Authors: Dr. Kiefer, Francesca, LSW
Grieving the death of a pet can hurt just as much as grieving the loss of a human. Sometimes more. It can be a hard thing for people who don’t have pets to understand, and that can add hurt and misunderstandings to your grief.
You may not have the words to communicate to others how their attitude compounds your grief. Here are some of the ways that contribute to the depth and experience of our grief in losing a pet, in case you wish to educate others, or don’t quite have the words to put to your experience.
Caregiver role: There is a level of responsibility for your pet’s life that can be absent from many relationships with other humans. You are the source of food, safety, comfort, and well-being for this animal. Unlike many humans, this pet cannot communicate their wishes, feelings or fears in ways we recognize or understand. While human relationships can certainly have caregiver roles (parents and their children, caring for a disabled or aged family member, medical caregivers), very few human relationships require deciding the literal life and death of the individual without explicit input from them as pet ownership does. This is a very heavy and complex burden to bear that sometimes leaves us with questions, regrets or self-judgements that are less complicated in human relationships.
Complex relationships: There is a level of purity that can be present in the human-animal bond that is often quite absent in human relationships. Pets rarely have self-aware behaviors that intentionally hurt us. Human relationships rarely exist without some degree of hurt or emotional injury. Because our pets are usually a non-judgmental, trusted and consistent relationship, they can become some of the most valuable and secure relationships we develop. On the other hand, it is very possible to have issues develop that change or injure our relationships with our pets. Complex relationships can lead to complicated grief (a state of perpetual, unresolved grief), and our relationships with animals can certainly be complicated!
“When I finished vet school I had 2 dogs, 2 cats and 3 ferrets. I was embarking on a path of advanced training that was going to require moving every year for an unforeseeable future. After months of anguish and a heartbreaking decision, I felt that my cats would be better off staying behind with my parents until I acquired a position that was more stable. I worried about the stress and trauma that I anticipated they would experience moving around the world, and felt that it would be less traumatic for their personalities to stay in one spot. While I was gone, one of my cats, Romeow, turned into an aggressive bully towards my other cat and my parent’s cat. I would frequently get calls about hospital visits the other two cats required because of wounds they sustained from his behavior. It was two years before I was in a stable location, and I dreaded living with this cat I had loved, but no longer knew. I was quite angry and worried about his behavior- bullies are intolerable to me. I feared he was a cat I could no longer love. The moment they returned to living to me, I would never have believed he had been a bully. He was the sweet, loving, by my side companion I remembered. Cocoa (my other cat), on the other hand took months to feel secure, safe and back to her normal self. Even though his behavior problems resolved, I really harbored a subconscious degree of unforgiveness towards him, and a strong sense of guilt and feeling like I had failed them. While there was no need on his part to navigate forgiveness, it was a relational complexity that couldn’t really be resolved for me, because we couldn’t have a back and forth discussion regarding it. It definitely impacted the way I grieved him compared to some of my other pets.” – Dr. Kiefer
Closeness: Animals can have a huge range of roles in our lives. Some are actually working for and with us. Some are strictly companions. Some are wild and feral enough that we never really “get to know” them, and others spend more time with us than any other creature on the planet. If you are here, you probably experienced a strong level of companionship with your pet, but not everyone understands that. They may not realize the depth of trauma this loss can bring. We can have shared experiences with our pets on a level that our human relationships don’t. There are few humans that are with us every step of the grieving journey of losing another human (death, divorce, breakups) in the capacity that pets are. They offer a non-judgmental, stable presence that we can trust implicitly. My pets have been present in some of the most challenging and painful experiences of my life, and I felt safe “sharing” my hurt and fears with them in ways I wouldn’t have felt I could with other humans. They can be a fundamental part of our support systems that humans cannot fulfill.
Guilt: Did we do right by our pets? This is a question that we can never get an answer to from the ones we feel guilty over. It is also a very common feeling in pet loss. Not being able to communicate clearly with our pets leaves so many opportunities for accidents outside our control, decisions that feel very one-sided, or an inability to share our thoughts or feelings. These unresolved issues can deeply complicate our grief, and may be unrecognized by people who don’t know your situation. If this is a particular struggle for you, this article may be valuable for you.
Invisible bond: Some people in our lives (coworkers, friends, family) may attempt to offer comfort that goes completely awry. They see another human (you) in pain or emotional distress and not having a similar lived experience as you, say something to try and connect with or support you that goes completely off target. I (Francesca) cannot count the number of times clients have shared receiving comments along the lines of ‘well the shelters are full, you can adopt again soon.’ Comments like that land with a huge wallop of pain– your bond with your loved one cannot be invalidated by comments like that. If you have the energy, educate the speaker with the recognition that it wasn’t a helpful comment to hear. Or you also have complete permission to not engage and end the conversation or just plainly walk away. Grief can be draining enough as it is.
You may not have the words to communicate to others how their attitude compounds your grief. Here are some of the ways that contribute to the depth and experience of our grief in losing a pet, in case you wish to educate others.
No matter what anyone tells you, your grief over losing a pet is real, valid and an incredibly important reflection of your capacity to love. There is no shame in loving a creature as much as you have.
Need more support around your grief? Consider joining our study which is evaluating support tools for grieving pet owners.
