Why are Some Causes of Grief Unac­cept­able to Society?

When you take care of some­thing for months or even years, you can grow attached to it, espe­cially when it brings you hap­pi­ness. For exam­ple, I became attached to sev­eral of my pet rats. Of course, the inevitable hap­pened: they died.

Although some peo­ple didn’t under­stand, I went through a minor griev­ing process and even cried over my lost furry friends. Then again, those same peo­ple really didn’t under­stand my intense attach­ment to my rats while they were still liv­ing in the first place.

Dis­en­fran­chised grief is gen­er­ally known as grief that is “less accept­able” by soci­ety. Pet loss is an exam­ple, since peo­ple can rea­son that pets aren’t human so they don’t mat­ter as much. I’m guess­ing some pet own­ers wouldn’t agree, but in gen­eral if you show too many emo­tions over a dead pet, you’ll get puz­zled looks and laughs. Even with pets there is a hier­ar­chy. Most peo­ple would think some­thing is wrong with you if you cried over a pet fish dying, but it might be dif­fer­ent for a dog.

Another “unac­cept­able” cause of grief is abor­tion. Some peo­ple assume women will not feel regret or grief after hav­ing an abor­tion because they made the choice. Despite what soci­ety believes, some women who have abor­tions will feel grief and they might not get the sup­port they need because of these expec­ta­tions. Then again, this can also go the other way — peo­ple might assume because abor­tion is “bad” that the women will only nat­u­rally feel grief, but not all women do. Giv­ing up a child for adop­tion could also cause the same puz­zling results.

Two employ­ees from Hos­pice of Palm Beach County in Florida together shared their knowl­edge of grief through e-mail: Regina Di Pietro, direc­tor of sup­port­ive ser­vices, and Chelsea John­son, man­ager of sup­port­ive services.

“Grief is a nor­mal and nat­ural response to loss,” they said. “It is phys­i­o­log­i­cal as well as emo­tional and spiritual.”

It is impor­tant to dis­tin­guish between the sad­ness and depressed feel­ings asso­ci­ated with grief and those of clin­i­cal depres­sion, since it’s “not a nor­mal response.”

Cul­ture and reli­gion can play a part in how peo­ple grieve, as well as under­stand­ing and accep­tance, Di Pietro and John­son said.

“Some cul­tures may dis­agree with abor­tion or be opposed to gay rela­tion­ships, and there­fore grief may be frowned upon,” they said, whereas griev­ing over a lost child is usu­ally met with empa­thy and accep­tance. “Gen­er­ally, this soci­ety expects quick recov­ery, and long term or com­pli­cated grief could be seen as weakness.”

Dis­en­fran­chised grief can be harder to recover from and may cre­ate feel­ings of guilt and shame because of the stigma attached to some causes of grief, like abor­tion and divorce, Di Pietro and John­son said.

“I think even mis­car­riage comes into play here, because we ratio­nal­ize why we can’t feel, or why we shouldn’t,” they said. “Abor­tion for exam­ple is seen as a choice, and there­fore you’re not sup­posed to grieve. How about divorce? That is a choice but can be really painful as well.

I think we have to under­stand that grief is so per­sonal and so indi­vid­ual that we can’t decide what some­one should feel but our own stan­dards. Some of us cry when we watch a sad com­mer­cial, while oth­ers never shed a tear despite loss and pain.

“Also, a lot of time with dis­en­fran­chised loss, peo­ple around you don’t know [you’re] griev­ing. This can cause a much slower recov­ery, as one of the heal­ing parts of grief is the expres­sion of the pain,” they said.

The recov­ery process is the same for all types of grief, they said, but some­times there are sup­port groups for spe­cific causes of grief so peo­ple can relate.

“With­out lim­its or time expec­ta­tions, the only way out is…working through the grief,” they said. “It is what we have to do to really recover. There are no quick fixes, and with respect and work­ing with peo­ple who understand…it can make it easier.”

So, is grief ever beneficial?

“The pain is never a good thing, but the response and the emo­tional process can be heal­ing,” they said. “If you walk the jour­ney, it can be a good thing when you come out on the other end. We will all grieve at some point. It is some­thing that you can take the good out of…but we would never choose the pain.”

Pet-owner bereave­ment requires pas­sage of time

Mirko Petricevic/Record staff

Brien Thurston and Dr. Robert Close (vet­eri­nar­ian) at the Close Vet­eri­nary Clinic in Kitch­ener. They have devel­oped a grief counselling/bereavement pro­gram for pet own­ers whose pets have died. Thurston holds Squeak, one of the clinic’s cats.

