Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice Course
Curriculum Fall 2026
Tuesdays, October 13th - December 1st
Discover a relationship-centered framework
for understanding the pet’s journey, the caregiver’s journey, and the evolving relationship between them throughout the animal hospice continuum.
Please read below for more details.
When a beloved animal receives a life-changing diagnosis or a senior pet begins navigating the final chapter, everything begins to change — not just for the animal, but for everyone who loves and cares for them.
The pet begins a physical journey of adaptation, aging, illness, healing, or decline. The people who love that pet — whether family or the professionals who've come to know and care for them too — begin a journey of their own: learning, observing, hoping, deciding, and growing alongside the animal.
And between them, the relationship keeps evolving, each one responding to the changing needs of the other.
Animal hospice is about all three journeys.
And yet...
Most people come to this work carrying
very practical questions.
- What do I do now?
- How do I recognize when their needs are changing?
- How do I help make thoughtful decisions without being overwhelmed by fear or uncertainty?
- How do I keep showing up with love and steadiness, for as long as this journey lasts?Â
Whether you're asking these questions about your own animal companion, or about the animals and families you serve — a longtime grooming client, a senior dog on your pet-sitting rounds, a Reiki client you've come to care about — these are the questions that bring us to animal hospice.
Whether you're asking these questions about your own animal companion, or about the animals and families you serve — a longtime grooming client, a senior dog on your pet-sitting rounds, a Reiki client you've come to care about — these are the questions that bring us to animal hospice.
Too often, however, the answers are scattered across separate topics — pain management, quality of life, caregiving, euthanasia, grief, aftercare — as if theywere unrelated, rather than parts of one connected journey.
Our hope is to reach pet caregivers — family and professional alike — before they find themselves in the middle of a crisis.
When pet families first hear the words terminal diagnosis, they may have little time to learn new ways of observing, deciding, or coping with uncertainty.
And the trusted professionals standing beside them may find themselves navigating that same uncertainty without ever having been given the tools they need.
This course is designed to build those foundations before they’re urgently needed—so when difficult moments arise, you can respond with greater confidence, clarity, and compassion.
Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice offers a different perspective
Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice
Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice is our name for a broader view of the hospice continuum—one that recognizes the pet's journey, the caregiver’s journey, and the evolving relationship between them from diagnosis through caregiving, end-of-life decisions, death, grief, and continuing bonds.
Veterinary hospice provides essential medical care for the animal approaching end of life. Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice widens the lens to consider the whole journey shared by animals and the people who love them.
No one sees the whole journey from where they stand.
A veterinarian may understand aspects of an animal’s health and disease that a caregiver cannot. A pet parent knows the animal they live with and love in ways no professional can. Other practitioners and caregivers may notice and support still different parts of the journey.
Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice creates a larger conversation—one in which these different perspectives can help us see more of the whole.
Using the Animal Hospice Care Wheel as our guide, you'll learn to recognize and understand the physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational dimensions of the journey shared by pets and the people who love them. Rather than focusing on isolated events or decisions, you'll discover a framework that helps you see how every stage of the journey influences the next—and how greater understanding leads to more confident, compassionate caregiving.
Throughout this course, we'll explore the:
- Physical dimensions of the pet's changing needs throughout the hospice journey.
- Emotional dimensions of caregiving, decision-making, grief, and resilience.
- Spiritual dimensions of hope, meaning, healing, love, loss, and continuing bonds.
- Relational dimensions of the evolving bond between pets and the people who love them.
The BrightHaven Perspective
At the heart of Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice is a simple belief:
Love remains the foundation of care.
Whether we are celebrating joyful years together, adapting to illness, making difficult decisions, or honoring a life well lived, the relationship between people and their animals continues to matter.
At BrightHaven, we often refer to this as our Love Sandwich—because every stage of the journey begins and ends with love. That belief shapes not only how we care for animals, but how we support the people who love them.
Throughout eight weeks together, you'll have the opportunity to learn from Gail's experience, ask questions, share observations, and explore how BrightHaven's relationship-centered philosophy can inform your own caregiving or professional practice.
Why This Course Exists
Every person who understands this broader approach can become a new point of light in their community—helping another family discover, sooner, that support and possibilities may exist beyond what they already know.
This course was created to build that foundation in you—to help pet parents and practitioners alike see more of the journey, understand the choices and resources that may be available along the way, and feel better prepared for the moments when that understanding matters most.
The Animal Hospice Care Wheel
At the center of this course is the Animal Hospice Care Wheel—a practical framework designed to help you understand the complete hospice journey rather than isolated pieces of it.
