspective: Phlegm, Dampness, and Stagnation Herbs and CBD: Supportive Tools, Not Shortcuts A Gentle Reminder for Families Final Thoughts
My Dogs High Cholesterol? Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
Electrolytes for dogs
The body is an electrochemical system.
That may sound technical, but it is really just a plain-language way of saying this: the body runs on currents, signals, and mineral balance. Nerves fire because charged particles move. Muscles contract because electrolytes help carry the message. Cells communicate, fluids shift, tissues repair, and temperature is regulated through a finely tuned dance of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, phosphate, and other minerals.
When that balance is off — especially during heat, heavy activity, stress, diarrhea, or dehydration — the body has to work harder. And for dogs, that can show up quickly.
Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
Hyperkeratosis - How normal is it really?
Many veterinarians will tell you, “It’s all perfectly normal”….
Hyperkeratosis in dogs is a condition where the body produces too much keratin, causing thick, dry, hardened skin. It’s often seen on the nose or paw pads, where it may look like crusty layers, rough patches, or hardened growths. While it may be brushed off as “normal,” hyperkeratosis can become uncomfortable or painful over time, especially if the skin starts to crack.
In Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine, hyperkeratosis and ichthyosis are often viewed as signs of Blood Deficiency, Yin Deficiency, Body Fluid Deficiency, or Spleen Qi Deficiency. From this perspective, the body is not nourishing or moistening the skin effectively, so the skin becomes dry, brittle, and prone to crusting.
What is Hyperkeratosis in dogs. Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
Vitamin D and your Dogs Cancer
Over the years—caring for my own dogs and walking alongside clients whose dogs are facing cancer—I keep asking the same quiet question: is my dog truly getting what they need? I’ve also learned it’s okay to keep learning and to stay open to new information; a different perspective doesn’t mean the facts weren’t there—it just means we hadn’t seen them yet. For example, I only recently learned that many medicinal mushroom compounds have a half-life of about 10 to 12 hours, so giving them twice daily can help maintain their effects. We also know that medicinal mushrooms offer an abundance of Vitamin D.
It can be unsettling to learn that some commercial diets may miss essential vitamins while others oversupply them, risking toxicity—a confusing double-edged sword when …
Vitamin D in dogs Cancer. Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.
Coptis for Diarrhea
I wanted to throw this together really quickly as it’s always in my uh oh cabinet. I’ve seen multiple questions or concerns about diarrhea in regards to pain meds or inflammation. A great replacement for metronidazole without the harmful side effects that come with those medications. Usually kicks out runny tummys within 6 to 24 hours. Dosage starts at…
Coptis for dogs Diarrhea. Bronwyn Farley, CAHC, founder of Dolce’s Legacy, offers phone consultations, canine cancer doula support, dog hospice and palliative care, holistic canine nutrition, food therapy, and pet advocacy.