1

Mirko Petricevic/Record staff­Brien Thurston and Dr. Robert Close (vet­eri­nar­ian) at the Close Vet­eri­nary Clinic in Kitch­ener. They have devel­oped a grief counselling/bereavement pro­gram for pet own­ers whose pets have died. Thurston holds Squeak, one of the clinic’s cats.

Mirko Petricevic/Record staff

Brien Thurston and Dr. Robert Close (vet­eri­nar­ian) at the C …

Mirko Petricevic/Record staff­Brien Thurston and Dr. Robert Close (vet­eri­nar­ian) at the Close Vet­eri­nary Clinic in Kitch­ener. They have devel­oped a grief counselling/bereavement pro­gram for pet own­ers whose pets have died. Thurston holds Squeak, one of the clinic’s cats.

By Mirko Pet­rice­vic, Record staff

WATERLOO — Until late last year Dr. Jen­nifer Heick spent her lunches strolling along Water­loo trails with a cou­ple of her best friends – a male­mute named Mee­sha and retriever mutt called Bear.

Then can­cer crept into their lives and sep­a­rated the threesome.

To spare her a pro­longed and painful death, Mee­sha was euth­a­nized around Christ­mas­time. In April, Bear was also diag­nosed with can­cer and suf­fered the same fate.

“You really didn’t have time to fin­ish griev­ing the first one,” said Heick, a Water­loo chi­ro­prac­tor. “They’re part of your life every day … and then they’re not there.”

Gone were the long walks and encoun­ters that reg­u­larly brought a smile to her face.

“You just don’t have that wag­ging tail as you walk in the door,” she said.

Heick talked about her loss with some of her patients. One of them, Brien Thurston, lis­tened longer than most.

As they talked over sev­eral lunches he never told her to “just get over it.”

Instead, Heick said, Thurston gave her per­mis­sion to still feel sad.

A long­time chap­lain and coun­sel­lor, Thurston knew the impor­tance of acknowl­edg­ing Heick’s grief.

Besides, he knew how she felt.

Thurston’s all-time favourite cat, Tobias, was also euth­a­nized in April.

“He was the most won­der­ful lit­tle barn cat you ever saw in your life,” Thurston recalled.

Soon after, he real­ized he was expe­ri­enc­ing some of the same grief symp­toms he saw in many of his clients.

“You can’t sti­fle these things,” Thurston said.

He started to think that he’s prob­a­bly not the only per­son who ever despaired over the death of a pet.

Elderly wid­ows and wid­ow­ers whose pets die can undergo tremen­dous amounts of grief, Thurston noted.

But many peo­ple under­es­ti­mate the value of pets, so they don’t acknowl­edge the grief some pet own­ers expe­ri­ence by the death of a pet, he said.

“Peo­ple need to see … that this grief can go on for a long time,” Thurston said. “It’s not just a sim­ple mat­ter of going and buy­ing a new canary.”

A 2007 an Ipsos-Reid poll sug­gested 35 per cent of Cana­dian house­holds were home to a dog and about 38 per cent house­holds included a cat.

Even­tu­ally, all of them die. And for most pet own­ers, the time will come when they’re going to have to decide on euth­a­niz­ing the pet that, for many of them, has become a part of the family.

The region is home to many grief coun­sel­lors. But, Thurston said, few spe­cial­ize in giv­ing emo­tional sup­port to bereaved pet own­ers. So he pounced on the prob­lem like a dog on a new bone.

Enter Dr. Robert Close, a vet­eri­nar­ian for more than 30 years who opened a new prac­tice in Kitch­ener about a year ago.

After see­ing one of Close’s fly­ers this spring, Thurston called Close and talked about the depth of grief some peo­ple feel after los­ing a pet.

As a long­time vet­eri­nar­ian who has euth­a­nized thou­sands of patients, Close knew the emo­tional toll each case takes on pet own­ers – and on veterinarians.

“When I was younger I always thought it might be eas­ier, that you would get used to it (euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals),” Close said. “But you don’t.

“Hon­estly, some­times I think my heart is going to shat­ter into a thou­sand pieces,” he said.

But Close said he knows he’s “doing the right thing” by spar­ing his patients great pain before they die.

So Close and Thurston devel­oped a sup­port pro­gram they feel would help bereaved pet own­ers, vet­eri­nar­i­ans and oth­ers who care for animals.

In addi­tion to address­ing a person’s grief over the death of a pet, the pro­gram addresses the grief peo­ple expe­ri­ence in mak­ing deci­sions about euthana­sia and, even­tu­ally, obtain­ing another pet. Thurston plans to start deliv­er­ing the first classes next week .

