Even months later, the pain of losing a pet can still hit without warning.
The trigger might be noticing — again, for the umpteenth time — how empty the house feels since your cat died, without the pitter-patter of padded paws. Or stumbling across the leash of the dog you lost and remembering how it used to set off tail-wagging glee.
Grieving owners can feel doubly lonesome if the humans in their lives don’t quite know how to help, perhaps because they’ve not had pets themselves or feel awkward around grief.
How can owners and their friends cope better with pet bereavement? Experts in pet loss offer these ideas:
Recognize that feeling awful is normal
For some grieving owners, pet loss can feel worse than a human death. That doesn’t make them monsters. Instead, it reflects the potential depths of human-animal bonds.
For some people, a pet is their most important relationship, “the being that they see every single day, that maybe sleeps on their bed, that they cuddle with on the couch,” says E.B. Bartels, author of “ Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter.”
“There are people who feel more comfortable with animals than with people,” she adds. “So losing those relationships can be really, really difficult.”
Offer a sympathetic ear
People who haven’t experienced pet love may struggle to understand what it’s like to lose it. They may think they are being helpful by saying, “It was just an animal,” or “They were lucky to have such a loving owner.” But pat phrases, no matter how well-meaning, can make grieving owners clam up and feel alone.
“You feel like you can’t talk about it because people aren’t really empathizing,” says Annalisa de Carteret, who manages a telephone helpline and other pet-loss support services for Blue Cross, a U.K. animal welfare charity.
“Just allow that person to talk about how they’re feeling, and you don’t need to comment,” she says.
Avoid clichés like, “‘Oh, you can get another pet’ or ‘He had a good life, he was a good age,’” she says. For the owner, “that doesn’t make you feel any better, because you knew all of those things. You just feel sad and just want someone to listen and to understand.”
Bonds can run deep with any kind of animal
Another tip: Don’t assume that an owner’s grief is commensurate with the size or type of animal they lost, or the length of time they had them. The death of a pet lizard, for example, can be as painful for some people as losing the cutest of fur balls for others.
“My friend’s dad has a koi pond and he loves these koi. And he was so upset when a raccoon got in and killed all his koi one summer,” Bartels says. “Some people would be like, ‘Oh, they’re just fish.’ But he loved these fish, you know?”
She suggests that friends can offer practical help: A grieving owner who no longer has a four-legged reason to leave the house might appreciate the offer of a walk with a two-legged companion.
“People can really feel they lose their community,” Bartels says. “In the morning you get up, you bring your dog to the dog park and you get to know the group of people who are there every morning really well. And that’s your social community. And so then if you lose your reason for going … you’ve lost a lot more than just a dog.”
Guilt often compounds pet loss
Up to 30,000 people contact Blue Cross each year for pet-loss support. Many aren’t simply sad but also are fearful that they may somehow have been responsible for their animal’s death or disappearance, de Carteret says.
“Guilt is a really big part of pet loss,” she says.
“They maybe think, ‘Oh, if I’d done something differently, maybe they’d have stayed alive a little bit longer,’ or if they were stolen: ‘If I didn’t put them in the garden.’ Or, ‘What could I have done differently to change the inevitable?’”
For bereaved owners who feel more upset about the loss of a pet than about a family member, that can trigger more guilt, de Carteret adds.
“It’s really normal,” she says. But “it feels wrong to say, doesn’t it? And people don’t want to share that.”
Can a new pet help ?
Possibly. But it’s not a magic bullet. Each animal has its own personality and a new one won’t necessarily fill the void left by another. And if your previous pet was full-grown, you may no longer have the patience for kittens’ litters or puppy-training again.
Bottom line: Grieving can’t be truncated. The sadness and memories can be lasting.
Bartels lost her dog, Seymour, last June.
“I’m sure I’ll have a hard time again in June when it’s the year anniversary of when we put him down,” she says.
De Carteret keeps her dog’s ashes by her fireplace, which was his favorite place to sit.
“Some people will think that’s weird,” she says. “But, you know, that’s how I deal with it … You have to find the right way for you.”
