Coping with Pet Loss | What do do when your companion crosses the rainbow bridge

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on coping with the loss of a pet. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. This is a video that has been on my radar for quite a while, but as you all know, I have pets. I love my pets dearly. So this is probably going to be one of the more challenging videos for me to do. However, in this video, we're going to cover human animal bonds, the impact of pet loss, grief and disenfranchised grief and coping. So let's start out with the human animal bond. Some people will say, but it was just an animal. All right, well, that is how they were raised. People and humans can form emotional bonds, and it's important to remember that because animals very often provide what we call unconditional positive regard. They love us for who we are. It doesn't matter if we're having a good hair day or a bad hair day. It doesn't matter if we're rich or we're poor. It doesn't matter if we are taking them on walks and playing with them or we are snotting all over the place, sick in bed. They love us. Pets are able to trigger the release of oxytocin, which is our bonding hormone to dopamine and other calming hormones, similar to what humans can when they give us a hug. Interestingly, there have been some studies that have been done with cats, for example, that the frequency with which their purr resonates actually does have some calming healing properties. It's if they're purring really heavily and they're sitting on you, it's almost like a TENS unit. It does so sort of bombard those nerve endings, so it can be beneficial. Not that I'm saying put cats all over you for pain relief, but I'm saying that there can be a healing aspect. And we don't give animals enough credit for the amount of impact they have on us. They found that petting a cat, petting a dog, petting a horse, petting some animal that you like, even if it is a gecko or a snake, is actually associated with reductions in respiration rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones. Animals do have a beneficial effect. Humans and pets often have a truly secure attachment. And for many people, this may be their only truly secure attachment that they've ever had. So when that pet dies, you can imagine the anguish that they may experience. We've seen more acknowledgement of this over the past 10 years or so as. As emotional support animals have become a thing. Animals tend to be very consistent. They Respond. My dog runs to the door every single day. Whether it's raining, whether it's sunshine, whatever it is, my dog is consistently there. My dog consistently responds when I'm upset. He will get in my lap when I am happy. You know, he's more than happy to run around, but he does respond to my non verbals as well as probably some pheromones that I excrete when I'm in different moods. Animals are attentive. They want to spend time with us. They love us. Now, some animals more than others. A cat can be a little bit more aloof. A rabbit may not want to sit directly on you, but they may sit next to you. A dog is maybe all up in your business. It is, you know, it really depends on the animal. My dog Duke, who recently passed, he was one of the few dogs that I've ever had that, that really didn't want to be on your lap. He was happy to sit next to you, but a lot of times he didn't want to be touched. He was like, I will sit here, thank you very much. But if you pet him too much or if you got too close to him, he would get up and move over a little and turn around in three circles. So you know, he wanted to be near but he didn't want to be like right on top of your lap like our other dogs do. Validating Animals tend to be very validating. They don't tell you, hey, you're not supposed to be upset about this or hey, you shouldn't still be depressed about this. They are just there with you. They're like, you're upset. I'm going to give you love. You're angry. I'm going to bounce around and you know, try to help you feel better. They are encouraging. A lot of times people find encouragement from their animals. Emotional support animals are a great example where the animal goes with a person and provides that support that says, you can do this, I'm here for you. And they provide a safe home base in a certain way where again, no matter how bad of a day you've had, no matter how bad you screwed up, you can go home. And Fluffy is generally happy to see you. And that can also apply to other animals, geckos, whatever. So I'm not trying to minimize the impact of other non furry animals. When I talk about pets, I'm talking about whatever you define as a pet, whether it is a, a horse or an alpaca, all the way down to a bearded dragon. You know, as far as size goes, Pets often add structure to our lives. When we get up in the morning, our pets need to go out. When we get home in the evening, our pets need to go out. They want to be fed. They keep us on a routine. They found that people with pets tend to have more stable circadian rhythms, but for that very reason, especially dogs, now cats, since they use a litter box, and if you let them free feed, there's less circadian rhythms. But you still do need to make sure that you are attending to their needs. You need to check their bowls, you need to change their