Bon­nie Deekon, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Cam­bridge & Dis­trict Humane soci­ety, wel­comes the thought of hav­ing spe­cific pro­grams, or coun­sel­lors, avail­able for bereaved pet owners.

The society’s office installed a bul­letin board to com­mem­o­rate pets that have been euth­a­nized. It’s a place where some pet own­ers linger for a long time.

“They can stand in front of the board and look at it for half an hour,” Deekon said. “We never ever turn peo­ple away.”

Deekon said she would also like to be able to refer some of her staff mem­bers who, from time to time, feel the emo­tional weight of euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals at the shelter.

Kathy Inno­cente, fundrais­ing and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment man­ager at the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Soci­ety, said she occa­sion­ally steers bereaved pet own­ers to humane soci­ety vol­un­teers who work at local funeral homes.

But she doesn’t know of any­one in the region who spe­cial­izes in sup­port­ing bereaved pet owners.

“It would be a very nice thing for us to offer peo­ple,” she said, not­ing that the soci­ety hasn’t yet checked into Thurston or his pro­gram, so it isn’t refer­ring clients to him at this point.

Leslie Josling, exec­u­tive direc­tor of K-W Coun­selling Ser­vices, said peo­ple can get very attached to their pets.

“When there’s a loss, that can be a sig­nif­i­cant trauma,” she said.

But if some­one is seek­ing ther­apy for com­plex grief over the loss of a pet, there are prob­a­bly other under­ly­ing issues, she added.

There might be some unique issues ther­a­pists might need to keep in mind when sup­port­ing some­one with pet bereave­ment, she said.

But any trained ther­a­pist should be able to sup­port bereaved pet own­ers, Josling said.

“It seems that you would be able to gen­er­al­ize what you know about loss and grief and death and dying … and help some­body through bereave­ment when it comes to a pet,” she said.

mpetricevic@therecord.com

National Sup­port Hot­lines and Resources

Amer­i­can Soci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­elty to Ani­mals (ASPCA)—24 hours
1–877-GRIEF-10 (1–877-474‑3310)

This is a direct line to ASPCA’s psy­chol­o­gist and grief coun­selor, Dr. Stephanie LaFarge, PhD.
www.aspca.org

Chicago VMA
630–325-1600

Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine
607–253-3932
www.vet.cornell.edu/public/petloss/

Iowa State Uni­ver­sity Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine
1–888-478‑7574 (toll-free)
www.vetmed.iastate.edu/animal_owners/petloss/default.html

Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity
517–432-2696

Ohio State Uni­ver­sity
614–292-1823

email: petloss@osu.edu

Tufts Uni­ver­sity School of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine
508–839-7966
www.tufts.edu/vet/petloss/
Uni­ver­sity of Florida Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine
Pet Loss Sup­port
352–392-2235, ext. 5268

Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine
877–394-CARE (toll-free) 217–244-CARE (local)

www.cvm.uiuc.edu/CARE/

Virginia-Maryland Regional Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine
540–231-8038

Wash­ing­ton State Uni­ver­sity
509–335-5704
http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/PLHL/

Pet Loss and Bereave­ment Resources on the Web

Amer­i­can Vet­eri­nary Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion
www.avma.org/careforanimals/

Argus Insti­tute – Col­orado State Uni­ver­sity Vet­eri­nary Teach­ing Hospital

http://www.argusinstitute.colostate.edu/

Pet Loss Sup­port
www.animalclergy.com
www.aplb.org
www.pet-loss.net
www.petvets.com/petloss
www.selfhealingexpressions.com

The Ani­mal Res­cue Site
www.theanimalrescuesite.com/home

The Delta Society—the Human-Animal Health Con­nec­tion
www.deltasociety.org

Can­dle Light­ing Cer­e­mony
www.griefonline.com

The end of the affair: Why do we get so grief-stricken at the loss of a pet?

Once they just got buried in the back gar­den. Now there are ani­mal coffins and even helplines for bereaved owners…

By Heidi Scrimgeour

Sat­ur­day, 26 June 2010

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Heidi Scrim­geour with a pic­ture of the late, much-loved Cassie

RUSSELL PRITCHARD/PRESS EYE

Heidi Scrim­geour with a pic­ture of the late, much-loved Cassie

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When Christina McDer­mott was 11 years old, she had a dia­betic ham­ster called Soda, who died. “My lit­tle brother built her a mau­soleum out of chip­board,” she recalls. “Unfor­tu­nately, it wasn’t the stur­di­est struc­ture in the world, and one of the neigh­bour­hood cats dug Soda up and ran off with her car­cass. My mother was not best pleased.”

