Pet Loss and Grief

                One of the hardest parts of my job is having quality of life discussions with owners, and euthanasias.  It’s difficult for all of the obvious reasons, like the sadness and the grief experienced by both myself and the owners, but it’s also difficult for me, personally, because I handle my emotions differently than most (or so I’ve been told).  I have a hard time relating to people on an emotional level, and I’m extremely uncomfortable with people being in my personal space.   So, when I’m confronted with a mourning client who is looking to me to make them feel better, I feel at a loss, and very out of my element.  I marvel at how my co-workers seem to instinctively know exactly what to say and what to do in these scenarios, and have often wondered why I seem to be unable to do so.  I’ve been told that it will come with time, seeing as I’m only 2 years into my career as a technician, but it’s still frustrating to know that when I see someone on one of the hardest days of their lives, the only things I can think of are clichéd condolences that always seem insincere simply because we’ve heard them all too often.

                When I am sad or grieving, I prefer to be by myself; if there are other people around me, for example, if I’m at work and a euthanasia hits me particularly hard (and it happens to everyone that works in the veterinary world), I’d rather they’d just be quiet, pretend I’m not bawling, and leave me alone.   It is due to this personal preference, that I have a really hard time being comforting to others; when your instinct is to leave a grieving person alone and in silence, that often comes off as being cold and un-caring.  Believe me, I DO care and I DO empathize, I’m just not very good at expressing it, and I usually feel awkward when I do try (I probably come across this way to the clients as well); when I say things like “I’m so sorry for your loss”, it feels so scripted and disingenuous to me that I generally elect to say nothing at all.  The worst is when someone wants a hug; I’m not a hugger, but I really want to support people during their time of need, so I have this internal battle between my own personal comfort level, and the desire to help.  What results is usually an incredibly awkward and lame half hug, which (I think) is less helpful than nothing at all.

So, in an effort to better myself and to improve my job skills, I went off to North Vancouver for a 3 day Pet Loss and Grief Companioning Certification course.   The speaker was Coleen  Ellis, and she is the founder of the Pet Angel Memorial Center, which is a pets only funeral home that was the first of its kind in the United States.  When I walked into the room, she immediately greeted me with a firm two-handed handshake, the most intense eye contact I’ve ever had in my entire life, and a fervent “thank you, I appreciate you for being here”.  I felt a little uncomfortable; it’s very disconcerting for someone like me to have a complete stranger get in your space, grab your hand like they’re never going to let go, and stare directly into your eyes.  I think my only response was to look elsewhere (thereby avoiding eye contact), back up a little, and murmur a very quiet “Hi…Thanks…” into my shoulder. 

“Well,” I said to myself, “this is part of why you’re here: to learn how to be more comfortable in situations that involve invasion of personal space.”  So I sat down, and started to listen. 

There were a lot of things that I took away from that course (including hug-avoidance techniques), and I will write about them in separate articles, because there’s just too much to fit into one.  Perhaps the most important thing, was that my job is not to make the client feel better as soon as possible.  We live in a “quick fix” and death-avoidant society that says we should get through the stages of grief in an orderly manner, and as soon as possible; in reality, every person experiences grief differently and the stages of grief are not so clear-cut.  People and pets need time and the ability to mourn however they need to in order to heal.  My job is not to make everything better, but to let them experience their loss in whatever manner is best for them, without judgment and without hurrying them along to happiness and a new pet.   Our instincts are to try to take the suffering away by saying things like “at least you got 15 years with Fido”, “you did all you could for Fluffers”, and “I’m sorry to hear about FruFru, but you know they have lots of puppies at the SPCA that you can get.”  Fido’s family may have gotten 15 good years but they probably wanted 15 more, and I need to respect that sometimes 15 years is not enough, even if that is a good old age for any pet.  Fluffer’s owner did everything under the sun for her cat, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like there was something else she could have done, and if I say “don’t feel like that because you did everything you could”, I’m actually arguing with her and telling her that what she’s feeling is wrong, and that’s something that Fluffer’s owner doesn’t need to hear.  There may be pets in need of a home at the SPCA (and I am a big advocate for adoptions), but FruFru’s owner needs time to mourn, and it would be disrespectful to suggest that she can just replace her old companion with a new one.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I think or believe; what matters is what the owner thinks and believes, and it isn’t my place to tell them they should or shouldn’t feel a certain way. 

Another thing that was brought up a lot is that many “pet parents” feel shame for mourning their pet.  If they want to have a funeral or memorial, or if they take longer than a week to get over their loss, many people think they are crazy and over-emotional, because “it was just a dog/cat/fish/gerbil/whatever”.  This is something that I (fortunately) have never experienced, because the people I surround myself with tend to love animals as much as I do and, therefore, understand that the strong bond between people and their pets is not easily broken and discarded.  I was appalled to think that someone might think me “crazy” because I still acknowledge the anniversary of my dog’s death, even though she died a little over 7 years ago.  After all, no one would think twice about acknowledging the anniversary of a human’s death, so why not a pet’s?  So many times I’ve heard owners say that they feel ashamed because they mourned their pet more than a family member that passed away.  This doesn’t make them bad people and it doesn’t mean that they loved that family member any less; it does prove that the bond between people and their pets is unique, and that the relationships are different.  A pet is often closer than your own shadow and when they are gone, when that little (or not so little) soul that followed you everywhere suddenly isn’t there anymore, that sense of loneliness and that feeling that something important is missing, can be overwhelming.  I say again: it doesn’t mean you valued one life over the other, it just means that the relationships and the bonds formed are different, and therefore, they feel different when they are gone.  It should never be a source of shame.

The last thing I’ll mention here was one that really struck me, simply because I had never thought about it this way.  Many people who have lost their pet have expressed frustration that they just want to feel normal again, like they did before the loss.  I never knew how to respond to that, other than with the whole “time heals all wounds” speech, especially because I also sought out that sense of normalcy after the passing of my dog.   Instead, we talked about the “Old Normal” and the “New Normal”.  The “Old Normal” is the way you were before you got your pet.  “Normal” is how you were while you had your pet, and the “New Normal” is what you become after your pet passes away.  Each of these “normals” are accompanied by change, and as we all know, sometimes change is scary, but just as the arrival of your pet changes you, so does it’s departure, and the only way to start to feel better is to acknowledge that you will never be the same you were.  In order to move forward, you need to realize that you will never get back to the “old normal”, acknowledge the impact that your pet had on your life, and realize that the “new normal”, while it might be scary, is actually a positive thing.

This is just a small amount of what we discussed at the course, and I walked out of there feeling more confident about how to handle these types of situations.  I’m never going to be entirely comfortable with physical contact, and my first instinct will always be to remain quiet, but at least now I feel like I have some other options, some other “tricks of the trade”  if you will, and I know that sometimes the best thing I can say is nothing.  I know that no one will ever get over the loss of their pet, but they will get through it.  I know that my job is not to make you feel fine by the time you walk out of the clinic, but to assist in the expression of grief in whatever way I can.  I know that my job is to provide a safe and, above all, non-judgemental environment for the grieving client.  There is always a good-bye hovering in the shadows of our pets, and I hope that if I’m in the room with you when you have to go through it, that you leave the clinic feeling like I am a supportive resource and an asset to you in your grief journey, and not that quiet weirdo who gave you an awkward pat on the hand. 

~By: Lisa Horne