water, change their litter box. So pets get us up off the couch. Pets say, hey, I can't survive without you. I need you to get up and do something. Which can add structure and meaning to some people's lives. Pets often add socialization. You may socialize with your pet. You may enjoy spending time playing Frisbee with your dog or playing chase the little light with your cat. But they can also provide socialization if you are out walking your animal, whether a snake. You know, when people walk out in public and they've got their snake draped over their shoulder, they get attention. Other people will come up and start talking to them. When people are walking their dogs or going to the dog park, it also provides an avenue for socialization, where they may not want to go to a bar or really know how to strike up conversations just with any old person. But if they go to the dog park, it's easier to open conversations. So animals can kind of serve as your wingman, if you will. Like humans, there are triggers all around that remind you of your pet. Sights, sounds, smells. You can hear a dog barking in the distance. It'll remind you of your dog. You can hear birds, for example. We call it kitty tv. But on our deck, I feed the birds, and my cats sit in front of that window all day long and watch the birds. And so when I hear the birds chirp, I automatically think of my cats. And after a pet passes those stimuli that you've associated with, your pets will still continue to remind you of them. And pets also remind you of. Or their rituals may also remind you of your pet. When I come home, we have one dog whose name is Lily. And for whatever reason, she's a little crazy. But she gets so excited when she hears our car come down the driveway, and she runs to the door, and she stands up with her paws on the transom, the glass thing next to the door, and just furiously licks the glass until we come in. However, if she doesn't do That I miss it. It feels like something's wrong. Every once in a while I'll come home and the kids have her outside or something so she doesn't rush to the door. And it feels empty when I come home. And so when she passes, which, you know, she's two right now, hopefully will be quite a way while from now, but that is something that I know I will miss. You may second guess yourself or feel guilt if you had to make an end of life decision or if the death was prepared. Particularly premature. Sometimes end of life decisions come up very, very quickly. Duke had ruptured a valve in his heart and he went from being, you know, a very happy, healthy, digging dog to needing to be euthanized within 36 hours. And, you know, there was really nothing that could be done. But making that decision, making that call of really there's nothing else we can do, can be really anxiety provoking. And I felt guilty because my husband and I took Duke into the vet, but my children had no idea that anything was seriously wrong with Duke. We thought he had an upset tummy. We didn't realize he had heart failure. So making that decision without involving them in the process was a little bit challenging for me because we've usually made those decisions as a family so everybody could say goodbye and get closure. But also it happened so quickly that part of me felt like there still should be something to be done. This couldn't actually be happening. That shock and denial phase. And when you make that end of life decision, it's obviously very, very final. And there's a certain part of you that may continue to second guess that for a little while. This is why supportive people and a good veterinarian can be super helpful to help assuage your guilt and educate you about the fact that, you know, there was nothing else that could be done. We've also had. I fostered for 20 years, and we've had litters of kittens or, you know, a few kittens out of a litter that have had what we call failure to thrive. And they just grow to a certain point and then their body just kind of gives up. And usually this happens within the first 12 weeks. But it can be agonizing because you start wondering, did I miss something? Did. Was there something I should have been doing differently? Did I do everything I could? And even, you know, the 20th year of doing it, there you. I still have those thoughts whenever we have a failure to thrive. And at this point, I have a checklist that I go through in my mind of, yes, I did all those things, and there was nothing else I could do. And I recognize the reality of failure to thrive, especially in kittens that don't have a mama cat. But then we also had a dog whose name was Cara, and she was a happy dog. And one day we woke up and she had passed in her sleep, and she was, you know, too young to pass in her sleep. I have no idea exactly what happened or why it happened, but it happened and there was no warning. So that can be particularly shocking and traumatizing for the adults as well as for the children in your household. The loss of a child's pet can be extra traumatizing or problematic because in the parent, it may trigger a sense of guilt and helplessness as the child grieves. If your child loses their beloved pet, not only are you grieving this pet that you loved as well, but you're also watching your child grieve in a particularly intense way. A lot of times, the loss of a pet