Per­haps the growth of the UK pet bereave­ment indus­try is in part due to the struc­tural integrity (or lack thereof) of the bur­ial homes we gave our child­hood pets. There’s lit­tle need for makeshift mau­soleums with the advent of “poffins” – custom-made pet coffins avail­able in sizes rang­ing from “hamster/budgie” to “over­size dog”. Things have cer­tainly changed since the days when the death of a pet was a rite of pas­sage that war­ranted lit­tle more than a small hole in the back gar­den with a tomb­stone made of lol­lipop sticks and a daisy chain for a funeral wreath.

The pet bereave­ment busi­ness is boom­ing, and caters for every­thing from ani­mal funer­als (cre­ma­tion or bur­ial) to the trans­for­ma­tion of ashes into memo­r­ial jew­ellery, and coun­selling for bereaved pet own­ers.
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* Search the news archive for more stories

That said, “On the death of your dog” still isn’t a sec­tion you’re likely to find in your local card shop. Not sur­pris­ing, per­haps, except that the growth of the pet bereave­ment indus­try sug­gests that the death of a pet can be a pro­found loss, and that the result­ing grief can often be met with a lack of sympathy.

I write this as some­one not known for her devo­tion to the ani­mal king­dom. I acci­den­tally starved my own guinea pig to death (my dad was right; this will hap­pen if you don’t feed them) and at the ten­der age of three I con­ducted a leg­endary but ill-fated exper­i­ment on my brother’s ter­rapin involv­ing some­thing to do with veloc­ity and a brick wall. So it was a shock to find myself recently ren­dered inco­her­ent by the death of a dog. Why the woe? After all, she was just a dog. Well, no actu­ally. It turns out she was much more than just a dog.

Many dog own­ers admit that their pooch is prac­ti­cally an extra child in the fam­ily, some­times as badly behaved as the naugh­ti­est tod­dler but no less adored. From James Her­riot to Ger­ald Dur­rell via Lassie and Black Beauty, it’s well-documented that the faith­ful­ness of ani­mals – and dogs espe­cially – earns them a unique place within fam­i­lies, and one that holds deep, last­ing sig­nif­i­cance. It fol­lows that the loss of such an ani­mal might there­fore have seri­ous repercussions.

Nev­er­the­less, I didn’t expect to cry when my dog-in-law died. A Weimaraner (a Ger­man hunt­ing dog to the unini­ti­ated), Cassie was a charm­ing eccen­tric. She was eight weeks old when she came to join my husband’s fam­ily and eight years old when she died. This was a dog whose pres­ence, it must be said, some­times invoked frus­tra­tion above affec­tion. There was noth­ing she could not eat. She had sam­pled every­thing from designer pre­scrip­tion sun­glasses (twice) to a dozen eggs (shells and box included). But the dis­cov­ery of an aggres­sive, inop­er­a­ble tumour and the sud­den­ness of Cassie’s death brought to light the exis­tence of a real and pro­found rela­tion­ship between that dog and I, one which I had largely failed to notice while she was still alive.

Cassie was a faith­ful wit­ness to many chap­ters of our fam­ily life. Walk­ing the dogs in the woods behind my in-laws’ house was the mod­ern equiv­a­lent of court­ing, and the first year I vis­ited at Christ­mas, keen to impress, I went armed with gift-wrapped doggy treats. The first time we took our new­born son to meet the fam­ily, the mas­ter of the house took the baby’s blan­ket out­side for inspec­tion by the dogs. The the­ory was that the dogs would respect and recog­nise the baby’s smell and thus accept this tiny for­eigner into the fold. The ges­ture was as prac­ti­cal as it was touch­ing, not least because that baby’s first word was later a glee­ful cry of “bog­gies!”, uttered upon sight of his canine friends. Though the dogs were so large and the boy was so small as to war­rant much remind­ing that “dogs are not for rid­ing”, they none the less formed a deep and drool­ing mutual love affair. More recently, seek­ing solace with my in-laws at a dif­fi­cult junc­ture in our lives, walk­ing Cassie was a daily rit­ual, an incan­ta­tion, more for our ben­e­fit than hers. I was grate­ful for her exu­ber­ant dis­trac­tion; it’s impos­si­ble to wal­low with two ener­getic gun dogs urg­ing you to oblige them with a run across the fields. Cassie’s untimely end served to illu­mi­nate the place she had occu­pied in our family’s story, more poignant because it was only recog­nised when it was too late to be rewarded.