The Care Wheel invites us to look through three interconnected lenses.
The Pet’s Journey
Understanding the changing physical needs of aging, chronically ill, and terminally ill animals as they move through the hospice journey.
The Caregiver’s Journey
Recognizing the emotional, practical, and spiritual experiences of those who love and care for them.
The Journey of The Relationship
Exploring the evolving relationship between pet and caregiver, and how each continually shapes the experience of the other throughout the hospice journey—and beyond.
By learning to see through all three lenses, you'll begin to recognize connections that are often overlooked—and approach caregiving with greater steadiness and skill.
No one sees the whole journey from where they stand.
Veterinarians bring essential medical knowledge. Pet parents bring an intimate understanding of the animal they live with and love. And other pet-care practitioners may see and support different parts of the journey.
Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice creates a larger conversation—one in which these different perspectives can help us understand and support the whole journey more fully. Hospice doesn't prescribe the ending. It supports the journey.
What You’ll Explore
Over eight weeks, each session builds upon the one before it, helping you develop the knowledge, observation skills, and confidence to put this relationship-centered perspective into practice.
Fall 2026 Course Topics and Dates:
Week 1:
Seeing the Whole Journey –
Introducing relationship-centered animal hospice, the Animal Hospice Care Wheel, and a new framework for understanding the complete hospice journey.
- Tuesday, October 13, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Week 2:
Receiving a Life-Changing Diagnosis –
Moving beyond fear and uncertainty while learning how observation, hope, partnership and Healing for the Highest Good can create a strong beginning
- Tuesday, October 20, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Week 3:
Living Well at Home Together –
Supporting daily life through observation, adaptation, comfort, and compassionate caregiving, and anticipatory grief.
- Tuesday, October 27, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
“Don’t deny the diagnosis. Defy the verdict.”
— Gail Pope
Week 4:
Quality of Life Care & Monitoring –
Developing confidence through thoughtful observation, values-based decision-making, and practical caregiving tools.
- Tuesday, November 3, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Week 5:
Choice Points –
Exploring the natural dying process, hospice-supported care, and euthanasia - and learning to guide families through uncertainty with compassion and confidence.
- Tuesday, November 10, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Week 6:
After Physical Death –
Providing thoughtful after-death care while supporting families, children, and companion animals through grief and early bereavement.
- Tuesday, November 17, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
“Our expectation is that the animal will have a painless, loving, peaceful journey...”
— Gail Pope
Week 7:
Honoring the Bond –
Exploring rituals, memorialization, gratitude, spiritual connection and the enduring bond that continues beyond physical death.
- Tuesday, November 24, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Week 8:
Integration: Looking Through the Care Wheel –
Bringing everything together through guided reflection and discussion as you explore how your understanding of the 'animal hospice journey' has grown and changed.
- Tuesday, December 1, 2026
- 90-minute LIVE session via Zoom videoconferencing
- 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
A Guided Learning Experience
This is not a self-paced online course.
It is an interactive learning experience designed to help ideas grow through conversation, reflection, and community.
Your enrollment includes:
- Eight LIVE weekly online classes (up to 90 minutes each) with Gail Pope and Karen Wylie.
- Recordings of every class to review at your own pace or catch up if you miss a class.
- A private online Community where discussion and learning continue throughout the week.
- Weekly Learning Guides with key concepts, space for note-taking, and guided reflection.
- Curated learning resources provided each week, including selected AHG lectures, podcast episodes, articles, and downloadable reference materials.
- Opportunities to ask questions, share insights, and learn alongside professionals and dedicated caregivers from around the world.
Learning is richer when it’s shared.
We hope you'll leave each week with new insights, meaningful conversations, and a growing community of colleagues who share your interest in this work.
Two Special Resources for Our Founding Cohort
As part of this first LIVE course, participants will also receive two BrightHaven resources that deepen and extend the ideas we’ll be exploring together.
The BrightHaven Way
Gail Pope’s deeply personal exploration of the philosophy and experience that have shaped more than three decades of BrightHaven’s work with animals and the people who love them.
Letting Go of Treatment, Not Love
A new guide from Gail Pope and Karen Wylie, EdD, created for pet parents facing one of the most difficult questions of the caregiving journey: what happens when continuing treatment may no longer be the same as continuing care?
âś… Founding Cohort participants will receive both digital books as part of their course registration.
Who Should Attend?
Relationship-Centered Animal Hospice is designed primarily for pet care practitioners and professionals who want to deepen their understanding of the animal hospice journey and strengthen the ways they support animals and the people who love them,
- AND -
Dedicated pet parents who want the same depth of learning are very warmly welcome. In fact, their perspective is essential to the conversation.