may trigger memories of prior losses and open old wounds. For some people, as I mentioned, this may be the only secure relationship they've ever had. So being without that animal can be terrifying and agonizing, but it also can open up those old grief wounds about how life is unfair and they are angry and they should have had people who loved them when they were growing up. So there's a lot of stuff that can come up when our beloved companions pass on another trigger or issue that may come up. If it is the death of your parents pet, maybe you had a parent who passed on and you inherited their beloved pet. And then when that pet dies, that is sort of the last remaining connection, tangible connection, you may have with that caregiver, and that can reopen that grief wound. So there are a lot of ways that the death of a pet can be traumatic. And it's not just the death of a pet. The loss of a pet may trigger a reflection on your own mortality. This is especially true for older adults whose beloved pet passes away. They've done research and they found that older adults, when their animals die, they may start questioning, well, maybe I shouldn't get another animal because it would outlive me. Or, you know, there are a lot of things that go through their mind, but it definitely highlights the fact that everything has a season in terms of the grieving process. We grieve the same, if you will. There's a similar process for grief, regardless of whether you're grieving the loss of a dream, the loss of a person, the loss of an Animal. And the phases in general are denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. Denial is that phase you go through, whereas this is not really happening, or there must be some option that we can explore. Anger can be at the situation. It can be at your higher power. It can be at your own sense of helplessness and powerlessness. There's a lot of reasons or things that trigger our anger. Remember, anger is a feeling we experience when we perceive a threat. When we feel powerless, we perceive that as a threat. So anger is our way of saying, I don't like this. This hurts. I want to make this stop, and addressing those threats. Depression is characterized by a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. It's when we realize that it's done. There's nothing we can do to change this situation. There's nothing we can do to alter this unfortunate reality. And then acceptance is integrating this into our narrative, integrating this into our story. And how is this going to impact us henceforth? Anticipatory grief can happen when a pet passes on and you go through your grieving process, and then you get a new pet. And some people, when they get that new pet, may start worrying ahead of time about, oh, my gosh, this pet is going to pass away at some point too. And that's called anticipatory grief. And it brings with it the anger and the depression. And it's important to work through anticipatory grief. Otherwise it's hard to be present with that animal once the person gets to a place where they can accept that, yes, this new pet may not be with me forever, and I want to make the most of the time I have with it. That's the acceptance of the anticipatory grief. Instead of focusing on the pain to come, focusing on the joy that is, after a diagnosis, people may also experience anticipatory grief. Our dog Raina was diagnosed with congestive heart failure four years ago. And unfortunately, the vet was very bad in terms of, well, number one diagnosis, but also bedside manner. And she was very matter of fact, with my daughter in the room, that her beloved animal, her beloved pet probably only had about six months to live. And, well, this is four years later. And we eventually went to a different, different vet, got another opinion, and guess what? It actually wasn't congestive heart failure. But I digress. So after a diagnosis, sometimes getting a second diagnosis can be helpful. But then again, there will be a process of denial. This isn't really happening. Anger that it's happening. Depression, recognizing that you. You will be losing your beloved pet sooner than you wanted, and then moving toward acceptance, recognizing that you can focus on the fear, focus on the pain to come, or focus on the joy in the present. And as I said, she's still with us four years later. And my daughter has chosen to focus on enjoying the time that we have instead of worrying about what's to come. Not everybody grows up seeing pets in the same way. And sometimes people will very insensitively say it was just a pet. And I've had family members say that, I've had friends say that. And arguing with them is pointless. Arguing with them is not going to change their beliefs most of the time. What is important during your grieving process is to connect with people who do share your perspective on animals, that they do have feelings that you are connected. Those who anthropomorphize or their pet tend to feel a greater sense of grief and loss. Anthropomorphizing is feeling like your pets are not human, but treating them like they are part of the family. They're not just animals. They are part of the family. They have feelings, they get sad, they get happy, they want things, they communicate. And the more you believe those things, the more you may grieve when they pass, but also the