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“There are as many ways to live through grief as there are relationships and beings in the world.”
– Jacques Salomé
Knowing death is around the corner for your pet, regardless of whether you’re the one deciding it, is heart-wrecking.
It doesn’t matter whether death is near because you sense the slowing down that comes with declining old age…
Or whether you’re facing the painful decision of euthanasia.
As my veterinarian friend Kim puts it, “Both are equally awful.”
Because losing a pet to outside circumstances is just hard. Losing a pet because you decided it was best for the pet to die is also hard.
And while any type of looming pet death is crushing, the silver lining is that you often have a little time to say goodbye and prepare for the death.
Does that make it better? Perhaps… but with that gift of goodbye also comes guilt.
You may wonder, can you avoid the guilt? Is there a way to sidestep the emotional struggle that comes when you know your pet is on death’s door?
Guilt Versus Grace
The answer is sort of. It’s important to understand that it doesn’t matter how your pet dies. Death leads to grief.
In fact, when it comes to pet loss, the emotional and physical reactions you feel at the loss of an animal are comparable to those of human grief. But everything is made worse by the lack of social recognition around pet grief.
That lack just leads to shame and guilt (which might be on top of the guilt you feel for the pet dying in the first place).
So let’s start with understanding the different types of grief.
When you have a predictable loss, perhaps because of a terminal illness or a diagnosis that’s too expensive to treat, or when you pet is in its most senior years, then there’s a good chance you’ll go through anticipatory grief. It’s just like it sounds: you’re anticipating impending grief.
But really, when anticipatory grief hits, you’re already in the midst of a type of grief.
That’s because anticipatory grief brings a strange back-and-forth experience where you sometimes swing in the direction of hope, maybe praying for a miracle recovery or that the pet will have one last rally…
But then you swing right back to resignation and submission.
There are good days, there are bad days, and in between all of it you have to keep on living life, knowing that you’re about to experience a major upheaval.
On one hand, this type of grief gives you the chance to prepare for the coming death. It allows you the opportunity to say goodbye, or to have beautiful final “last moments” — last walks, last talks, last cuddles, last visits to the pet store or the park… anything that was meaningful to you and your pet, you can make a point to enjoy one last time.
But it’s also an emotionally and physically exhausting time, going back and forth between these feelings. And it may bring about a strange sensation of guilt that you’re over-preparing for the impending loss, as if you’re more focused on the death than you are the current life of your pet.
Finally there’s the reality that the grief hasn’t even hit you yet. That you’re already sad and despondent and the death has yet to happen. In other words, you might just have the looming feeling that it’s only going to get worse.
But your grief doesn’t have to be wrapped in guilt. I would bet you’ve been the best pet parent you could be with the information you had. You have nothing to feel guilty about.
How would it be to look at your guilt with grace? Consider the unselfishness of the act of heroically letting your pet go and freeing them from whatever suffering they endured.
Maybe Welcome These Unwanted Feelings…
But even framed in grace, sadness, despair, and guilt are common when it comes to letting go and knowing there’s nothing more you can do. And all three feelings stink.
But have you considered welcoming them, rather than fighting them?
All the painful emotional and physical manifestations of your grief are your human way of gradually adjusting to your pet’s absence.
You can hate that you have them, but also welcome them. Be kind to your feelings and yourself. Go forward without judgment.
How? Consider the following:
- Crying wins the day, especially because it releases cortisol (the stress hormone). Think of crying as a testament to your attachment.
- Journaling and capturing your feelings in tangible print on paper can be freeing.
- Talking to someone, like a pet grief coach, and ascribing words to your feelings, and then being listened to, is the most powerful of all.
- Give space to someone else to grieve. Listening to others who are navigating similar hopeless thoughts about pet grief lets you know you’re not alone, and often helps the other person.
- Dig deep into the connection your felt with your pet, including the what’s and how’s and why’s.
Letting Go is Hard On Every Level
That last suggestion deserves a deeper dive when it comes to pet grief, because the role pets play in our lives varies significantly — meaning some people have much deeper bonds with their pets.
Along with that is the fact that, as mentioned earlier, the pet bond isn’t widely recognized by society as one that deserves deep grief.
Take a mother-child relationship, for instance. It’s a fact that some people are close to their mothers and some people have next to no connection with their birth-giver.
But if that mother or that birth-giver passes away, the lack of connection doesn’t matter. Most people in our Western culture will expect you to be devastated, to grieve, to take time off work, and to struggle for a lengthy period of time. Maybe this happens, maybe it doesn’t. But it’s expected and approved by our wider culture.
With a pet, it’s the opposite. It’s a fact that some people are very close to their pets and some are not. But if that pet passes away, the magnitude of the connection doesn’t matter. Most people in our Western culture will expect you to feel a little sad and then move on. Maybe buy a new pet in a month or two.
What a lot of people don’t realize about the human-animal bond is that it can be a deeply emotional connection, comparable to the connection some people have with family members.
Really, if we’re comparing pets to family members then it has to be said that in a lot of cases, they can provide more emotional safety to the pet owner than that person’s own family members.
Having a pet that is a constant presence and source of emotional availability can actually fulfill the role of attachment figures. It happens on a physical level, even.
That steady connection helps alleviate stress and anxiety and increases the production of oxytocin (that’s our well-being hormone). It brings down cortisol (that unpleasant stress hormone).
And overall has an uplifting effect on mental health.
