Can Losing a Pet Hurt More Than Losing a Spouse?

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.”

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

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

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

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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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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

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.

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.

Instructor, Teresa Wagner

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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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