The loss of a pet may unleash grief unlike any other mourning

“When Dave came home from work every day, he patted me on the head and kissed the dog.”  

Cheryl was smiling when she told of us her husband’s attachment to their family pet, though she is meeting with our staff to discuss a deeply troubling issue many of you will know well if you have come to love a pet, and then had to say goodbye. And if you’re a family member or friend of those who’ve gone through prolonged, agonizing grief over a lost pet, you may know how perplexing their reactions can be. We’ll help sort that out, starting with how Dave and Cheryl got to this point. They could not have anticipated what they would be going through today from the unexpected beginning nearly twelve years ago.

Dave was on his way home from a job in Middlesex County when he saw something squirming on the side of a rural road. He wouldn’t have stopped at all, except that it was a blustery winter day. In the ditch, he found a quivering puppy, too weak and cold to stand. Its fur was encrusted with ice pellets. The pup looked up at Dave through dim, squinting eyes. Dave wrapped the pup in his coat and drove home with the rescue in his lap.

When Dave came through the kitchen door holding a bundle of fur, his daughter Abbey cheered, “We’re getting a puppy!”

Cheryl said, “We didn’t talk about this, Dave.”

“He’s not staying,” Dave said. “We’re just going to take care of him until we can take him to the shelter tomorrow.”

Abbey protested. Cheryl had to be another buzzkill. “I work every day now, and daddy is away at work even longer. You’re in school all day. We just can’t keep the puppy.”

But the snow kept falling, and the roads became too treacherous for driving, so another day passed with a furry houseguest now thriving on food, warmth and cuddles.

“We should at least name him,” Abbey said.

Dave peered at the pup as it barked playfully then tried to gnaw the leg of the coffee table. “He is cute. Sort of.”

“In a shaggy, barky, bitey way,” Cheryl said.

Abbey named him Little Chewbacca, but Chew-barka soon stuck.

Dave said, “I’m taking him to the shelter right after I get home from work tomorrow. He’ll find a nice forever family there.”

Dave came home the next day especially tired. When Cheryl got home with Abbey, they found him asleep on the couch, cradling Chew-barka on his chest. They tip-toed around the house to ensure he had a restful nap. By the time Dave awoke, closing time had passed at our shelter.

The next day our staff first met Chew-barka, but not because Dave surrendered him. Dave asked our veterinarian to give him a health check and shots, and advice on training a new puppy. Dave told us about his family’s ploy to keep the dog another night. He might have been annoyed by it, except that he got thinking a four-legged companion would be nice on his long days working as a self-employed contractor.

From that day on, Chew-barka followed Dave everywhere. He didn’t need a leash to take him for a walk. At the job site, Chew-barka guarded the tools from the truck bed, greeting anyone nearby with a tail-wagging, barking alert that Dave could silence with a single word. Dave rewarded him with frequent games of fetch. He couldn’t turn down Chew-barka’s pleading eyes when he dropped a slobbery ball at his feet to be thrown yet again, though Chew-barka seemed to know when Dave had had enough.

Dave was convinced that Chew-barka was especially attuned to his moods and needs, and that this was no ordinary dog. The next thing he knew, he was signing Chew-barka’s name on greeting cards as a full-fledged member of the family. In fact, this is a turning point that signals a pet parent's vulnerability when that relationship ends.

After a decade with Chew-barka as his right-hand hound, Dave was again facing an unexpected turn. He had to end his business and get a regular day job, and Chew-barka could no longer go to work with him. It was a big adjustment for both.

Chew-barka’s bright, expectant eyes often fixated on the door where Dave would surely appear. His ears perked up the moment he heard Dave’s truck from blocks away, even if he was in a deep slumber. Every time without fail, he scrambled to the door with his tail wagging his whole hind end. When Dave’s truck pulled into the driveway, he started leaping up and down and dancing around in frenzied circles. By the time Dave stepped into the kitchen, Chew-barka had worked himself into tail-slapping, fur-flying, delirious doggie hysteria. The mania was only broken when Dave gave the word: “Up, Chew-barka. Up!” Then he’d jump up and rest his paws on Dave’s chest, panting in his face and trying to sneak in a poochie smooch.  