This is especially true for people who are isolated from regular human companionship. It’s true for anyone going through a tough time for whatever reason — our pets can bring us feelings of stability and emotional loyalty.
Can it go overboard, that attachment?
That depends on the person and the attachment. If someone has too intense an attachment to an animal and no one else to lean on, then it borders on emotional dependence. Pet bereavement in these situations is especially painful.
What I hope for you and anybody grieving a pet is the gift of recognition. That includes recognizing the legitimacy and depth of your sorrow, as well as being given the space to put into words, or even just feel, the richness of the pet relationship you had.
Should You Get a Grief Coach?
If your pet has yet to pass, it might not seem like it’s time to reach out for help. But on the other hand, it can be enormously useful to have someone walk the grief path with you as your pet makes the transition.
A beautiful new trend in mental health is the rise of grief coaches, and of animal grief coaches in particular. The role of a grief coach who specializes in pet loss is to provide emotional support to grieving individuals.
And this is where people get tripped up. Because if that pet hasn’t yet passed, you shouldn’t be grieving yet, right?
That’s the common thinking, yes, but it is misguided. Grief begins when you know something difficult is coming, and then it strengthens and fuels.
If you’re struggling with the impending loss of a pet or with having to make a decision about euthanasia, then a grief coach can hold space for you during that journey. In a best-case situation, this will make it easier to transition when you finally do have to face the death.
But while a grief coach isn’t essential to walking through the difficult journey of looming pet death, sharing it with somebody is helpful. Maybe that’s your best friend or your veterinarian. Maybe it’s your own journal.
What you don’t want to do is keep that grief bottled up.
Stepping Into the (Unwanted) New Life
Another issue that may come up as you move toward your pet’s passing is how it affects your identity.
The loss of a pet can completely disrupt how you relate to the world, your identity, and things you do throughout the year like celebrations and holidays.
If a pet is part of a family or belongs to more than just one individual, each person will relate to the loss differently as each member of the family had their own unique relationship to the pet. And as individuals, everyone will react differently to the approaching loss.
Kids especially will have varied reactions, with some choosing to spend all their time with the pet and others distancing themselves (which is really a form of self-protection from the impending loss).
To help redefine who you’ll be without your pet, and to help those in your family, try talking about what that pet means to you — before the pet passes. Tell the pet, even. Take time to make memories and go on final walks or car rides.
Above all, know that there is no “right” time to say goodbye. Many people report that saying goodbye early and often can ease the discomfort of looming grief, mostly because it ensures you got the chance to say goodbye and you weren’t too late.
Getting Through the Event
When the time does come for euthanasia, or when it’s clear your pet is about to pass, you have the power to make that event memorable in a beautiful way.
These days there are increasing numbers of vets who make home visits to perform euthanasia. It’s a comforting prospect to the humans and pet involved because they’re in the safety of their own home and not the steel-clad coolness of a vet hospital. For pets who grow anxious at the prospect of leaving the home, this can be a particularly loving last gift.
If home-based euthanasia isn’t an option, you can still make the event special. Maybe that means you have a memorable last meal or a sitting with the pet before having to travel to the vet, or perhaps multiple members of the family come together to accompany the pet.
There’s no right way to do any of this. But there is a best way, which is that you do it with intention and forethought, putting the comfort of your pet first and allowing yourself space to be present, to say goodbye, and to deeply feel the loss.
The Body Expresses What Words Can’t Say
Remember, grief, much as we don’t like it, is normal. It’s universal. And it manifests through physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses — all of which are normal and also necessary for you to adjust to the loss of any loved one, including a pet. The grief serves as testament to your deep bond to the animal.
If your pet is about to pass or has already, know that grief manifests itself in a host of uncomfortable ways. Trouble sleeping is common, from insomnia to nightmares.
You might lose your appetite or have various pains in your body, from headaches to muscle aches to what feels like heart palpitations.
Should you just suffer through it? Well, yes. Pretending it’s not happening or ignoring the physical manifestations of grief in your body just lead to unresolved grief (bad news) and don’t let you move through the pain to the other side. You end up stuck in the cycle and worse off than before.
That means doing the work of crying, of venting, of sitting in silence, of opening up to someone you trust, of taking long walks and deep breaths, of saying no to invitations out for a stretch of time.
In other words, feel the grief and allow it to pass through your body.
It also helps to put names to the feelings your body is going through. Dig deep. Crying and sobbing happen. Anger is common. Feeling injustice and the desire to revolt in some way, but with no idea against whom (often the kneejerk reaction is the veterinary community because they didn’t save your animal, but that feeling is misplaced).
Sadness, of course, is the biggest emotion. Related is the feeling of emptiness or despair. Helplessness or overwhelm. Trouble concentrating. Problems remembering things. Flashbacks related to the death of your pet, or to moments with the pet before the loss.
What can you do with feelings like that? Embrace them. Don’t fight against them.
And yes, it’s easy for me to write that, but what does it look like to embrace an awful feeling like the ones mentioned above?
It looks different for everybody. But it always starts with acknowledging the pain is there.
The thing you don’t want to do is repress your emotions, because that just leads to bigger problems. There’s social withdrawal, where you don’t want to leave the house or go to activities you used to enjoy. There are numbing behaviors, where alcohol or speeding or gambling or smoking enter the picture.
So how would it be to look at this state of mourning as a strength? Grieving is not a weakness; it’s a sign of the greatest love.
