Experiencing the death of a pet is a profound experience of hardship and loss. In our modern era of technology and what can feel like an increasingly fast living pace, grieving a companion animal can quickly be overlooked. Grief doesn’t “come in a box” and cannot be easily ignored. In fact, ignoring or repressing our grief can […]
Many times when people hear the words grief or grieving the natural assumption is that we are grieving due to physical death. Grief, however, impacts us on many levels and presents in many different forms. We grieve for dreams we cannot achieve, abilities that we once had that we may have lost, and we certainly grieve when saying goodbye, even when […]
When it comes to facing the death of our pets, many people struggle to know how to cope. How do we face making such a difficult decision such as euthanasia? How do we take care of ourselves afterward? Even more so, how can we help children understand pet loss and a way that focuses on healthy grieving? Last year, I […]
As a helping professional who specializes in the human-animal bond, specifically pet death, loss and bereavement, the holidays are a very busy time of year. What, then, do we owe this surge of emotion? In the face of love and loss during the holiday time, emotions can feel higher and pain can feel deeper. This […]
Whether you’re a Licensed Professional Counselor, Psychologist, Marriage & Family Therapist, Social Worker or other professional that serves others, such as Nursing and Care Workers, pet loss matters. Knowing that pet loss is a profound and realistic point of grief for many animal lovers and pet parents is important to adequately serve the needs of our clients, […]
It’s not easy to know how to memorialize our precious pets, especially when faced with difficult decisions on their behalf. Loving pet parents can struggle with the best body care method after death; whether burial or cremation. Until recently these options have been limited. I recently had the opportunity to interview Paul Tschetter who takes some […]
Experiencing the death of a pet can be incredibly painful, especially as more and more households consider pets to be members of the family. Pet loss still holds common cultural stigma, or societal judgement, which can make grieving for our pets more complex. We are also faced with having to make extremely difficult decisions on their behalf, commonly increasing guilt, and making […]
One of the most important things to do while grieving is to continue meeting your basic needs. This includes getting appropriate amounts of sleep. Grief is immensely taxing on your body and takes a lot of work, and energy. Unfortunately, most grieving pet owners find that sleep can be extremely elusive. Trying to fall asleep […]
