Tara Lipinski Opens Up About Being an ‘Anxious Dog Mom’ (Exclusive)

Tara Lipinski grew up surrounded by dogs. At one point, her family had five running around the house.

“It was a hoot,” the Olympic gold medalist, 42, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “Just us with all these dogs, sometimes traveling to different training centers around the country and bringing them along.”

But for Lipinski, her first real dog was Dublin, a brown flat-coated retriever gifted to her by her parents several years ago. So when she revealed in February 2020 that Dublin was battling two aggressive forms of cancer, she was devastated.

As Dublin underwent treatment, Lipinski and her husband, Todd Kapostasy, welcomed Sullivan — “Sully” — another brown flat-coated retriever, into their home. Though the two dogs overlapped for a time, Dublin eventually died. The loss marked the beginning of a deeply emotional journey for Lipinski, which further cemented her identity as a devoted dog mom.

“That was my son,” Lipinski says.

“Obviously, we went through a huge medical journey with Dublin, and I’ve just been very, very conscious of Sullivan’s health,” she continues. “You can’t always prevent something, but I really want to take every precaution and stay on top of everything to make sure he has a long and healthy life.”

To do that, Lipinski — also a mom to 19-month-old daughter Georgie — began taking extra precautions, including working with Dutch, an online pet care service. While she still values her longtime vet in Los Angeles, Dutch has offered a different kind of support when she says “life gets busy” and she becomes a “little bit of an anxious dog mom.”

That anxiety flared when she recently noticed a bump on Sullivan’s tongue.

“Because of everything I went through with Dublin, I immediately thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what is this?'” she recalls. “I called the vet but couldn’t get in for two weeks because it wasn’t an emergency. I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to sit with this and worry that it’s maybe something like Dublin had.'”

“I have spent many nights worrying about something, or the dog’s whimpering, or he might’ve jumped off the bed wrong — and I’m sitting at the vet for six hours while I wait to get my name called,” the dog mom adds. “And then I go in and, of course, everything’s fine. But still, the process of it all can be difficult.”

“I’m sure vets are so in demand with so many emergencies and things that happen, but that’s why I really love Dutch. It’s given me a lot more control and peace of mind, and I’m also able to tackle things that I probably wouldn’t have before.”

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With Sullivan’s health under control, Lipinski says she can now focus more time and energy on being present with her growing family. Lately, it’s been especially rewarding to watch the bond between Sullivan and her daughter Georgie blossom.

“He loves to be part of the bedtime routine,” Lipinski says. “He’ll cry and scratch at the door if he isn’t. He has to be in there — every part of her day. It’s like we have a second baby. He needs to sit right at her table when she has breakfast.”

“She loves him so much, and he is so gentle. He’s so great with her,” she adds. “When we do a bath and he’s a big 95-pound dog in her little bathroom, he has to be lying right by the tub while we do it. If we’re playing with the toys, he’s looking — he’s in on everything.”

“The dropping of the food, too — I think he’s in heaven,” she continues. “He is like, ‘This is what life is meant to be.’ Those moments are really cute. He is so big and cuddly, and she’s still so small. So to see her curled up next to him and how she says his name with her little baby talk — it warms my heart.”