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Health & Fitness

Helping Kids Deal With The Loss of a Family Pet

Those of us who own or have owned pets know how much they become part of your family. One of the hardest situations we’ve had to go through was explaining to our kids what happened to our furry loved ones. This week, the Mom Squad talks about the loss of our family pets.


Bethany:
I moved to California in 2002 with my then boyfriend and after we got settled in our new apartment, I really missed having a pet so we started talking about getting a cat. We checked into local rescue organizations and ended up adopting a 3 year-old black cat. She was already named “Baby Cat” and we decided to keep her name since she actually answered to it.

A few years went by, we moved a few times, we got engaged, then married, then divorced, and still Baby Cat was with me. She was the one constant in my life through it all.

When I met my (current) husband, I had Baby Cat and he had probably the world’s sweetest dog, a black lab named Sam. When we moved in together we were a bit nervous about bringing the two together, but they learned to just ignore each other and everything worked out great.

A little while later our daughter came along and from the start, she LOVED both Baby Cat and Sam. They were so sweet with her too and they all became instant little buddies. A few years later, when I was pregnant with our son, Sam wasn’t doing so well. He had developed a heart condition and we could tell he was nearing the end. He could no longer breathe well and was in a lot of pain, so we made the decision to have him put down. It was so hard, but we knew it was the right thing to do for our good buddy.

Our daughter was only 2, so she didn’t really understand what was happening. We decided not to make a big deal about it since she couldn’t possibly understand and it would only upset her.

The next summer, Baby Cat had become accustomed to roaming the neighborhood during the day. She always stayed close though so we never worried. She would always greet us by the front door when we came home from our daily trips to the park or running errands and our daughter would run to say hello and give her pats.

Then one day I opened our door to check the mailbox and found a note stuck on the door. It was from animal control and they were informing us that they had our cat’s remains, and asking if we would like to come collect them. I was shocked. My husband called and learned that one of the neighbors (only 4 houses away) had reported a coyote attack in their yard and that sadly it that it was Baby Cat.

Our daughter was 3 now, so she was old enough to notice that our cat was missing. She started asking, “Mommy, where cat?” and I decided to just tell her simply, “Cat is gone honey. We still love her, but she’s gone now.”

I know some may not agree, but I’m not personally a believer in an afterlife, so I didn’t want to tell my child something that I don’t believe in. I think that just like so many other parts of raising children, we all have to do what feels right for our family. This felt right for us and our daughter was sad, but was satisfied with this explanation.

We have since gotten a new dog. He’s a chocolate lab that we named Buddy. We got him when he was about 6 weeks old, so we had to go through housebreaking and puppy training, but it was a good bonding experience. He is full of energy, rambunctious, and even a bit crazy, but he fits right in to our little family and the kids LOVE him. We do miss our Sam and Baby Cat, but it’s good for our kids to learn that even though we miss loved ones that are gone now, life does go on.


Nicole:
When my husband and I moved in together 8 years ago, we got our first little furball, Simon. He is a weiner dog and from the second we got him we treated him like he was our first child. We didn’t have any kids at the time, so it was easy to take him everywhere with us, do everything with him, and generally he stuck to our side like glue.

After about 8 months, we decided it was time to get Simon a partner in crime. We enlisted the help of Petfinder and found our 2nd little bundle of fur, Spike, also a weiner dog (and a girl in case you were confused by her name...you can thank my husband for that, although the name totally fit her). They said she was 3 when she got her, but we’re pretty sure she was between 5 or 6, which was fine, we didn’t care so much about her age. She was just awesome and we couldn’t imagine not taking her home there and then.

We had known there may be medical problems in our future with her. She was puppy mill breeding stock and had had at least 5 litters by the time we got her. Confined to a cage most of her life, she had developed a bad back and with wiener dogs, bad backs can be a problem anyway.

Fast forward to October of 2011. I got home to find Spikey not acting like herself, but not totally bad. She was just moving slowly and didn’t seem to be feeling well. The vet was already closed so I put her in her kennel just in case. By morning, she had lost all back end function, she was paralyzed.

Our life came crumbling down. It may sound melodramatic, but for those of you who own pets, you know how devastating something like this can be. We prepared for the worst but hoped for the best. Amazingly enough, the medicine worked! After about 2 weeks of being totally paralyzed, she came out of it! We were so excited we hardly could contain ourselves. At this point, Evie and Milo were so young, we weren’t sure they would understand anything so we let it be.

In June of 2012, the unthinkable happened. She was paralyzed again, and this time there wasn’t any hope. We had to let our little girl cross over the rainbow bridge (people, it’s been almost a year and I’m sitting here crying as I type this). My husband and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves, let alone explaining it to Evie. Milo was still far too young to understand, but Evie knew something was wrong. When we came home from the vet without Spikey, obviously crying, she knew. So we did what we thought was best. We explained to her that Spikey went to doggie heaven, a place where dogs who were hurting could go to run and play and not feel pain anymore (she seemed to really like the sleeping on clouds part). The idea of that helped us all heal our unimaginable wounds from losing our baby girl.

To this day, Evie still talks about Spike all the time. I overheard her talking to her little friend the other day saying “Spikey is in doggie heaven...she gets to sleep on clouds and have doggie treats whenever she wants. I miss her...” and of course there go the waterworks again. But knowing she takes comfort in thinking her dog is in a super special place is more than I can hope for.
We’ve added a new addition to our brood, a little dachshund/yorkie mix (also known as...as DORKIE...yes folks, a dorkie...best dog ever) and she has been a saving grace for this family. She has all the energy that a crazy nut job puppy could and keeps us all on our toes! Our family is so happy to have her, but no one can ever replace that special little shakey dog in our hearts.

Pets can be just as special as people in many of our lives. Helping our children cope with the loss of a pet can be hard, but when you find the right way to help them understand, it can help everyone heal as well.

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How did you explain to your kids the loss of your pet? We’d love to hear from you all! Please share with us in the comments below.

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