That’s a sen­ti­ment shared by Anna Webb, who was dev­as­tated by the death of her dog, Min­nie. Anna res­cued Min­nie from a dogs’ home but felt she had betrayed her by not being there when she died. “Min­nie was there for me as a ground­ing aspect to my life. Los­ing her made me realise how pre­cious life is and that you shouldn’t take it for granted,” she says.

Eve Menezes Cun­ning­ham also felt guilty when her cat Lou died fol­low­ing a seizure. “I was com­pletely unpre­pared for los­ing her,” she says. “I held her while they put her down and when I got home I howled.” Eve’s pre­vi­ous encoun­ters with death did lit­tle to help make sense of what she felt. “I’ve been to loads of funer­als and have lost a lot of peo­ple. But Lou was my pet cat. I loved her uncon­di­tion­ally. She’d never let me down and I felt I wasn’t able to do enough for her. It broke my heart that I couldn’t make it all right for her.” Eve was sur­prised by the inten­sity of her loss. “I remem­ber think­ing I could never have kids or get mar­ried,” she says. “If the loss of a cat is such a blow, how could I cope with human loss?” Though Eve’s feel­ings were unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally irra­tional and changed as her grief sub­sided, her expe­ri­ence is not unusual.

Susie Richard­son found the death of her cat a bewil­der­ing expe­ri­ence. “If I’m hon­est it was quite fright­en­ing,” she says. “I wasn’t pre­pared for the inten­sity of my emo­tions. I thought I was going mad.” Like Eve and Anna, Susie blamed her­self. “I was so hard on myself. The what-ifs haunted me,” she admits. Susie feels she might have coped bet­ter if she’d known her feel­ings were nor­mal, and now vol­un­teers with a sup­port ser­vice for bereaved pet own­ers in the hope of help­ing oth­ers cope.

The pet bereave­ment Sup­port Ser­vice (bluecross.org.uk/web/site/AboutUs/PetBereavement) pro­vides free emo­tional sup­port to those suf­fer­ing the loss of a pet. Run by the Blue Cross in con­junc­tion with the Soci­ety for Com­pan­ion Ani­mal Stud­ies (SCAS), the ser­vice is staffed by vol­un­teers and funded by pub­lic dona­tions. Use of the ser­vice has grown con­sis­tently, with the num­ber of peo­ple call­ing the helpline dou­bling in recent years. Last year, nearly 5,000 peo­ple rang the helpline and this year’s fig­ures are already up by 200 calls com­pared with the same time last year. While the major­ity of callers are women, there is a steady increase in the num­ber of men using the ser­vice. The Blue Cross web­site also allows bereaved pet own­ers to cre­ate a page in mem­ory of their pet. So far this year, over 5,500 pages have been cre­ated, and dur­ing August, over 6,000 peo­ple vis­ited those pages.

Jason Ward is a pet under­taker. His par­ents John and Terri Ward started their family-run busi­ness (petfuneralservices.co.uk), based in Wales, 19 years ago, and con­tinue to pro­vide ser­vices to bereaved pet own­ers. Their pet ambu­lances have cov­ered 70,000 miles in the past year, col­lect­ing deceased pets and return­ing ashes. The busi­ness oper­ates around the clock and largely out­side of con­ven­tional busi­ness hours. But far from being an odd­ity, the ser­vices that Jason pro­vides are fast becom­ing the norm for bereaved pet own­ers. He attrib­utes this in part to the fact that peo­ple move house more fre­quently, mak­ing bury­ing ani­mals in the gar­den imprac­ti­cal. He is reg­u­larly asked to exhume and cre­mate pets whose remains have been dis­turbed fol­low­ing a house move or exten­sion build. He also con­nects the growth of the pet bereave­ment indus­try to the grow­ing impor­tance placed on pets in an increas­ingly frac­tured soci­ety. If you lis­ten to Jason, him­self a devoted dog-lover with a heart­break­ing pet-loss story of his own, you’d believe that uncon­di­tional love is only to be found on four legs.

Jason likens the death of a pet to the loss of a child. He makes a com­pelling case. “Some peo­ple com­part­men­talise the rela­tion­ship they have with their pets,” he says. “But there’s always a mother fig­ure – not nec­es­sar­ily a mum or even a female – but some­one in the fam­ily for whom the bond with a pet goes deeper.” For them, the quo­tients of grief are akin to those of a bereaved par­ent, because the inten­sity of the bond and the nature of the rela­tion­ship with the ani­mal are as close to par­ent and child as you can get. That’s not to say they equate the life of an ani­mal with that of a child, but that the fibres that bind some peo­ple to their ani­mals seem made of the same stuff that binds a par­ent to its child.

