Dealing With Pet Loss Emotions
While some people would consider a pet’s loss to be different than the loss of a close loved one, the truth is that for many a pet is a friend and family member which is why pet loss emotions closely resemble the same loss emotions that anyone must process after a death occurs. For this reason, it is best to tackle grief by working the five stages of grief that are identified usually in the case of the loss of a loved one.
With this in mind, pet loss emotions usually align with the same emotions that one must face in the stages of death. Typically these are defined as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. To best identify the pet loss emotions associated with each, it is easier to take a closer look at each stage.
Denial- Denial generally begins directly after the pet dies. It may be as simple as expecting to see your pet when you wake up or involve heavier steps such as picking up a bag of treats while grocery shopping even though you are away your pet is gone.
Anger- After you face the fact that your precious pet is gone, you most likely will need to deal with anger over their death. If their death was the result of an accident, you may lash out at the person you feel was responsible for it. If it was simply old age, you may start feeling anger at yourself wondering if you had walked more, fed the pet less table scraps, or took them to the vet earlier they could have been saved. This wall of anger will continue to build until the next step.
Bargaining- Given a pet has already been lost, there are not a lot of pet loss emotions involved at this stage, but if you must choose to put your pet down, you may bargain with God tossing propositions out such as if I wait one more day and my pet feels better than I do not have too.
Depression- As the stage denotes, this is likely when you will feel the most saddened by your loss and may find it hard to be in areas that remind you of your pet.
Acceptance- Once you reach this stage, you can prepare a memorial for your pet that helps level off your pet loss emotions and gain closure.
Thank you for validating pet loss as a justifiable cause for grief. As animal lovers, we probably all know of someone who has indicated to us quite clearly that we’re overreacting when we are hurting over the death of a beloved animal companion. In fact, that was a huge motivator for my writing “Good Grief: Finding Peace After Pet Loss.” People from the world over shared stories of how hard it was for them to get over the death of a pet, especially since society as a whole doesn’t give us “permission” to grieve. The result? People either rush through, bury or deny their feelings altogether, and that only ensures the pain will be expressed in other, indirect and likely unhealthy ways later on.