<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said it\u2019d only be two weeks\u2014just a quick work trip to Berlin. \u201cFeed him, walk him, scratch behind the ears if he\u2019s dramatic,\u201d my brother joked, dropping off Rocco, his soulful Doberman.<\/p>\n
At first, Rocco settled in fine. But by day three, he stopped eating unless I hand-fed him and barely moved. I tried everything\u2014his favorite music, familiar walks, even my brother\u2019s hoodie. Nothing worked.<\/p>\n
Worried, I took him to the vet, who explained Rocco wasn\u2019t sick\u2014he was grieving. Deeply bonded dogs can fall into a kind of depression when separated from their person.<\/p>\n
Following the vet\u2019s advice, I kept to a routine, gave him anxiety meds, and spent more time with him. Slowly, he improved. Then my brother finally called.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s depressed,\u201d I told him. \u201cHe misses you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew this might happen,\u201d he said with regret. \u201cI\u2019ve never been away this long.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I realized\u2014I wasn\u2019t supposed to replace my brother, just help Rocco through the wait. My brother promised to come home early, and when Rocco heard his voice again, he lit up.<\/p>\n
Some bonds can\u2019t be substituted. And sometimes, all we can do is show up, hold space, and recognize that love looks different for everyone\u2014including our pets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He said it\u2019d only be two weeks\u2014just a quick work trip to Berlin. \u201cFeed him, walk him, scratch behind the ears if he\u2019s dramatic,\u201d my brother joked, dropping off Rocco, his soulful Doberman. At first, Rocco settled in fine. But by day three, he stopped eating unless I hand-fed him and barely moved. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5303,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301\/revisions\/5303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}