Home Hospice Association – a newly launched charitable organization that provides hospice care for anyone, of any age, at any time and under any roof was founded in 2014 by a team of compassionate and forward thinking change makers to ensure that people die in a non-institutionalized environment.
One of the many pieces that were identified from the beginning was the need to help support the unshakable bond between a pet and its owner who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
The story really began with the founder Tracey and her beloved dog Bello. Tracey came across an article about Leona Helmsley’s dog Trouble. Trouble inherited twelve million dollars for her ongoing care, upon Ms. Helmsley’s death. That brought about a very hard question for Tracey to face, what if Tracey died before Bello? There was no family member available to care for Bello and she certainly didn’t have a few million dollars hanging around. The thought of an animal trying to process where their owner had gone and being taken away in a van to be put in a cage waiting to be adopted or put down was unthinkable.
While working on the home hospice concept, Tracey knew that the need was there for rehoming of any pet that was to be separated from its owner. And so the Bello Project was born.
The Bello Project is free to any hospice association wanting to offer the program free to any member of their community. The Bello Project offers:
* assistance with basic care during the treatment journey
* guidance and support with the re-homing of the pet
* coordination of the journey’s end visitation
There is no doubt that a person’s pet is both part of their family, and is profoundly affected by the passing of its master. A sudden death leaves no time to prepare a pet for the loss, but in the case of a terminal illness, we can plan and care for the needs of both the pet and the parent. Nothing should prevent the pet and pet parent from staying together until death has occurred. We must ease the worry of “what will happen” for the pet parent and “what just happened” for the pet.
For more information about the Bello Project please visit or www.homehospiceassociation.com.