Friends to the end
When is the best time to say goodbye to a pet and how does one cope?
ATLANTA— Henry stands weakly in his backyard, then his rear legs slowly sink to the ground. At 14, Henry’s health is failing. He’s likely had a stroke, is slightly deaf and shows signs of dementia. His mobility has declined drastically — his muscle mass is slipping away. Henry has to be picked up and carried up the stairs, to bed or to his favourite spot on the sofa.
Joan Martin of Decatur, Ga., chokes up as she talks about her boy. No one knows how much time the mild-mannered reddish-brown and white pit bull has left.
“We know it’s coming,” said Bob Futterman, Martin’s husband.
Martin tries not to think about Henry’s passing, but it always lurks in the back of her mind like a dark storm cloud. “It hurts so much.”
For many pet owners, the loss of a pet — whether from natural causes, accident or euthanasia — cuts deep, and sometimes the aching pain is almost unbearable.
The owners go through symptoms of grief as if they’ve lost relatives. After all, many people view pets as family members as well. How often do you hear a pet owner refer to a dog or cat as his or her child or baby or themselves as mom or dad?
“A family will say this dog has been with me through my entire marriage, my divorce and all different aspects of my life and now we’re losing them,” said Dr. Lauren Cassady, with Lap of Love, a nationwide network of pet hospice and palliative care practices and who is working with Henry.
Cassady says Martin and Futterman “have to determine when is the right time to say goodbye. That is probably one of the hardest things a family has to go through.”
How a pet owner experiences grief varies based on that person’s emotional relationship to the pet and perspective about animal ownership.
Consider this: Looking at millennials alone, 78 per cent of women and 58 per cent of men see their pet as part of the family, calling them their “fur baby,” according to a survey by TD Ameritrade.
The grief can be so profound that there are support groups for owners who have lost their pets.
A handful of companies, including Kimpton Hotels, offer paid bereavement time or, at least, are understanding if an employee wants to use his or her personal time off to mourn the loss of a pet. When Tammy Campbell’s beloved toy poodle, Gracie, 13, was euthanized on March 7 after suffering from congestive heart failure, she took two days off from her job to grieve.
“I was just completely distraught,” said Campbell of Marietta, Ga., an office manager and former flight attendant. “I didn’t know how to cope.”
Campbell, who owns another dog, Jett, said she got Gracie a few months after her husband died. She helped Campbell cope with the loss.
“She knew my emotions. She knew when I was sad or when I was happy. She felt that.
“I totally relied on her 100 per cent.”
Every first Tuesday, a social worker meets with between 15 and 20 people in the Decatur office of Paws, Whiskers & Wags, which offers pet crematory services.
The pet grief support group was started by founder Christine Hunsaker to provide a safe, confidential space for pet parents to share their feelings of loss, emptiness, heartache and, at times, guilt.
Did I do everything I could? Did I make the decision to euthanize too early?
What many say they notice immediately is the silence. Sure, one misses the barking or meowing.
But what becomes noticeable are the sounds you don’t usually notice.
There’s no clicking of nails on the floor, licking of paws or metal clanging of tags on a collar.
And it can also be hard on the veterinarian.
It took Cassady, who can provide euthanasia services in the home and sometimes in a park or favourite location of the pet, years to really understand how she felt about euthanasia and the grief associated with losing a pet.
“What I know is that pets and families are going to be dealing with disease and end-of-life questions, no matter what. I look at my role as how can I support a pet and the pet family that has to make that end-oflife decision and what time is the best time that it can possibly be? I absolutely feel the sadness of the family and I allow that sadness to flow in and I allow it to flow out.”