Monday is the most difficult day of the week for pets who are in fragile health or hospice

For a pet who has a life-limiting diagnosis, or is in fragile health due to chronic illness or age-related decline, I find that the trend is that Mondays and Tuesdays to be the roughest days of the week.

With families hanging around the house and including their four-legged loves in their free time on Saturdays and Sundays, pet’s schedules are knocked off course. Medication doses may given off-schedule. Ever-crucial nap and rest schedules are disrupted. Increased activity and excitement affects overall ability to manage and old pastimes, like car rides, can result in a queasy pup.

In conversations with families over the years, I’ve learned a lot -- especially to pay attention to patterns that are unfolding.

One dog owner noted that by Monday mornings, their sweet, old dog was exhausted and irritable but would fully rebound by Wednesday when I saw her. “It’s pretty busy here on weekends, it’s no wonder she’s tired…”

And a more common scenario unfolds as a pet segues into a stage of more delicate health. Upon three weeks in a row of being withdrawn, drooly and unwilling to eat on Mondays and Tuesdays, I wondered with one geriatric dog in renal failure in my care middays, five days a week, ‘What happens on the weekends to make this dog feel so terrible right after?’. I chatted with the owner about their weekend schedule. She enthusiastically offered, “We go visit my parents on both days -- she loves car rides!” This, as I learned, was coupled with not getting pain and GI meds on time, and a feeding schedule that was not as regular. Stomach upset followed closely behind, not to mention the physical and mental effects of the pain that was under-managed and allowed to ramp up. By Tuesday/Wednesday, she was finally getting back on track with some doing, only to have trouble brewing again by weekend.

These examples of how seemingly minor changes in the routine have made the following recommendations to my families standard, no matter the day of the week:

• Keep your pet’s quiet/alone time schedule intact -- and don’t feel badly about not including your pet in everything. Just go, they’ve a lot less FOMO at this stage of life and they need adequate rest.

• Keep your pet’s feeding and medication regimens as close to what they are on weekdays as possible.

• Consider how well your pet really handles car rides. Then think about forgoing them altogether, at least those that are too lengthy. And talk to your veterinarian to see if anti-nausea meds might be helpful if your pet’s FOMO gets to be too much for them.

It’s those little things that matter in this time of life. They increase the likelihood that a pet in fragile health is able to manage themselves optimally and thus, feel their best more consistently. They also decrease the time and effort that is spent trying to get the pet back on track, as well as the need for palliative/hospice/comfort care regimen tweaks made by the veterinarian. So, as you head into this weekend -- or whenever your time off from work is -- do so with care.

Lorrie Shaw is a Certified Professional Pet Sitter, Certified Pet Loss and Grief Companion, and owner of Professional Pet Sitting, where she specializes in ancillary pet palliative and pet hospice care. She's also a member of Doggone Safe (where she completed the Speak Dog Certificate Program), as well as the International Association of Animal Hospice and Palliative Care, Pet Sitters International, Pet Professional Guild, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (supporting member) and Ann Arbor Area Pet Sitters. Lorrie can be found at lorrieshaw.com. She tweets at @psa2.