Wafflenugget (2026)

14/02/2026

Today is your day.
The day you came home with us.
The day you made me a mom and us a family.

I know it sounds absurd
But I keep hoping you’ll just walk through the door.
I keep hoping that this entire thing has been one of the worst relapses of my life — a terrible mess involving 7 whole weeks of lost time.

But then
Tug alerts me mid afternoon and your barking rebuke does not follow.
There is no sassy commentary from your grinning Queen of a self about how Tug should have approached more slowly and placed her paw even more gently upon my beating chest.

Yes then, in hopes I’ll return to my body and you — to the timeline where we were together for always, I take a cold shower that brings me earthside once more and there is still no thwap of your tail on the bathroom floor.
There is still no sweet neck nuzzle as I collapse upon it weeping.

But still, ever still, I keep hoping
I keep hoping that you will just walk through the door.
I keep hoping that this is just the biggest mess of my mind’s own making.

But my girl,
The silence keeps going
The ache in my heart keeps growing
And your daddy and I keep waiting
Minute after minute
Hour after hour
Day after day
As we snuggle and sob

For you,
my beloved,
You have yet to come home.

~

Happy Valentines Day, my girl. There are not words for how much I miss you and how much I wish I could spend this eleventh valentines with you in my arms. I have never been as wildly heartbroken as I am right now, but oh what an honor it is to know love so big it shatters me entirely and brings me all the way to my knees.

I miss you madly.
I love you the absolute mostest.
And above all, my sweet girl, thank you for everything.

💜💜💜

12/02/2026

How is Tug navigating Waffle’s death? Does she miss her? How am I?
 I know you all mean it with love and I am so grateful for that love. Unfortunately, it’s a bigger question than it sounds.

The truth is: the last year of Waffle’s life was medically brutal — she had health crisis after health crisis and it created ripple effects I didn’t know how to talk about while I was in it.

My sweet Waffle was in pain due to what we now know was a severe jaw infection that her cancer medication created. This resulted in her being stressed and understandably, in constant need to be bonded beside me.

At the same time, Tug had (loads of) energy and a desire to help but when she tasked, it stressed out Waffle so Waffle would bark at her.

This meant that for a stretch, Tug tasking came with negative feedback and stress — the exact opposite thing you want to happen.

I did my best. I loved my girls through it all and I always will. It just put us in a really tough spot.

So now, amidst navigating extreme grief, we’re rebuilding from the ground up:

* choice + agency (Tug gets to decide)
* positive reinforcement (so many cookies)
* more support structures for both of us, so her load is lighter
* I’ve applied for a program dog as a backup but that usually takes three years.

The great news is that she can still task (and seems to love doing it) when my safety is of concern (like driving), and I’m so grateful.

The issue is her stamina. She gets exhausted after an hour or two.

Above all, I’m committed to this: Tug does not owe anyone productivity to be loved. Not me, not the internet, not the system. Ever.

Tug is a best girl always and whether she chooses part-time work, different work, or no work… she will still be my best girl.

We’re going to be okay, even though it doesn’t feel like it right now and we’ll keep you posted.

Thank you for being here with us and loving us through it all — truly. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.

04/01/2026

Our best girl took her last breath on the darkest day of the year.
But even though she is no longer walking beside us, sassy barking for snuggles or pawing me back to reality, she is not gone.

No.
Dr. Waffle will never be gone.

She is the beat of my heart,
the breath in my chest,
and most of all,
yes, most of all,
Waffle is the fight for love and belonging for all of us no matter the odds, heartbreak and hardship stacked against us.

I will spend the rest of my life fighting that good fight that she began as I honor the wisdom she taught me and Dave so beautifully:

Life is a both.
It’s street bagels and fugue states.
It’s mountaintops and icu stays.
It’s dreams come true and nightmares come alive
It’s the love of a life-saving dog and the life you must live after she is no longer breathing.

Yes, life is a both and it’s actually not about changing that.
It’s not about changing that at all.

It’s about being brave enough to do it together.
Yes,
It’s about being brave enough to open yourself up fully and love through it all even and especially when it hurts like hell.

~

Thank you for being brave enough to do it with us and love us through it all, especially when it hurt like hell.

💜

15/12/2025

She wakes me before the sunrise.

Gentle sweet grumbles and sometimes, a loving paw punch to my chest.

Mom.
Mom.
You don’t want to miss it.
Another day is beginning.
Another day — together — You and me.

I keep trying to freeze those moments — to etch them fully in my mind
The morning snuggle marathon that lasts well past sunrise.
The snow smackerels and snowbank sits.

Yes, I keep trying to feel them fully — to live them entirely.
Each step of our walk
Each flap of her ear as the snow falls and her smile beams out the window in pure joy.

Yes, I keep trying
To stay earthside with my girl
To recover enough from my ptsd amnesia and dissociative fugue to remember the truth I’ve lived these past 11 years — a truth I will know in my breath, body and being even on the days my memory refuses to cooperate and my body is hellbent to lose time:

I am her and she is me.

Yes, I am her and she is me.
and as long as one of us is still breathing — we will forever still be here.
Yes, as long as one of us is breathing we will still be here to watch the sunrise, to live earthside and to drive in every blizzard, smiles a blazing with the windows all the way down.