Most animal hospice care happens at home—in the ordinary hours between veterinary appointments, when caregivers are observing changes, adapting routines, making decisions, and simply living alongside an aging or seriously ill animal. Pet parents know their animals in ways no professional can, and that knowledge is an important part of relationship-centered care.
At the same time, caregivers may be surprised to discover how many different people can offer support along the journey. Veterinarians bring essential medical knowledge. Pet sitters and groomers may notice changes from a different vantage point. Grief professionals and animal chaplains can support the emotional and spiritual journey. Animal hospice practitioners and complementary-care professionals may bring still other perspectives and resources.
No one person—and no one profession—sees the entire journey. That’s why we believe there is value in learning together.
This course may be especially valuable for:
- Grief and bereavement professionals
- Animal chaplains and spiritual-care providers
- Reiki and complementary-care practitioners
- Pet sitters, trainers, groomers, and other pet-care professionals
- Rescue and shelter professionals and volunteers
- Pet photographers and others who support families during meaningful life transitions
- Veterinary technicians and other veterinary team members
- Animal hospice practitioners and those interested in exploring this field
- Dedicated pet parents who want to better understand and prepare for the caregiving journey
No previous animal hospice training is required. This is a foundational course designed to give us a shared framework and language for understanding the journey more fully.
A Rare Opportunity to Learn LIVE with Gail Pope
For the first time, BrightHaven founder Gail Pope is bringing more than three decades of lived animal hospice experience into a live, multi-week introductory course.
Throughout eight weeks together, you'll have the opportunity to learn from Gail's experience, ask questions, share observations, and explore how BrightHaven's relationship-centered philosophy can inform your own caregiving or professional practice.
Meet Your Instructors
Gail Pope
Gail is founder and President of BrightHaven, a founding partner of Animal Hospice Group, and co-founder of BrightHaven Caregiver Academy. For more than three decades, she has pioneered compassionate care for aging, chronically ill, and special-needs animals, caring for hundreds of sanctuary residents and supporting thousands of families. Her experience inspired the BrightHaven Menu for Healing, a relationship-centered philosophy honoring quality of life, body, mind, spirit, and the healing power of the human-animal bond. She is also the author of nine books on animal hospice care and dying.
Karen Wylie, EdD CAHP
Karen is Executive Director of Animal Hospice Group, co-founder of BrightHaven Caregiver Academy, an educator, curriculum designer, and developer of the Animal Hospice Care Wheel. For more than three decades, she has combined hands-on experience caring for her own aging and seriously ill animals with professional expertise in adult learning, counseling, and organizational development. She creates relationship-centered educational frameworks that help pet parents and practitioners understand the whole journey—from a life-changing diagnosis through end-of-life care, loss, and continuing bonds.
Why We Teach Together
Our partnership began when Karen enrolled in the Animal Hospice Group certification program as a student. We quickly discovered a shared vision for relationship-centered animal hospice that grew into a friendship, creative partnership, and the co-founding of BrightHaven Caregiver Academy. Today, we also co-host the weekly Peace of Mind for Pet Parents Podcast, where we explore many of these same questions together.
Combined, we bring six decades of lived caregiving experience from different paths. Gail brings the wisdom developed through more than three decades at BrightHaven, while Karen combines her own lifelong caregiving experience with an educational framework that helps students organize, apply, and build upon what they're learning.
“You’ve done your best. You did it with love. And that is enough.”
— Gail Pope
Ready to Join Us?
Animal hospice is more than a medical process.
It is a journey of living, loving, caring, adapting, grieving, and growing.
Our hope is that when you complete this course, you won't simply know more about animal hospice.
You'll see the whole journey more clearly.
And when we see the whole journey more clearly, we can care with greater confidence.
Space is limited so each cohort can build real familiarity with one another.
Registration closes October 9th, 2026.
đź“Ś No Prerequisites Needed, Everyone is Welcomed!
Relationship-Centered
Animal Hospice Course
FALL 2026 COHORT
- Option 1 -
3 Monthly Payments of
$135.00 USD*
* The total $405.00 is tax-free.
JOIN US & REGISTER NOW!
Relationship-Centered
Animal Hospice Course
FALL 2026 COHORT
- Option 2 -
Full Payment of
$397.00 USD*
* The total $397.00 is tax-free.
JOIN US & REGISTER NOW!Consider gifting this course to a family member, friend, neighbor, team member, or colleague. It is easy to do at checkout (only available with full payment).