HOW THE TYPE OF LOSS AFFECTS GRIEF

Ambiguous loss of a pet

With an ambiguous loss, the whereabouts or cause of death of the pet is unknown. This can occur when the pet has been lost during a walk, or has run away during a storm. You might suspect the pet has been stolen, or it may simply have gone missing, as is so often the case with cats. You may fear that the animal has been killed or injured, and in addition to your grief at your own loss, may feel enormous guilt that you are not your pet, and that it may need you, or be aware of your absence, i.e. ‘I wasn’t there for him when he needed me’.

You may have fear that your pet is alive, wandering about lost, and does in fact feel abandoned by you. In some of these cases, there is added guilt because you don’t know when to stop searching for your pet, whether you should ever get another, and when to actually start the healthiest part of grieving. Owners in this situation can be caught in the denial, anger and sadness phases of grief, but not move into acceptance. The same feelings of grief can occur where the animal has been surrendered to a shelter, for whatever reason. Many owners love their pets, but cannot keep them anymore, and it should never be assumed that someone surrendering their pet does not love them.


Death of a Pet: Sudden Death

A sudden, unexpected death is a shock to the system, and may be manifested physically as such. You may have no time to prepare for this kind of loss, and may be in denial until you see the body. If you saw the accident or event that caused death, or were present when the animal died, you may move swiftly through denial and lodge in the anger phase.

Owners in this scenario have no time to prepare themselves psychologically, no time to go through some anticipatory grief, and no time to brace themselves. In addition to this, guilt may play a role. For example, if the pet has escaped and been hit by a car, or if they accessed a box of snail pellets. This kind of death can be seen with trauma (car accidents, burns or drowning), with toxins (snail pellets, rodenticides or snake bites), or with acute illnesses. These kinds of deaths may occur ‘naturally’, or they may involve euthanasia, which brings with it its own set of grief issues.

Death of a Pet: Protracted Death

This is the kind of loss that you have had time to prepare for. It may include cases such as animals with diabetes, chronic heart failure, chronic renal failure or other long-term medical conditions. The final loss may or not be acute (see above), but in many cases you will have had time to prepare yourself and your family mentally for the loss.

While we might initially think that this would make the grief easier to bear, it is not always so. It is emotionally difficult for owners to watch the slow deterioration of their pet fighting a losing battle. You may feel guilt due to feelings of helplessness and due the frustration or expense of the pet’s dependency on regular medication, and its effect on your lives etc.

Compounding this may be the partial sense of relief when the pet eventually dies. This is a natural response-the pet is no longer suffering, but many owners believe that this means they are a bad owner or did not love their pet enough. These slow chronic cases may end with a ‘natural’ death, or by euthanasia.  If death was, in fact, ‘natural’ but not peaceful, there may be additional guilt that euthanasia was not carried out earlier before the pet suffered unduly.