How to Deal with The Loss of a Pet

It's one of the most gut-wrenching things I've had to deal with in recent years. How to deal with the loss of a pet. I've got some ideas for you. There's a lot of great reasons to have a pet. I'm going to approach this video from two perspectives because you might be considering how you're going to deal with the loss of a pet. You might be considering how you're going to help your kids deal with the loss of a pet. So from a parenting perspective, there's a lot of great reasons to have a pet in the first place. Some of those would include that they tend to give us examples of unconditional love and forgiveness. I heard a joke recently about how to tell who truly loves you? How to tell who truly loves you? So here's how you do it. You put your spouse and your dog in the trunk of your car, drive around for about an hour, open up the trunk and see who's happy to see you. You know how your dog... You can leave for five minutes and you come back and your dog is like, "oh I'm so happy to see you." Pets are awesome that way and they don't tend to care about all the issues that we worry about. So it's a really great example that gives us more perspective on life. From a parenting perspective, pets give an opportunity to learn responsibility as your kids learn to take care of those pets. Now, they can be a big hassle. They can introduce costs that maybe your budget isn't ready for. But there's a lot of really great payoffs too in terms of the lessons that can be learned from having a pet. And the reason why we're having this conversation today in the first place. A pet gives you a certain not a possible but a certain opportunity to deal with death and loss. Now, I say it's certain because I'm assuming that you will probably survive longer than your that will. Statistically speaking that is true. Their lifespan tends to be shorter than ours unless you get some exotic pet that lives for 150 years. Dogs, cats hamsters and gerbils and the kinds of animals that we might keep around as pets tend to have a little shorter lifespan. So, it's going to introduce a certain opportunity to deal with loss and death. Now this isn't a bad thing in fact it's a very low-cost way to learn some important principles about how we're going to deal with those same losses with people. I remember my son Brennan when he was a little younger and our dog was getting old and we knew that she would pass at some point within the foreseeable future. And as the kids were dealing with these intense emotions that come from the loss of a pet. A dear friend, a companion that they've known most of their life in some cases. I remember Brandon saying this to me. He said, "ah, I just am so worried about when she dies and how I'm going to feel." And it got me thinking. "I don't know how I'm going to feel when you and mom passed." See it got his mind thinking about wait a minute, this applies to people too and folks it does. Because when we get into a relationship and we love someone or some pet, we set ourselves up for some pain. You know it's not a reason to not have the relationship. I think we just need to approach it in a way that's going to be healthy. So here are the tips that I promised in the intro. Number one - "think when not if". Think when not if. Here's what I mean. Is your pet going to die? I don't mean to sound cold or harsh. It's going to happen. Let's think when not if. This works for us personally as well as in a parenting perspective. It's okay to talk to our kids about when, not if. And that allows us to make some plans. So, I have a friend who's a funeral director. He refers to himself as an undertaker. I used to think that's an old western term. But he prefers it because when someone dies, it's a huge undertaking to handle all of the details that are necessary that come up when someone passes. Very practical things, very emotional things, it's a big undertaking. So, let's think when not if, it allows us to prepare for the undertaking that occurs when the loss happens. Tip number two - "feel whatever you're going to feel". Give yourself full permission to have a full range of emotions. This is an important figure in your life. This pet has been a companion. Someone that you have loved and shared experiences with. How are you supposed to feel when they die or when you lose them? Yeah, you're human. Allow yourself to feel those feelings and let's give our kids permission to feel whatever they're going to feel. I don't think it's helpful for example to say, "no don't cry." No, do cry. Feel whatever you're going to feel and let yourself feel the full range of emotions that are typical and appropriate for humans to feel. When this kind of an event happens, this will also help to prepare us for other future experiences of loss and it's going to happen. So let yourself feel whatever you feel and let that be an acknowledgment of the love and the relationship that you had. I've spoken at a lot of funerals and one of my favorite quotes is that, "the only way to take the sorrow out of death is to take the love out of life." And that's too big of a cost. So feel whatever you're going to feel. Now, here's tip number three. "Create a season for the loss." All I mean by that is, it's going to take a little while to adjust to this. There is a time that is necessary to grieve and to feel whatever you're going to feel like we talked about in the last tip. Now, this also includes having the funeral. Now, would you have a funeral for a pet? Maybe. Maybe. What is the equivalent of the funeral for that pet? I remember when our dog passed, we gathered together as a family and each of the kids had an opportunity to say a few words. Does that sound like a funeral? Yeah, where they get to recall things that they loved about this dear pet. Things that irritated and annoyed them. Some of the funny things. You'll notice when you go to a funeral, almost always. People laugh and they cry. Create a season for the loss and it might be that you take a few days off of work where you allow the kids to take a day or two off of school to support this season of loss. We rearrange our schedules to hold a funeral for those that we love. How about we consider that with our pets too? Because they're just as important to us in many cases. That ties right into step four. "Connect with loved ones". This is a really important way for human beings to process loss. To get together with people who can hug you. To connect with people who are sharing that loss and are feeling similar things. That way we get to use the support and resources of those around us to help us to adjust to this new phase of our life. And then the final tip that I have to share today about dealing with this kind of a loss is to number five - "memorialize or remember". This can happen in a lot of different ways. You might for example have some kind of physical reminder that you use to remember that dear pet. We have hanging in our hall, a plaque, that I made and this was actually really therapeutic for me because this dog, this sweet dog lived with us for fourteen and a half years and helped to raise my kids. How do I feel as a parent toward that dog? Oh I just love her and I miss her. So it was therapeutic for me to create this memorial plaque. It had a little picture of her and it had a poem that I wrote about some of the funny and some of the meaningful things that we experienced with her as our pet. So, that's what I'm talking about. You can do journaling, you can do some kind of a plaque, you can do a headstone, you can do an urn. There are companies out there who will take some of your pets hair for example and turn that into some kind of a locket or a pendant or that's what I'm talking about. Find whatever appropriate ways you have to memorialize and remember that pet. That way it gets to be continuing legacy for you and for your family, maybe for your kids. You've got this. I'm glad that you're here and that we can share these ideas together and I would love to know what you're thinking. So would you leave some comments down below?