11/12/2025

Our miracle bear is 11! 🥳💜😘

What a gift she is and how infinitely grateful we are for her.

I honestly don’t have the bandwidth to type the full cancer update but I refuse to not celebrate her today because of these sad results.

I also live the duality of life and holy heck, is this one of those both/and kind of days.

No matter what, I will forever honor her and SHE IS STILL HERE!

She’s also not showing symptoms at all just yet.

So, for now I’m off to sit in a snowbank with my best girl and honor her exactly the way she deserves — with love — relentless love.

Wishing you all a day. Thank you for being here.

Waffle strong.
Kate, Dave, Waffle + Tuggie

06/12/2025

Waffy Health update — good + also tricky news👇💜

Great news first!!!

Waffle’s Chest + belly are clear — there are no masses. This means it’s been 18 months with no resurgence of her lung cancer. Holy wow. This is such a gift.

Tricky news next 👇

Waffle has one enlarged lymph node near her colon. It is 3cm instead of 1cm. Her oncologist did a full a**l sac evaluation (lucky both of them) and luckily, there were no masses that she could feel.

The swollen lymph node could be lymphoma, histio, another cancer, or something benign. Sometimes, you never even know why they swell.

Her oncologist aspirated it + sent the sample to pathology. We will hear results next week.

At this point, we are committed to waffles quality of life above all else. We do not want to put her through anything traumatic or painful. That’s all I know and I’m trying to not get ahead of myself.

The vets also did a full blood panel. Waffle has been navigating liver challenges and hypothyroidism in addition to her infected jaw so we want to make sure her current medication regimen is working, sufficient and not harming her in any way.

Though yesterday I had allllll the feelings about this — cue the weeping — this morning I’m just so happy she’s still here and leaning into the truth:

We have had the most incredible time together.

It’s not over yet.

she is still here!!!

She is still sassing, snuggling and being her sweet queenie self.

She turns 11 next week!

That is just beyond. The average lifespan for Bernese Mountain Dog is 7 years and considering all she has fought her way through — spleen rupture, emergency splenectomy, 7 days in the ICU, breaking her back, hind leg paralysis, spine surgery and cancer surgery & treatment — we are nothing but grateful.

The only thing I ever wanted was to give waffle a best day for as long as best days are possible — to honor her the way she honors me, with unabashed & unconditional love.

We are doing exactly that and what a gift the whole of it — anticipatory grief included — is to me and our life.

We’ll keep you all posted.

Thank you — truly — for being here with us. It is an honor & gift.

Snuggles and love,
Kate, Dave, Waffle + Tuggie

05/12/2025

The snow arrived in Vermont this week. It is absolutely stunning. There is just something remarkable about it. The brightness it brings. The clean slate it offers. The deep and true quiet it ushers in. And of course, the snowmersaults and snow smackerels of my one best bear.

I’ve been leaning hard into winter comforts as of late — chicken nuggets, massive mugs of cocoa, bubble baths, and slow, oh-so bundled walks with Waffle up the road where she, my beloved queen, decides the pace we take and the sniffs we savor.

I, myself, have been trying to savor every second I have with her. She turns eleven next week. I can hardly believe it. And oh, what a gift. Then again, the lives she’s lived, the odds she’s defied, and all the health challenges she’s survived these many years.

If you’re reading this on Friday morning and have a spare well wish to pass along, we’d so appreciate it. We’ll be at her oncologists doing recheck scans today, and any love you can spare would be so deeply felt and cherished by us.

Of course, I know I can’t stop time or control what the scans show. All I can do is love her. All I can do is be grateful that I get to love her. Yes, all I can do is hold her paw, work from beside her in her snowbank while she is still here, and cherish every single moment of her sweetness, her sass, and her snuggles.

The other thing I can do, and goodness knows I need everything possible to distract myself when I weather these cancer rechecks, is write about her. Yes, the other thing I can do is share the story of how this one-in-a-billion bear saved my life.

So, this week, I continue with that story. To read it, head to the 🔗👆

And this week, from us, in our snowbank, I send love.

21/11/2025

I always wanted to write this but wanting to write the story and being able to write it are very different, especially for people with severe ptsd like me.

But recently, something shifted.

Maybe it was the intensive trauma therapy.

Maybe it was doing all the somatic work so I could return to my body.

Or maybe it was Waffy sassily side-eyeing me into it.

Either way — I’ve started writing the book you’ve all asked me for since well, ten years ago lol:

With love and Wafflenugget

I’m serializing it chapter by chapter in my newsletter.

It’s absolutely free to join and if you’d care to learn the story of how love and a dog named waffle saves my life and helped me navigate serious mental illness, well, this is for you and you can join at the 🔗 👆

As always, thank you for being here with us.

Also massive shoutout to for the cookie pocket. My gal deserves to be paid for her hard work, after all.

Wishing you all a day 💜😘

Kindly,
Kate, Waffy + Tug

Follow for the adventures and honest stories of a Vermont-based psychiatric service dog team.

03/10/2025

What a gift Jane Goodall was to this world. And what a gift her wisdom forever will be.

Wafflenugget

14/02/2026

12/02/2026

04/01/2026

15/12/2025

11/12/2025

06/12/2025

05/12/2025

21/11/2025

03/10/2025

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