“You’re the only one in the world who’s always glad to see me,” Dave always told him. Chew-barka hadn’t noticed how nerdy he’d gotten the way Abbey had when she hit her early teens. Chew-barka never failed to adore Dave like the doggie idol he is.  

Within the year, something was afoot with Chew-barka. Pain was slowing his step and stealing his playfulness. Cheryl and Abbey knew something was really wrong when he didn’t have it in him to greet Dave with the complete canine berserkitude they’d all come to expect. Dave brought him to us to see what we could do for his aging best buddy. 

For a time, we made him comfortable, but soon there was nothing more we could do for him.

“Are you sure?” Dave pleaded. He left him with us overnight, just in case, but Chew-barka remained weak and listless. He had been sleeping in his kennel when Dave arrived the next day. Chew-barka mustered the strength to raise his head in Dave’s direction.

Dave said, “He’s looking at me like, ‘Oh great! You came back to get me out of here. Thanks, buddy.’” These moments are the most heart-wrenching for our staff too when we must do the hardest part of our job here. The protracted grief long after saying goodbye to Chew-barka is why Dave’s wife has come to us today.

“If there’s a heaven for dogs, I know Chew-barka is up there patiently waiting for Dave,” Cheryl told us. “But down here in suburbia, Dave is utterly inconsolable.” Of course, Cheryl and Abbey miss Chew-barka, but Dave’s mourning is a deeper, enduring anguish. And that leaves Cheryl with a lot of questions about why, and how to help him.

Dave is not alone in suffering this unique kind of grief. It's unlike other anguish in that those around the sufferer may be reluctant to recognize that the loss is real, creating expectations for the bereaved that they should quickly get over their sadness, or not even acknowledge it all. It's what's known as "disenfranchised grief".

The experience of grieving a pet is further complicated when the owner chooses to end their pet's suffering before a natural end of life. Research reveals that the decision to euthanize a pet can trigger feelings of guilt or shame that “may exacerbate the grief experience surrounding an already difficult loss”.

In next week's post, we will further explore the complexities of grief after a pet dies, and look into how to understand this experience and support those going through it. We'll also check in on Dave, Cheryl, Abbey, and Chew-barka's legacy.

Sources:

Anna Maria C. Behler, PhD, Jeffrey D. Green, PhD & Jennifer Joy-Gaba, PhD (2020) "We Lost a Member of the Family": Predictors of the Grief Experience Surrounding the Loss of a Pet, Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin, 8(3), 54-70, DOI: 10.1079/hai.2020.0017

Cordaro, Millie (2012) "Pet loss and disenfranchised grief: Implications for mental health counseling practice." Journal of Mental Health Counseling 34(4), 283-294, DOI: 10.17744/mehc.34.4.41q0248450t98072

Stripping down to the naked truth

“So, what do you think?” my friend asks me, after buying a lemon that’ll get her on a first-name basis with the service guy at the dealership. Well, this is an awkward moment, but not as bad as the time your buddy had just proposed to his future ex-wife and then wanted your thoughts on his foray into marital bliss. Our friends are not asking for honesty in times like these. They’re asking for the lie that has validated many a dreadful choice, and we’ll deliver it with a smile: “Congratulations!” The truth of the matter is that lying is bad, but not always, and honesty is good, but not in every case. These compelling contradictions are explored in the CBC radio documentary and podcast Born to Lie.

The show introduces us to Laura Turley, a blogger and aspiring counsellor who’s taken truth telling to the extreme. Turley is an adherent of radical honesty, a philosophy that advocates speaking only the naked truth to those closest to us, with the understanding that offence and hurt feelings are necessary collateral damage. It’s all in the noble interest of cultivating more meaningful relationships as our authentic selves. According to the father of radical honesty, psychotherapist Brad Blanton, “The most pernicious form of lying is withholding. Basically you’re lying by not saying what you really think.” He believes that withholding is a form of self-protection that ultimately leads to alienation.