That’s never truer than when a per­son finds their pet a reli­able con­stant at a time when human rela­tion­ships fail. Roz Leach res­cued her cat, Amy, from the Cats Pro­tec­tion League and had her for 17 years. “One com­mon thread that runs through many a cat lover’s his­tory is all that you expe­ri­ence together – divorces, deaths, ill­nesses, you name it. None of this means much to the cat but it does to the human,” she says. When Roz left her mar­i­tal home, Amy was a source of com­fort and secu­rity amid uncertainty.

In Jason’s expe­ri­ence, the most even-minded and ratio­nal pet own­ers are the ones hit hard­est by their grief, pre­cisely because they are unpre­pared for it. “You’d be sur­prised at the reac­tions we see, every­thing from shock to peo­ple lit­er­ally col­laps­ing under the weight of their emo­tions. Grief is no respecter of class or any social bound­ary,” he says. “We see all walks of life lev­elled by their sense of loss.”

Jason con­sid­ers mod­ern soci­ety ill-equipped for acknowl­edg­ing the impact of pet bereave­ment. “Men­tion down the pub that your dog died and peo­ple change the sub­ject, but if your granny dies they’ll buy you a pint and give you a con­so­la­tory slap on the back,” he says. He thinks we play down the pain of los­ing a pet. Also, many peo­ple don’t teach their chil­dren that pets die, reduc­ing their capac­ity to cope when the inevitable happens.

Christina McDer­mott agrees. She was 23 when the kit­ten she had been given at the age of 12 died of kid­ney fail­ure. “He was part of the fur­ni­ture of my every­day fam­ily life,” she says. “I cried my eyes out. It was like a cor­ner­stone of my teenage years had gone.”

Los­ing a child­hood pet seems as defin­ing a moment as the first taste of teenage heart­break. Lyn­ley Oram was 16 when her bea­gle was killed. “She was like the youngest sib­ling in the fam­ily,” she recalls. “It seemed wrong to get another dog, and I’ve never owned another pet. It’s such a com­mit­ment to love some­thing like that. What if it hap­pened again?”

For oth­ers, the loss of a pet awak­ens latent empathies. When Helen Kaut-White’s cat van­ished, she was dev­as­tated by not know­ing what had hap­pened to him. For clo­sure, she buried the cat’s brush in the gar­den at her granny’s sug­ges­tion. “I was sur­prised by her under­stand­ing,” she says. “She’s not a cat per­son but she told me how hard it was for her fam­ily when her brother dis­ap­peared dur­ing the Sec­ond World War.”

Car­rie Dunn was ter­ri­fied of dogs for almost 25 years, hav­ing been bit­ten on the face as a child. She was under­stand­ably anx­ious about meet­ing her boyfriend’s Ger­man shep­herd, Con­ner, but a bond slowly grew, and she was dev­as­tated when Con­ner devel­oped a fatal tumour. “I knew I’d be upset when he died but I didn’t realise how much,” she says. “I couldn’t stop bawl­ing and stayed in bed cry­ing. It felt really wrong to be so upset when he wasn’t actu­ally my dog, but David and the vet both pointed out that of course he was my dog too, because I loved him so much and he loved me.”

Mary Leigh runs a pet clotheswear com­pany, equafleece.co.uk, and the retired grey­hound she res­cued became its prin­ci­pal model for sev­eral years. “Josh didn’t like to be left so he became an inte­gral part of my work­ing life,” she says. “When he died he’d been with me for the best part of eight years – my shadow, my con­stant com­pan­ion.” Mary encour­aged her chil­dren to see the dead dog. “I think that helps nor­malise the expe­ri­ence of los­ing a pet,” she says. “The more you can pre­pare a child for the real­ity that all things die, the more you’re prepar­ing them for life.”

That’s a sen­ti­ment echoed by John Gro­gan, the Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist who penned a eulogy for his dog and immor­talised him in the book-turned-film Mar­ley & Me. “A per­son can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours,” he wrote. “Mar­ley taught me about liv­ing each day with unbri­dled exu­ber­ance and joy, about seiz­ing the moment and fol­low­ing your heart. He taught me to appre­ci­ate the sim­ple things – a walk in the woods, a fresh snow­fall, a nap in a shaft of win­ter sun­light. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about opti­mism in the face of adver­sity. Mostly, he taught me about friend­ship and self­less­ness and, above all else, unwa­ver­ing loyalty.”