more you may benefit from them being present in your life because it increases the connection and it increases the amount of feel good chemicals and hormones that are released when you're around that animal. If you're around something that you're not connected to, that you don't feel, feel understands you, if you will, then it's not going to have the same impact. Those with a stronger chronological or functional attachment to their pet also experience a greater sense of grief. Chronological attachment, if the animal has been with you since you were a child. I have pictures of Haley holding Reyna in a baby sling when Haley was six. And you know, now Haley is almost 19 and you know, Raina's a little too big for a baby sling now, but they've been together through my daughter's entire life. So they have a much stronger bond, attachment, a lot more memories together, a lot more triggers in the environment than an animal that she met last week. So that chronological attachment can be significant because she doesn't remember life without Reyna. And so when Reyna's not there, it will be a huge change. Those who have a functional attachment to their pet also may experience a greater sense of grief if it's a service animal, even if they don't anthropomorphize that service animal and believe it's got feelings. If it is an animal that has been with them, that has helped them, that has improved their quality of life, like a service animal, then when that animal passes, it is devastating because that has been an extension in many cases, has been an extension of them for many years. When a person loses a beloved pet and are prevented from fully processing the loss, it can lead to sustained grief. This is called disenfranchised grief. When people tell us you shouldn't feel this way, you shouldn't still be grieving, you shouldn't, whatever. It disenfranchises us, it keeps us, prevents us from feeling like we have the right to process our grief. It makes us question whether we should. And that leads to sustained grief. If we're not able to process this, then it stays there. Just like if you have a wound on your arm and you get dirt in it and you don't clean it out, it stays there and it can get infected or it can form an abscess or whatever. So we sort of have an emotional abscess. If we don't process this grief. And we can develop resentment towards the people who didn't understand. We can develop resentment towards other people because they don't recognize how much this hurts. We can develop a sense of depression because we can't get these feelings to go away. It just seems like they're lingering. Well, just like that dirt in your wound, if you don't clean it out, if you don't process it, if you don't debride it, then, yeah, it's going to linger. So it's important for people to be able to actually move through the stages of grief. Depending on what happened and the circumstances of the loss, people may also experience sustained guilt and intrusive thoughts. The shoulda coulda wouldas guilt about euthanizing the animal, guilt about not euthanizing the animal soon enough, guilt about whatever happened. And it's important for people to be able to work through that guilt. Otherwise, just like the grief, it's going to hang around. And it may kind of hang around back in a, in a back room somewhere in your head, but it's still there. And it will still come up more frequently and more potently than if you process it. Now, this isn't to say that grief goes away once you process it, once you move to acceptance, it doesn't mean you don't grieve anymore. It means you've integrated it into your story and it becomes easier to live with. You move away from grief, you move away from that really painful period to a less painful period. Grief is normal, and people may grieve differently and at different rates. Some people go through a period of intense mourning and sadness. They may withdraw to their room, they may cry. They may have changes in appetite. What you would expect in a grieving process, typically, but that may. For some people, that may last a few hours. For others, it may last days or even weeks. And the degree of mourning and sadness is also important. Some people will experience it extremely intensely, and others may not experience it as intensely. If it starts causing you significant problems in your life, then you can always seek out a counselor or a therapist who can help you process the grief. However, they're not going to be able to make it magically go away either. They may be able to give you some tools to help you work through it a little bit faster. Ultimately, just like a wound, it's something that is going to take time to heal. And just like a wound, there are going to be memories. With wounds, we often have scars with losses of, you know, deaths and losses like that. I don't like to think of scars because I think of scars as something ugly. But they put a tattoo, if you will. We'll call it a tattoo. They leave a permanent mark on your heart. Detachment and letting go. Some people will detach and let go faster than others. It doesn't mean they didn't care. It means that's just their process. Some people will want to get a new pet right away. Others will want to have some time. Whatever feels right to you is what's important. And just because you find another animal to love doesn't