While many of us regard withholding as the appropriate conduct for self-aware adults with good manners and concern for our relationships, Turley is drawn to radical honesty as a remedy for the alienation she feels in her relationships. I sympathize with her need for connection, and I'm all for fostering better relationships, though I prefer the "it depends" approach of one of the psychologists interviewed in the show, Dr. Kang Lee. He advises, “We should not blindly think honesty is the only policy, but rather, [think of] why we want to be honest and why we sometimes have to tell lies.”

Turley can’t accept lies as a necessary part of life. She says her inability to decipher others’ true feelings prevents her from making decisions because she doesn’t know if they would be based on truthful statements. My inside voice tells me that Turley is embracing radical honesty in place of being painfully honest with herself. Unflinching self-reflection would lead her to recognize that she needs to work much harder at acquiring sensitivity to verbal and non-verbal cues if she really wants to meaningfully engage with others. I suspect she wouldn't appreciate my radical honesty.

I wouldn't dump my unfiltered perceptions on Turley, since I’m not interested in having radical honesty tried on me. However, I did receive some helpful honesty in relationship years ago, when I learned that I was disappointing expectations. The disappoint-ee didn’t say outright that I wasn’t measuring up, but I understood. Because his honest assessment was focused on future potential instead of past shortcomings, it was easier to swallow and actually quite effective. His approach made the case that appropriately modulated honesty (AMH) is the best policy. Now there’s a sexy concept, huh? Better get the marketing team on that and re-brand AMH as something closer to LYING LIKE A MUTT (Learning Your Inner Noble Gift Lies in Kind Enabling And Making Unpleasant Truths Tasty).

Good thing I never disappointed Turley. I doubt that relationship gurus will be hawking radical honesty as a best practice for the modern romance anytime soon. Even Turley admits that being radically honest has wreaked havoc on her personal relationships, not the least of which is her marriage. How could it not? A central pillar of relationships, especially loving ones, is caring about the loved one’s feelings. Abandoning that care in a misguided search for connection risks tearing a swath of destruction littered with the debris of brutally honest reaction.

Turley disputes the idea that people tell little white lies to spare other people’s feelings. She says those lies are really about “protecting us from other people’s dislike” as we seek to uphold a likeable image of ourselves. Now there’s a refreshingly uncynical view. I believe many white lies are told, not to ensure that we’re liked, but to prevent us from being hated, especially now when abundant online disinformation and polarization can stir up hatreds.

Born to Lie refers to studies that reveal most people consciously lie an average of just twice a day. Dr. Lee says most of the time we don't lie because, “Telling lies is a very, very cognitively taxing task that actually uses up more resources in your brain than telling the truth.” While that could be true, LYING LIKE A MUTT is even more taxing work. Carefully measuring our words to clearly convey a difficult message that gets through, yet doesn't land like a truth grenade is a boot-camp workout for the brain– of course, still not as much work as the relationship repair job that comes after forgoing the delicate words, as Turley has discovered.

It seems to me that people often don’t say what they mean, but no matter what they’re saying, it’s always designed to get what they want. If we can see the truth in that, we don’t need anyone to assault us with radical honesty to figure out what they mean. Besides, radical honesty doesn’t work because once people are subjected to it, they’re no longer responding to the message, but to their own feelings. I say honesty is pointless if it isn’t effective, unlike Turley, who believes relationships are pointless if they aren’t honest.

Born to Lie concludes with the host asking Turley what her ideal world governed by radical honesty would look like. At this point, my feelings about her turn from sympathetic to downright empathetic. Turley envisions a world without lies as an uplifting place with way more hugging and way less judgement, more sharing of feelings and less emotional distance. In short, she envisions a community defined by joyful openness, where everyone's probably romping buck naked to boot. Well, who can fault her for wanting more affection, acceptance and emotional connection in her life? If Turley were to ask me what I really think of her situation, I’d tell her: “Join a nudist camp, Laura. And while you’re dropping your skivvies, ditch the radical honesty too.”