To con­tact the Pet Bereave­ment Sup­port Ser­vice call 0800 096 6606 or e-mail pbssmail@bluecross.org.uk. Call 01993 825539 for infor­ma­tion about becom­ing a volunteer

What Not to Say to Some­one Who Is Griev­ing The Loss of a Pet

Posted by Ingrid

As a soci­ety, we are not equipped to han­dle grief and loss, and many peo­ple don’t know what to say to some­one who is griev­ing. This can be com­pounded when the loss is that of a pet. Even peo­ple who are gen­uinely sorry and want to express their sym­pa­thy are often don’t know what to say to com­fort the griev­ing person.

It is dif­fi­cult to know what to say, and as a result, peo­ple often, with­out mean­ing to, say the wrong things that, rather than pro­vid­ing com­fort, only serve to upset the griev­ing per­son even more. Some­times, the best thing to say is to sim­ply acknowl­edge the loss – because the only thing worse than say­ing the wrong thing is to not say any­thing at all. As I’m deal­ing with my own grief about Amber, I’m once again reminded of how much some of the things peo­ple say hurt, even though they’re offered with the best intentions.

I know how you feel. Every­body expe­ri­ences loss dif­fer­ently. While we may have lost pets our­selves, we can’t know how the griev­ing per­son feels, because each pet and each rela­tion­ship is unique.

Say­ing some­thing like “I, too, have lost a pet, and I remem­ber how awful it feels – my heart goes out to you” instead acknowl­edges the griever’s feel­ings with­out being presumptuous.

It will get bet­ter or time heals all wounds. Griev­ing peo­ple know this on an intel­lec­tual level, but they sure don’t feel that way, espe­cially not in the early stages of grief. Trite phrases like these only serve to min­i­mize the loss and the very real pain the griev­ing per­son is feel­ing now.

Acknowl­edge the griev­ing person’s sad­ness and pain with­out dimin­ish­ing their emo­tions by sug­gest­ing that they’re only temporary.

She’s in a bet­ter place now. It was prob­a­bly for the best. It was God’s will. Any vari­a­tion of this will not be help­ful to some­one who’s griev­ing. Even if their belief sys­tem sup­ports this, they’re not going to find com­fort in these words, and they may, in fact, serve to empha­size their pain.

Even if the griev­ing per­son believes that our ani­mal friends never really die and that their spir­its live on, any of the above phrases, directed at them in the mid­dle of pro­found sad­ness, inval­i­date the very real pain of miss­ing the lost pet’s phys­i­cal presence.

Let me know if there’s any­thing I can do. This is a clas­sic, and nat­ural, response to grief – we feel help­less, and we want to help the griev­ing per­son. How­ever, peo­ple who are griev­ing don’t think straight, and usu­ally don’t know what they need help with, and reach­ing out or ask­ing for help often requires more of an effort than they can handle.

Offer to do some­thing con­crete instead, such as bring­ing a pre­pared meal to the griev­ing per­son, or run­ning errands for them. If you know the per­son very well and you think it would be accept­able, stop by to check on them. Oth­er­wise, call them, but accept that they may not want to answer the phone. Leave a sup­port­ive mes­sage, and check back again a few days later.

It was only a pet. I find it hard to believe that some peo­ple are still say­ing this – it is cal­lous and uncar­ing, even com­ing from some­one who’s not an ani­mal per­son. I’m for­tu­nate that the major­ity of peo­ple in my life are ani­mal peo­ple, so I’ve not heard this one per­son­ally, but I’m being told that it still hap­pens more than you would think.

When are you going to get another one? Not quite as shock­ing as the one above, but equally inap­pro­pri­ate. Griev­ing pet par­ents know that get­ting a new pet can never replace the lost one, but get­ting a new pet after a loss is a very indi­vid­ual deci­sion – everyone’s sched­ule is going to be dif­fer­ent. (Read Life after Loss – Get­ting a New Pet for more on this topic.)

Don’t cry. Most peo­ple are uncom­fort­able in the pres­ence of oth­ers who are cry­ing. It is painful to see some­one you care about cry, but by telling them not to cry, you are pro­long­ing the griev­ing process for them.

Tears heal and are part of the nat­ural griev­ing process. One of the best things you can do for some­one who is griev­ing is to let them cry in your pres­ence. Offer com­fort, but don’t make them feel that it’s not okay to cry.

