Key takeaways:
In 2021, Rachael Brooke Hoppock lost her two cats within 4 months and began sharing about her grief on social media.
In return, she received an overwhelming response, which inspired her to help pet owners cope with grief and end-of-life decisions.
Now, she’s a certified pet doula, guiding people through emotional, medical, and financial decisions during their pets’ end-of-life care.
GoodRx for Pets: Here’s how to save on pet medications with GoodRx.
Facing the end of a pet’s life — whether because of terminal illness or old age — is one of the hardest parts of being a pet owner. Decisions about treatments, questions about euthanasia, and the deep grief caused by losing a pet can feel overwhelming.
Few people understand those challenges better than 33-year-old Rachael Brooke Hoppock. In 2021, she lost her two beloved cats — Gal and Jeff — within 4 months.
At the time, Rachael was working as a fitness instructor and earning her master’s degree in intuition medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her cat Gal, a 20-year-old “foster fail,” was diagnosed with lung cancer. Determined to save Gal, Rachael spent thousands of dollars on treatments, including blood transfusions and medications.
“I spent $20,000 that I did not have, and it’s, like, ‘What was I thinking?’ But I wasn’t,” she says. “I did all the things because I wanted this creature, this little ball of love, [to live].”
Three months after Gal died, Rachael was devastated to learn her 14-year-old cat, Jeff, had cancer, too, and had only about 4 weeks to live.
Grieving and searching for ways to cope, Rachael began posting TikTok videos about it. She was overwhelmed by the response. Hundreds of pet owners reached out to share their own stories of loss and grief.
“Things were coming through Instagram, through my email, through my website. A lot of times they were just people needing to share their stories,” Rachael says.
They were people like her, people who were dealing with the grief of losing their pets — from dogs to lizards, bunnies, and horses. They were all in pain and had the same questions: “How do I know I’m making the right decisions for my pet?” and “How do I deal with this overwhelming grief?”
People needed help. And it was clear to Rachael that she wanted to be the person to help them.
She took a 10-week course through PetLoss Partners, which specializes in pet bereavement coaching, to become a pet doula. A pet doula is a trained person who provides emotional support and comfort to pets and their caregivers during the animal’s final days. And it’s a profession that’s exploded in recent years. In 2024, the University of Vermont launched a companion animal end-of-life doula program and has already trained 500 students.
Over the last few years, Rachael has worked with clients across the U.S., offering support over Zoom. Her services range from single sessions to months-long engagements.
“Everyone’s a little different,” Rachael says. “Some people just need to hear, ‘You’re not alone in this,’ ‘You will make the right decision,’ and that’s enough.”
When pets are facing a terminal diagnosis, Rachael encourages their owners to create an end-of-life care plan. This can help people clarify their decisions and prevent added emotional or financial stress during difficult moments.
She encourages people to ask themselves some of these key questions:
What quality of life do I want for my pet?
What is my financial limit for treatments?
How will I manage my emotions during this process?
What do I want my pet’s final moments to look like?
Do I really want to spend $20,000 on treatments that may not actually extend the life of my animal?
“It’s not that dissimilar from a human planning their will,” Rachael explains.
Many pet owners deal with feelings of guilt when making end-of-life decisions, Rachael says. She reminds them that euthanasia is an act of love.
“It’s a true gift. Helping and supporting your animal and end-of-life care is such a blessing,” she says.
And while grieving the loss of a pet can be hard and overwhelming, Rachael often reminds her clients it’s because “the amount that you grieve is usually equivalent to the depth of your love.”
“Ram Dass has this quote I love that says, ‘We’re all just walking each other home,’” Rachael says, adding that she likes to think we’re walking our pets to a place free from pain at the end, and that’s the greatest gift we can give them.
Rachael recently had to take her own advice. In November 2024, she said goodbye to Max, a 19-year-old cat she adopted after he was diagnosed with cancer.
How much does pet hospice care cost? A home hospice vet visit typically starts at $300.
What’s it like to euthanize your pet? Read one woman’s firsthand account of what it was like to put her cat down.
Can I use a GoodRx coupon for my pet? If your pet has been prescribed a human medication, in many cases you can use GoodRx coupons to save.
Though it was heartbreaking, Rachael found peace in knowing she was doing what she was meant to do: helping walk an animal home.