The 5 stages of Pet Grief Rachel Devine

Grieving a pet cat or dog can be overwhelming. Especially losing a pet suddenly. Pet grief is real. Our pets are family. Our little fur babies, whether a dog or cat, have been a Godsend, especially during the lockdown of covid. I know having my little Russian blue cat has made all the difference for me. And I know friends who treat their pets like their children. I know a friend who bequeathed her Yorkshire terrier 1 million dollars! Another friend put her dog in a baby carriage for walks. And yet another friend cooks homemade meals for her dog. Therefore, when a pet dies it can be the most devastating event of our life, because we are losing a family member. Furthermore, our pets provided emotional support and unconditional love.

Our pets become our emotional support system, whether we realize it or not. They fill the void within of lonliness, sadness, stress, anger and so much more. When the pet is no longer around, we scramble for an emotional clutch. It becomes devastating and the grief can be overwhelming. A friend said to me when her pet died, she couldn’t stop crying. The grief has to be processed to heal that wound deep within. I have helped many people cope with pet grief and I share my method with you.

Understanding the 5 Stages of Pet Grief

It’s important to understand the stages of grief. The pet owner feels a variety of feelings when grieving the loss of a loving pet. There are five general stages of grief and then acceptance slowly enters the picture. However, there are no set rules written in stone, as there can be more or less stages in grieving any type of death. However, these 5 stages are a great starting point to understanding grief.

Everyone will experience grief differently. Therefore, these stages are a range of emotional reactions to the loss of a pet.

• Shock/Denial

• Anger

• Bargaining

• Depression

• Acceptance/Healing

Shock/Denial

A feeling of disbelief and shock is very real when a pet suddenly dies. I know this is how I felt when my Siberian husky Luke died in 2018. It was devastating and I remember crying for hours. I couldn’t stop crying. Feeling shocked is very common after a pet dies, especially if the loss was sudden or preventable. Unpredictable events, like a pet dying because of an accident or sudden illness, leads to feeling numb, shocked, overwhelmingly sad and in disbelief. You might be plagued with pet grief and guilt. You might feel this way even if you expected your pet to die and had the pet euthanized. You probably will not feel like eating, might have trouble sleeping, and you will not want to be alone. That’s all part of pet loss syndrome. Or you might want to isolate. Everyone is different.

You might not want to accept your beloved pet has passed away. You might be in this state of feeling despair. Being in denial helps you with the shocked state, especially if you stay numb to it all. Being numb for a little while is fine, however, it is so dangerous because if you stay numb you can’t process the grief. And has painful as it may be to process the grief, it is what will help you heal. Feeling the pain and processing it is where the healing begins. Coming to terms with how you feel is key to future healing.

Anger

You might be angry or question why your pet died. You might blame yourself for the decisions leading up to the death and be angry at yourself. You might wonder why you didn’t know your pet was dying until the very end. You might question yourself on the decision to put your pet out of their misery. There could have been a tragic accident you feel you could have avoided. This can all lead to blaming yourself for your pet dying and feeling overwhelmed that you could have prevented it and a feeling of anger. That anger could be directed at you or someone else. From my life experience, when it is time for a pet to cross over the rainbow bridge, we cannot stop it from happening. If we could, we would be supernatural beings akin to God. Anything living will eventually die. This is a harsh truth about life and there is nothing we can do about it.

Bargaining

Bargaining comes with a feeling of helplessness and guilt, and a desperate yearning for your pet to be alive. Having a preoccupation with how this could have went in a more positive way or feeling as if you desperately want your pet to be with you, either in form or spirit, can be overwhelming. These thoughts can preoccupy your whole day. It can also lead you to resent God for what you perceive as God taking your beloved pet away. You might be angry at God. On the other hand, it could also help you feel close to God. From my own experience I lean on God in times of tragic circumstances.

Depression

Of course, all of this leads to depression. A sadness that is so overwhelming nothing can help you feel better. It’s like the world as you know it has come to an end. You might want to be alone and not deal with life’s challenges, as you continue to mourn the loss of your fur baby. You are adjusting to your new reality and it’s painful and sad. Please know that this stage will pass, as my favorite adage is, “this too shall pass.” This is a time to be gentle with yourself and grieve the loss. I know this sounds terrible, however, the more you grieve and feel the pain the more you will heal. Feeling the pain is paramount to healing.

If you stay in a numb state and don’t process the pain and grief it will come out of left field in the future and cause you to feel the grief all over again. It is better to process the grief at the time your pet passes on. People in your life may try to convince you to, “get over it,” or not understand your grief. Please know that the grief can take months or longer. There is no time-frame, this is all an individual experience. Let yourself grieve without judgement from others. And be gentle with yourself during this fragile time of grieving.

Acceptance/Healing

Acceptance is a point where you have processed the grief and you are healing. Acceptance is a healing point. If you have processed the emotions of anger, guilt and blame, and cleared the way to grieve, which is healthy, then acceptance is on the horizon and you will feel like life is worth living again. After my dog Luke died, it took me 8 months of processing the grief before I felt whole again. I did work with a good therapist, which helped tremendously. Therapy can work wonders in processing the grief and mourning the loss of your pet. Just know that there is no time-frame to achieve acceptance and healing. Take your time and you will get to acceptance. You will get back to your living your life without the constant nagging feeling of loss and pain. It takes time, give yourself that time to heal.

Call to Action

Grief is a very complicated emotion. Our fur babies are much more than family, they are our emotional support friend, they loved us unconditionally, they are with us more than anyone else, and they provide much fulfillment to fill that void within, which sometimes has a deficiency from our upbringing. We might take the loss harder than losing a family member, and if that is the case, that is okay. That pet filled an inner child need and when the pet dies, so does part of the inner child, so the pain can be overwhelming.