mean that you are replacing the old animal and, or the old pet. And that's another important thing to explore. Some people feel guilty when they try to get another pet, and that's okay. You know, that that guilt is a normal feeling. And if they need to process that, then by all means, process. What does it mean that I'm getting a new pet? Does it mean I'm saving another animal from going to a shelter? Or does it mean I'm being disrespectful to the one I lost? What would my pet want? That's what I ask myself. What would my pet want? It's important to remember that if you have children in your household, they often feed, feed off of your reaction. If you are detached, they may try to act detached. It doesn't mean they'll feel detached. They may try to act that way. Some may move on to feeling detached. If you grieve the loss of the pet, then the children may grieve right along with you. So what can you do to cope with the loss of a pet? Helping yourself and your kids move toward the pain is really important. Instead of avoiding it, instead of trying to numb it, instead of trying to pretend it doesn't exist, move toward it, walk through it. I don't want to say embrace it, but the only analogy that I think really fits is the one of that wound. When your kid falls down and scrapes their arm up or scrapes their knee up, cleaning it out is not comfortable. It's painful, but it's a necessary process so it can heal correctly. During this time, it's important to have compassion. Compassion for them as well as compassion for yourself and encourage them to have compassion for themselves. Some days will be better than others. Some mornings you'll get up and feel like it's just a normal day. Other days you may have had dreams about the animal or you just wake up and are hit with this wave of grief. Okay. Some days are better than others. And it's important to encourage mindful self care. What is it that I am needing right now? The death of a beloved pet. Exhausting. Grief is exhausting. And it is important that you recognize it may impact your sleep, it may impact your eating, and during this time you may have less energy. So what can you do to be compassionate toward yourself? What can you help your children learn how to do to be compassionate toward themselves? You know, keeping up with going to school and homework and chores and everything else may be overwhelming if they're particularly exhausted. So it's important to open that dialogue and help them become more mindful and more compassionate about what they can and cannot do in the immediate aftermath. Developing distress tolerance skills is also important. Distress tolerance does not mean shutting off feelings. Distress tolerance can mean a variety of things. One function of distress tolerance can mean developing skills to allow yourself to sit with the pain and not fear that you're going to be overwhelmed by it. Developing distress tolerant thoughts such as, this really sucks right now and I can get through this pain. Distress tolerant thoughts remind us that we can get through this. Sometimes the distress may feel overwhelming or it may not be a place or a time where you can process that grief. Maybe your kid's in the middle of algebra class. So what skills can they use in order to help them tolerate their distress until they can get to a place where they can process their grief until they can go to the school counselor or get home and talk to you? And some of those distress tolerance skills can involve Slow breathing can involve going to the bathroom and splashing cold water on their face. It can involve any, any variety of things. And I have other videos on distress tolerance skills. But it's important to remember that you may have these grief bursts at any point in time. Maybe you're in the middle of a meeting and you hear a dog bark outside, or there's no trigger at all and you just have this intrusive thought. How do you tolerate that distress until you can get to a place where you can emote and process that thought or that feeling? Grief bursts. Just like with grieving, anything else can happen anytime and they may happen periodically. Hopefully the further away you get from the death, the less intense the grief bursts will be. We had a dog many years ago get hit by a car, and that was just the trauma associated as well as the guilt and everything else was almost overwhelming. And my grief bursts for quite a while were pretty intense. And now I can think about it, I can talk about it, and it still makes me feel melancholy, but it is not nearly as intense and or overwhelming as it was when it happened. Address the deafening silence, especially for dogs, because they tend to be noisier. Birds that tend to be noisier. You know, any, any pet that you had made noise. Horses, horses, cows. We have a donkey right now who is toothless and 30 years old, but she is will let me know. Every morning she brays for her breakfast and brays for her dinner. Every night. When those sounds are not there, the silence can be almost deafening. So how do you deal with that? Do you sit with it? Some people do. Some people will. During this initial period where they're getting used to the alterations in the noise level they may have on background noise like music or television in order to make it feel less lonely. How you cope with the deafening