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A few months ago, I was sat on my parents kitchen floor, watching

Our baby-dog Bethan – RIP

my beautiful rescue dog Bethany die. We had been caring for her for about a year: she had cancer, kidney failure and cataracts and was only supposed to survive a month – but once we got her home, love and fun kept her going! Right up till the end, she would dance with joy in the morning and cuddle us with such affection: it’s easy to write about her life… but her dying… I just don’t have the words.

Today, vegan musician Fiona Apple, left a heartbreaking message on Facebook, canceling her tour to care for her dying rescue dog Janet. Her words are… perfect. Here is what she said:

“It’s 6pm on Friday,and I’m writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet.
I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.
Here’s the thing.
I have a dog Janet, and she’s been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She’s almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult officially – and she was my child.
She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.
She’s almost 14 and I’ve never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She’s a pacifist.
Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.
We’ve lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it’s always really been the two of us.
She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.
She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.
The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she’s used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.
She has Addison’s Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.
Despite all of this, she’s effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.
She’s my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she’s the one who taught me what love is.
I can’t come to South America. Not now.
When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.
She doesn’t even want to go for walks anymore.
I know that she’s not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people.
But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.
I just can’t leave her now, please understand.
If I go away again, I’m afraid she’ll die and I won’t have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.
But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us.
I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.
I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.
And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.
Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.
I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.
I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.
I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.
Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I’ve ever known.
When she dies.
So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.
And I am asking for your blessing.I’ll be seeing you.
Love, Fiona”

I can only aspire both to the the love and talent that this brilliant artist holds – and we wish them both peace x

Because we set up Ethical Pets out of necessity, being pet owners with a conscience and no-place to shop – it’s exciting for us to meet our customers, ’cause they were once just like us! Last month, I travelled to London for a free software conference, and took the opportunity to meet two of our customers in the area.

First, I travelled to Canterbury to meet Anne Booth and her wonderful family – I had a really great day there, we went for a walk with Ben and Timmy, the family dogs – plus Canterbury is a fab city which I will certainly visit again! It felt like a home from home there, and Anne reminds me a lot of my own mum… also called Anne! Here is what Anne and her family has to say about Ethical Pets.

Next I went to Fulham to meet Dan and his lovely poodle Coco. Dan was really kind and funny – we went to the park and he bought me a coffee and we talked about all sorts of interesting things. It was nice to meet a customer so different from myself – Dan seems very organized and the Bradshaw family home was beautiful and very tidy… I am so used to chaos that I found it quite fascinating to see! When I came home I cleaned my house from top to bottom, but it still looked rather “weasly-ish” (for the Harry Potter readers out there!). I wonder what his secret is? Here is what Dan had to say about Ethical Pets.

I was very surprised by Coco – poodles are often portrayed as being a little snooty, but in reality, Coco was a bit like a Labrador… a Labrador with a high caffeine intake! I was also struck by how Loyal and well behaved she was, especially for such an excitable dog… my family have always looked after terriers… terriers with rather loose morals! Ralph and Hebe, the current pair, like nothing better than running off with whoever has chips or ice cream! Coco was really quite an angel in comparison.

I was particularly interested in Dan’s perspective on eco products – he stressed that an eco product must also do its job well first and foremost. All of our products are practical as well as ethical – but it did occur to me how naff many non-ethical pet products can be. I wonder if ethical companies are more likely to design good products than less discerning folk? What do you think?