Therefore, the question comes up on how do we deal with this grief and pain? I am going to outline some really important ways to process the grief so you can get to a point of healing.

• Process the Emotions

• Reach out for help

• Give yourself time to grieve

• Find some Happy Rituals

• Pet Grief Support - The Rainbow Bridge support

• Pet Grief Support - How to Overcome the Grief of Losing a Loving Pet guide

Process the Emotions

The first step is to recognize the anger, or guilt you might be having. If you are in denial and feeling numb, you will have to work on that too. Sit with your feelings and try to come to terms with the anger and guilt. Blaming yourself will only hinder your healing. No matter what happened to your fur baby, just know it was their time to pass over to the rainbow bridge. That feeling of acceptance will help you get to a point of being able to grieve. Remember the anger, blame, denial, and guilt are all hindering you from grieving. Those feelings have to be processed first. Some people reach for a substance like alcohol or drugs to numb the pain. Trust me when I tell you this is the worst thing you can do. The pain will still be there and come back to haunt you in the future.

The National Library of Medicine came up with this fascinating study:

Animal owners who experience the death of a beloved family pet or companion animal may experience feelings of grief and loss that are synonymous with the death of a human. This systematic review synthesized 19 qualitative papers from 17 studies that explored the psychosocial impact of bereavement and grieving the loss of a pet. The analysis revealed five themes: Their Relationship; Their Grief; Their Guilt; Their Supports; and Their Future. By looking beyond grief, health professionals can respond to bereaved pet owners the same way they would for other forms of human bereavement and provide the necessary support to transition bereavement.

Reach out for Help

Be around people who understand your grief. People who have lost a pet or family members who will be kind and patient with you. You might want to enlist the help of a good grief therapist or find a support group that deals with the grief of losing a loving pet. There are plenty online support groups. I list one at the end of this article. Remember, your grief is not only valid, it is real and it is imperative to process the grief in order to heal.

Give yourself time to Grieve

I can’t emphasis enough the importance of giving yourself time to grieve. Grief can get stifled in our body and cause stress that causes illness and anxiety. You want to process the grief so this doesn’t happen. Our emotions get processed in our body and enough stress will cause havoc. This is called, pet loss syndrome. This can include physical symptoms, such as fatigue, insomnia, a hollow feeling in the stomach, tightness in the chest, dry mouth, and aches and pains. Processing the grief is important for your emotional and physical health. You can do that by recognizing how you feel and not pushing the pain away or stuffing it deep down into your body. Many people do that. Because if you don’t process the grief, it will come back when you least expect it and you will not know what is happening. This happened to me when my mother died and I became numb. I didn’t process the grief. I had two young boys to care for and I pushed the grief feelings aside. Many years later I was having an issue with a friend and the grief came out of left field. I couldn’t eat or sleep and I felt sick. What happened was the unresolved grief came back to haunt me. I was able to recognize what was happening, because I could feel the grief from my mother’s death in a very weird way. At that point, I had to work through the grief and it never returned.

The moral to the story is to give yourself time to process the grief.

Find some Happy Rituals

A happy ritual may be getting a picture of your pet and putting in a prayer-like setting. Or keeping the ashes of your pet or sprinkling them in a favorite stomping ground. Or getting a footprint of your pet. Buying jewelry with your pet’s name on it. Any kind of ritual that honors your pet and makes you happy is a good thing. I read a few people on social media got a tattoo of their pet’s name or face. Others who got a tee shirt with their name. A happy ritual can help you move forward. Also, when and if the time is right, you may want to get another fur baby. This is an individual decision. I had a friend who lost a dog and vowed she would never get another dog. It took her years when she finally decided to get another dog. Some people wait and others get one right away. The best way to do this is to process the grief first and then get a new pet. Getting a new pet right away will be a distraction from processing the grief, however, this is a personal decision. I got a new fur baby after 8 months of processing the grief of losing my dog Luke. I decided to get a Russian blue cat and I named her Faith. After 8 months Faith coming into my life was a blessing and life went back to normal for me as she has been a wonderful, loving fur baby.

Pet Grief Support - The Rainbow Bridge Support

The Rainbow Bridge is a website that helps honor your pet and you can get grief support from other people in the community. You can put your pets name and a whole honorary write-up on their website. It is an amazing place to be around others who have lost a pet and are also grieving. This is a community of people that support each other. Reaching out to support others can be a blessing, as people will reach out and support you.

Here is the link for the Rainbow Bridge.

Pet Grief Support - How to Overcome the Grief of Losing a Loving Pet

And last but not least, a very important form of help is my online course, “How to Overcome the Grief of Losing a Loving Pet.” I created this from research and my experience with losing my dog Luke. It will guide and help you process the grief and give you major insights to why the pain is so unbearable. The main root to that pain lies in our childhood and I came up with amazing research into this powerful knowledge. Empower yourself with my course, it will guide you on how to process the pain and get to acceptance and healing. This course has helped many people get to a healing state where their lives went back to normal.

Yes there is a pet loss hotline number you can call.

National Pet Loss Hotline: Call 1-800-946-4646

If this article was helpful, please pass it along to other people who are grieving or on social media. Please follow me on social media and please subscribe now to my youtube channel where you will find videos of all my online courses and events.

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Rachel Devine is a motivational speaker and the author of, Lessons from the Needle in a Haystack & The Third Road - Your Secret Journey Home. Both are on sale now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online.