Pet bereavement: when our loyal friend leaves us

When a companion animal dies, we can feel a great emptiness and sadness.

The loss of a pet, the grief that is suffered when a pet passes away is one of the most painful and stressful experiences you can have.. 

It is well known that the subject of mourning the death of a family member, friend or acquaintance is widely studied and more importantly, socially accepted. But what about when our beloved pet dies? what about when our beloved pet dies?

It is an issue that, despite becoming increasingly important due to the changing role of pets in the nuclear family, continues to be ignored, undervalued and even denied. We will go into more detail below.

What we know about pet bereavement

Referring to the psychological impact of the pet bereavement process, according to studies by Field and colleagues (2009), is comparable to the one experienced after a human loss.. The mourning process would last between 6 months and a year, the average being 10 months (Dye and Wroblel, 2003).

In several studies (Adrian et al, 2009) it was found that such a death produced an emotional incapacitation in a percentage of 12% of people that could lead to psychological pathologies, although this is not the most common. In another study (Adams et al., 2000), it was seen that these people had physical and emotional symptoms such as sleep problems, loss of appetite and the feeling that "something inside them had died".

Differential aspects of the bereavement process of human loss

As we have already mentioned, the process experienced in the loss of a pet is similar to that of a loved one, but despite this, there are certain characteristics that make it a little different: the great feeling of guilt, social attitudes and the absence of rituals.

Social attitudes

When this type of loss occurs, the people affected may have serious difficulties in carrying out a correct resolution of the grief due to the harsh social attitudes they have to face, which is called unrecognized grief.

In fact, in a study by Adams et al. (2000), it was found that half of the people who had suffered this type of loss had the feeling that society did not consider their situation to be "worthy" of a grieving process. In other words, that such a loss is not important because it does not legitimize the deep bond between the person and the pet. and is considered to be replaceable (Doka, 2008).

Unrecognized grief, then, would appear when a person feels that his or her process is not recognized or validated, and there is a lack of support for it. Comments that exemplify this could be: "it's no big deal, it's just a dog (or whatever species is the case)", "well, buy yourself another one", "you can't give up your responsibilities for this", etc.

As we have already mentioned, this type of unrecognized grief can hinder the natural course of mourning since the person could force himself to behave "normally", "as if nothing had happened", since this is what is demanded of him, and he could also internally retain all his feelings and refuse to ask for help out of shame. For all these reasons, this denial of grief can lead to complicated or unresolved grief (Kaufman and Kaufman, 2006).

Guilt in pet loss bereavement

Several authors have investigated that guilt is a major factor in pet loss cases.. This extreme guilt is explained by the type of relationship that is established with the animal and due to the fact that most deaths are caused by euthanasia.

The type of relationship is explained by the fact that the caregiver considers himself to be totally responsible for the life of his companion, so the relationship is one of total dependence. Add to this the fact that we would see our pets as helpless, and this would lead to a relationship similar to that of a parent with his or her baby.

Death by euthanasia would be a clear factor in the guilt, enhancing it in most cases.. It can be seen as a liberating alternative to the animal's suffering but there can also be the feeling that he has made the decision for the death of his friend, making him a murderer.

The funeral rites

The fact of being able to say goodbye to the loved one in a formal way is a key differentiating factor of grief in animals.. The absence of this and many other rituals can give rise to problems in the resolution of grief, since it prevents the performance of an act in honor of the animal and being able to say goodbye publicly.

Although pet crematories currently exist, this act is more of a procedure than a ritual, since the usual method is for the services to take care of the ashes and deliver them to the corresponding veterinarian (Chur- Hansen, 2010).

Conclusions

The review of empirical studies leads to the conclusion that there is a mourning process in people who lose their pet.. The impact of this is comparable to the loss of a loved human being and there is also a high probability of becoming a complicated grief due to the factors mentioned above.

Recommendations to get through the grief

The recommendations that we can make go in the direction of the need to to create awareness about this type of loss in order to facilitate this process in order to facilitate this process to be carried out correctly in the people who suffer it, since, in addition, it is a subject that every day is becoming more frequent in our society.

On the other hand, recommendations for people who are going through these moments would be to make a commemorative act for the pet, a formal farewell to it. It can be in the form of a letter, planting a tree, reciting a few words on their behalf... there are many options, but expressing one's thoughts in words is highly recommended as it helps to reorganize one's feelings and ideas and also allows us to express how much the pet has contributed to us.

Another important measure is to try to gradually reduce the bitter thoughts and keep the happy ones.remember the many good moments that our companion has given us, in order to create resilience.

Last but not least, we must keep in mind that a pet is irreplaceable. It is not advisable to desperately try to fill that gap by having another one, since a new pet should not be a replacement. When the feeling appears that a good part of the mourning has passed and it is time, then for sure there will be many animals waiting to be loved.