Pet Loss: Understanding Your Feelings from Mountain Shadows Pet Hospital

XHTML Code Updates: Pet Loss: Understanding Your Feelings from Mountain Shadows Pet Hospital

Pet Loss: Understanding Your Feelings

When a beloved pet dies, many people are surprised by the intensity of their grief. Given that so many people consider their pets to be family members, intense grief is normal and understandable. In fact, seventy-five percent of people who lose pets experience difficulties and disruptions in their work and relationships. These reactions are normal, healthy parts of the grief process, but can be difficult to describe to others. This is especially true for people who do not have pets in their lives, and it may be difficult for them to understand your feelings of loss. They may even make insensitive, albeit, well-meaning comments like, "Thank goodness it was just a dog." However, it is perfectly normal to grieve over the loss of a beloved pet. Your level of attachment and closeness to the loved one is the key. Whether it is a person or an animal, it is the kind of relationship you had with the loved one that will determine how intensely you grieve.

Whenever a relationship with a loved one changes, whether due to illness, death, or another kind of loss, people experience feelings of grief. Grieving is a necessary, unavoidable, and healthy response to the anticipation or actual experience of loss. Each person experiences grief in a different way. Children grieve just as intensely as adults do, but often have different ways of expressing their grief depending upon their developmental level. Grieving takes time. It is a process, not an event. There is no specific time frame for this process; in fact, grief may last for weeks, months, or even years. Healthy grief, however, gradually lessens in intensity over time. Although grief responses can differ from one person to another, there are many predictable manifestations of grief. You may experience physical symptoms such as crying, sleeplessness, appetite disturbances, or other physical discomforts. You can also experience strong emotions such as sadness, anger, anxiety, guilt, and fear. There may be intellectual manifestations such as confusion, inability to concentrate, and even hallucinations (such as hearing your pet in the middle of the night). Socially, you may want to withdraw from others while grieving, or you may want to reach out to others for support. There are even spiritual manifestations of grief, which could include anger, a sense of feeling "punished", or an increased or shaken faith in a higher power. All of these responses are normal, predictable reactions to grief.

The best way to deal with these grief responses is to be reassured that these reactions are normal and to let these feelings run their natural course. Eventually, most people will begin to feel recovery from the loss. Signs of recovery may include being able to focus on happy memories of the pet rather than just death, and being able to identify some sort of personal growth as a result of the pet's death. Finally, recovery can lead to the happy addition of a new pet into your home and your heart. There are times when we can handle these feelings with the support of family and friends, and there are times when professional assistance may be very helpful. Enclosed is a list of pet loss resources for your reference.

Back to top

Web design & maintenance by Bracewell Web Works

Problems with the site? Contact our Webmaster