I didn’t expect my dog to become one of my greatest teachers. Certainly not in the messy, chaotic way he lived. And definitely not in the way he left.
Simba was an absolute rascal.
If his brother was the zen of zen dogs (with one exception: electric scooters), Simba was everything else. Full of life. Full of mischief. Reactive. Defiant. Loving. He was the dog who made me laugh, sigh, swear, and melt, sometimes all in the same breath.
And then, in March of this year (2025), a tiny cut on his leg from jumping into the fish pond at my best friend’s house (sorry about that guys!) refused to heal. We thought nothing of it at first. But underneath the hair was a lump, hiding, almost waiting. Within weeks and a few trips to the vets, we were informed it was a sarcoma. An aggressive form of what we understood to be a tissue cancer. Unstoppable in effect. We were bargaining on maybe losing his leg, or perhaps living with him until Christmas but the sarcoma had other ideas.
Five weeks.
From bounding through life to bonding more and more with his oversized dog bed. No more play, mostly rest. Daily changing the dressing on his tumour which wouldn’t stop bleeding or growing. I remember the day before THAT DAY, how when I cut the bandage off for the last time and how I cried so hard, knowing deep down that this would be the last day that I would perform this act, this new ritual – and how I would happily do it everyday going forward if it meant that he would be able to continue living on this planet with us.
On April 24th, a Thursday I will never forget, we faced the choice no dog owner ever wants to make. Two more weeks of suffering, potential seizures, and apathy or letting him go. I’m not sure if it was the choice itself or the power to decide over his life, however it lives within me to this very day. It’s not a weight on my back, more like a scar that I imagine will remain indefinitely.
SImba left this world as he arrived: leaving his mark everywhere (literally—peeing on his final walk to the vets) and then squaring up to a fellow big dog in the surgery one last time. His final act of mischief. I miss his presence so much.
Even as I write this, five months later, my eyes fill with tears. It’s still raw.
What Simba Taught Me
It’s strange how a dog can teach us about being human.
Unconditional love.
He didn’t care what kind of day I’d had. I could tell him off for his mischievous ways and two minutes later he’d be back – tail wagging, smiling, ready to try again.
Living in the moment.
Simba stopped frequently to sniff the roses (and then pee on them). He reminded me to pause, to look around, to be here now and to slow down (so important for my work).
Forgiveness and acceptance.
No grudges. No conditions. Just presence.
Resilience.
Even when told “no,” he’d try again later. He didn’t give up; he simply came back with renewed spirit. I coin this phrase as ‘starting with a YES and working backwards’…
And perhaps most of all, he reinforced my knowledge of what it means to hold boundaries.
He tested mine daily. Relentlessly. With persistence that only a stubborn Airedale Terrier could muster. And in doing so, he made me a better human.
What Grief Taught Me
I thought I knew grief. I thought I’d welcomed it enough times in my 43 years to recognise its face.
It was time to think again.
Grief is REALLY exhausting. It consumes energy in ways I never expected – nor had experienced before. The level of the grief is relative to the level of attachment, that I knew. I just wasn’t aware how attached I was to this not-so-little agent of chaos. Add to this the joy of being self-employed, the weight of showing up for others while carrying my own loss was almost unbearable. Almost.
Supervision held me together.
Having a space where I could show up as I was – not as I thought I should be – made the difference. It reminded me that being human is not separate from being professional. In fact, they reinforce each other.
And ‘it’ – let’s call it for what it is, loss, change, grief – softened me.
It gave me more compassion, more patience, more gentleness for the grief of others.
Three Lessons for Life (and Coaching)
As I look back, Simba’s lessons echo directly into my work as a coach, mentor coach, supervisor, and trainer. They’ve reshaped WHO I am and therefore HOW I practice.
1. Who you are is how you coach
These words are from the wisdom of my Supervisor (Edna Murdoch). Grief has deepened me. I know less than I thought I knew about grief and myself AND that’s a gift. It makes me (or moreover I choose to be) even more open, more curious, more humble.
2. Presence is everything
If Simba could stop to sniff the roses, then I can stop to listen fully. Coaching is not about rushing to fix problems in the field. It’s about being with what is.
3. Boundaries are love
He taught me that holding a boundary is not a rejection, but a way of creating safety. For myself. For my clients. For my own wider learning.
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
Rumi
I love Rumi and the depth of reflection. But here, I disagree, or perhaps misunderstood the meaning.
I believe that we should grieve, for as long and as deeply as we need, to make meaning of the loss so that we can understand its new form.
For me, it’s not only Simba that I am grieving. In no small part to my peers in the industry whom have supervised me and supported me in this recent journey, they held space to realise that it’s other losses too – loss of ideals (self-expectation), loss of goals (kids, marriage), the slow, unseen losses that can take a lifetime to accept.
And yet, once we have grieved and walked that path, something shifts. That I am noticing now – only very recently. Little glimpses of loss, what can feel like timeless formlessness emptiness begin to take form, begin to take shape. That, I believe.
Simba lived on his terms. He died on his terms. And in both, he gave me more than I could ever give him.
I miss him every day.
And every day, I carry him with me into my family life, into my friendships, into my work and his dog tag remains firmly on my key chain.
Perhaps that’s the essence of love and loss: we are reshaped by those we love, even long after they’ve gone.