There is no “cure” or “solu­tion” for grief – it’s an indi­vid­ual jour­ney. Nav­i­gat­ing through the griev­ing process is dif­fi­cult not just for the per­son who is mourn­ing a loss, but also for those around the per­son. The best thing any of us can do for some­one who is griev­ing the loss of a pet is to set aside our own dis­com­fort with death and loss and gen­tly sup­port them in their grief.

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Heal Your Heart Pet Loss CD

are like a dear friend com­fort­ing you dur­ing your time of grief.  For you in your time of need or as a car­ing gift for a friend.

Karen, Pep­per and Zep

Karen Litzinger’s Jour­ney with Ani­mals: My inspi­ra­tion for the Heal­ing Hearts pet loss CD came while dri­ving home from the vet­eri­nar­ian with the cre­mains of my 15 year old dog, Pep­per, who I had since a puppy from a local res­cue league.  Orig­i­nally I wanted to cre­ate some­thing that a vet could give griev­ing clients right after the euthana­sia pro­ce­dure to sup­ple­ment the per­sonal sup­port and follow-up sym­pa­thy card.  I cre­ated a pet loss book­let for vet­eri­nar­i­ans, but the CD is what I hope will serve those expe­ri­ence pet loss grief in a more pro­found way.

I lost a trea­sured Friend today

The lit­tle dog who used to lay

Her gen­tle head upon my knee

And share her silent thoughts with me.

She’ll come no longer to my call,

Author Unknown

Retrieve no more her favourite ball

A voice far greater than my own

Has Called her His golden throne.

And though my eyes are filled with tears,

I thank Him for the happy years

He let her spend down here with me,

And for her love and loyalty.

New! Pet Loss & Grief Sup­port Pro­gram Offered by Ani­mal Spirit Network

Instruc­tor, Teresa Wagner

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

# # #

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Tues­day, June 1, 2010

Pet Loss: Good-bye Dear Jake

It is good to be back in Michi­gan!  In Decem­ber Peter and I  loaded Jake, our 15 yr old Lab/Shepard mix, in  the car and drove to our new win­ter home: Tuc­son, AZ.

We were con­cerned about Jake’s com­fort and abil­ity to make the trip, but he tol­er­ated it well and seemed revived soak­ing up the sun in our new yard.

It was hard to watch him lose the strength to get in the car, the abil­ity to man­age stairs, the com­fort of being around other ani­mals.  As his senses faded his anx­i­ety escalated.

Our vet helped us assess his  con­di­tion and needs.  We had hoped he could make it back to Michi­gan, but by April we knew it was time to euth­a­nize him.

We have had other pets euthanized–it is never an easy decision.

The rea­son I decided to write about Jake’s death here is this:  Reac­tions to the loss of a beloved pet is  as multi-faceted as any other loss.  Everyone is enti­tled to view their ani­mals, and the loss of them, how­ever they want.   I cau­tion you though to not make assump­tions about what that loss is like for others.

Some of the com­ments peo­ple made when Jake died offended me.  Really, really offended me.  Some of them were made by the pro­fes­sion­als who were assist­ing us with the process, some by friends.

Here are some examples:

—Refer­ring to Jake as my “child”.  NO…he was my loved and val­ued pet.  He did not come close to being in the same cat­e­gory as my child.
–Ques­tion­ing our deci­sion to euthanize–some thought we waited too long, oth­ers thought we were too hasty.  It is not their busi­ness, unless their opin­ion has been requested.
–Telling us their per­sonal sto­ries of pet loss (often the re-telling  proved trau­matic for the per­son and they would then need com­fort­ing).  In the midst of try­ing to make the right deci­sion no one needs to have things com­pli­cated by a tear­ful story.

Pet loss, like other grief, is a per­sonal jour­ney.  Let the per­son take the lead in con­ver­sa­tions.  Lis­ten.  Lis­ten well.

We were lucky to have many, many peo­ple do just that.  Let us guide the conversations.

I espe­cially want to thank Dr. Lee Fike (Tuc­son) http://www.leefike.com/ : thank you for your com­pas­sion, wis­dom, guid­ance and  patience. Your  method  of euth­a­niz­ing in stages allowed us the oppor­tu­nity to see Jake at peace to be able say good-bye in our home, as we lis­tened to music that com­forted us. Thanks also to our dear friend Helen Costa (Ann Arbor) who was always just an email away, will­ing to answer ques­tions and help us explore options. And, many oth­ers who said just the right thing, at the right time.

Today we will spread Jake’s ashes in Michi­gan and cel­e­brate his awe­some, sweet spirit.

I am glad he is home.

Posted by Klara Lynn Dan­nar at 7:44 AM