silence is your own way. But recognizing that is not just hearing sounds, but it's the lack. The lack of sounds can trigger grief. And figuring out what is the best way for me to deal with this is important. You can memorialize at our house. You know, we live on a farm. We have lots of animals. You may have a burial garden if you've got room where you can bury your pets, maybe under a favorite tree. We have a redbud tree that we bury our pets under. If you have children or if you are particularly artistic, you may be able to go, excuse me, to the craft store and get one of those stepping stone kits and make a personalized headstone. Earn necklaces. You can get these off of online. Online Retailers where you can put a little bit of the animals ashes in a necklace that you can wear. And some of them are, you know, very pendant oriented and look more masculine. Some of them are more jewelry orient and look more like jewelry. Whatever you want to wear. Some people don't necessarily wear them. They may hang them in a display case at home. Whatever it is that helps you feel connected can be helpful. You can make a scrapbook like an old fashioned tangible scrapbook or a digital collage. Suncatchers can be really nice sometimes. These are. We used to call them shrinky dinks when I was little. But you can learn how to make your own suncatchers online. There's lots of YouTube videos on that. You hang them in the window, then when the sun shines through reminds you of that animal. You can also write the story. Write the story of how that pet came into your life and you know, kind of like the story of Marley and me, the story of that pet growing with you and the good times and ultimately the pet's passing. If you're a family unit, the family may choose to contribute their own memories and stories to the or anecdotes to the story of your pet. And this is a way that you can memorialize some. If you have somebody who's particularly artistic, they may do artwork for the story, but this can help the whole family remember some of the good times, but also maintain the memory, keep the memory of that pet going so they're not worried that, you know, if I quit grieving, then the disrespectful to the, to the animal or if I quit grieving, then I'm going to forget. This helps some people feel more connected. Educate yourself. If you need to educate yourself about, you know, what happened. I've on more than one occasion pulled the vet aside and said, was there anything else I could have done? And a lot of times that will help people feel better about the fact that they did do everything possible, that they did make the right decision. A lot of times vets will not tell you you need to euthanize your animal. I have found that if I ask the question, if this were your dog, if this were your bird, what would you do? Then I can get an answer. And I think that goes back to their ethics about what they are, are not allowed to say, I don't know. But I've never had a vet feel comfortable telling me, you need to do this right now. But they have shared with me that if it was their animal, how they would have responded. If you find out that you could have done something, then there may be a extra step that you've got to go through processing your guilt. Ultimately, you're going to have to arrive at a place of self forgiveness and recognition that nobody's perfect. Whether it's because your dog got out and got hit by a car, or you missed giving them their heartworm medication and they got a super bad case of heartworms and had to be put down. You know, there's a lot of things that can happen and coping with the guilt is going to be an important process. If there was something you could have done, learning from it. So in future with future animals, maybe you can avoid that particular problem. But most of the time there's nothing you could have done differently. You probably did the very best you could with the tools and resources you had at the time. And I say resources because pets can be extremely expensive and not everybody can afford the XYZ surgery or the XYZ treatment. So it's important to cut yourself some slack if you have to make a really hard decision. Recognize the many different facets of your grief. When an animal dies, it can bring up the prior deaths of prior animals that you've had. The good, the ones that passed easily, the ones that you had to make the decision to euthanize. It can also bring up related losses like your self identity. Maybe you were the person that had the big black lab that lived down the street, or maybe you prided yourself on being so and so's mommy. Your identity, a part of your identity maybe may have been wrapped up or associated with that animal in your life. And when that animal goes, that part of your identity goes. You're not going to be such and such's owner or mommy or daddy anymore. You are going to be maybe a different animals, but it's not exactly the same. Guilt is another thing that can come up and that is another facet of the grief that you may have to process. Some people search for meaning after the death of a pet. Their initial reaction is intense grief and pain and then trying to figure out, is it worth loving something again. This is true whether it's grief over the loss of a person, a pet, a dream. When we lose something, we need to try to make sense of it. We need to try to integrate it into our story. So in chapter 18 of your story, this pet entered, you know, it became part of the story and it was with you through chapter 19 through 24. In chapter. At the end of chapter 24, it died. Chapter 25, you're still going on, the memories of that animal are probably still with you. So how is that, how does that death, how does that animal's presence in your life for those chapters, how did it change you and how is it going to influence you henceforth? One thing that can be very confusing and terrifying to children, especially young children, is the term put to sleep. They may become very fearful of going to sleep because they're afraid that they're not going to wake up. It's advisable in most cases to avoid using the term put to sleep with young children in order to prevent that. In order to prevent that fear from developing. You may find a different help them cross the bridge or euthanized or another word that can be used that is not associated with something that they need to do on a daily basis. Helping your other pets. I know a lot of people don't talk about this, but other pets do grieve. And I've seen it in equines, I've seen it in dogs, I've seen it in cats, and I've actually just recently seen it in a couple of my chickens. And there is a process when the hierarchy, when the dynamic is upset and it's important to allow them to say goodbye. Inherently I think animals understand when one is getting ready to die or when one passes, but it can be important for them to say goodbye. So if you take a dog to the vet or an animal to the vet and you have to have them euthanized, if the animal just never comes home, it can be very confusing for the other animals and they may go around searching for that animal for a while. Allowing them to say goodbye can be a humane thing to do. It may just mean walking the allowing the animal to sniff the deceased pet. If you're able to do that, try to keep the animals routines. Just like humans, animals have routines and if you disrupt their routines, it may make it harder for them. I have a colleague of mine who has pet rats and his pet rat grieved the loss of its friend very, very much. My point is it's not just dogs, it's not just humans. A lot of animals have bonds and connections with one another that will result in grief when there's a loss. Have compassion for your animals. When one animal disappears from the hierarchy, there will naturally be a jockeying, if you will, for or a reorganization of that hierarchy. In cats this may mean more fighting or more marking. In dogs it can mean a little bit more who's going to get to the food dish first kind of hostility. I don't want to say aggression, because usually it doesn't turn into aggression, but often there is a change in behaviors. If now that Duke isn't occupying that space right beside me, Brooklyn Rooster jumps up and knows that now I can get up here and this is my space now. So recognize that there may be a change in behaviors, and it may be very frustrating. But remember, just like with humans, behavior is communication in animals. So take a breath and think to yourself, okay, what's going on here? And how can I help ease this transition? There may be eating changes. Some animals may go off their feed for a while while they're grieving. Recognizing that, obviously keep an eye on it. You don't want them to become malnourished, but recognizing changes in eating behaviors is normal. And I used the term clinging because I didn't know what else to use. But some animals will become particularly close. They want to be with you. They want to be all up in your business all the time. And this may not be as much because they are still grieving, but they sense you're grieving and they're trying to comfort you. My cat. I've told you talk before about my cat, Mojo. When I'm upset, Mojo knows. And he will be all up in my face. He will make biscuits on my chest. He will sing, sit there and purr when I'm not upset. He couldn't really care less half the time what I'm doing, except for in the morning when I'm drinking my coffee and he sits on my lap. But. But he does become much more clingy if I'm upset. Recognizing this. Trying not to get impatient. Sometimes when you're grieving the loss of a pet, the last thing you want is another pet all up in your business. What are they trying to communicate? A lot of times it's, I'm here for you, ma. Other things that you can do to cope if the event was particularly traumatic. EMDR can be very helpful for humans, obviously not for animals. And support groups can also be very helpful because there are a lot of us out there who. Anthropoid. Anthropomorporized. I can never say that word. Who think of our animals as having human characteristics. And we desperately grieve the loss of our animals, and we miss the animals that have impacted our life. Grief is not one size fits all. Grief and bereavement are reactions to the loss of something important to you. It can be a dream. It can be a person. It can be a pet. The loss of a pet companion may have many different meanings for a person and not everybody is going to get it. But that does not mean that your grief is invalid. It is important to validate your own feelings and surround yourself with people who understand and can help you walk through that grieving process.