Animal Tales: Dealing with pet loss

During an early episode of the popular television series, "The Cosby Show," which ran in the 1980s, the Huxtable family dressed up and attended a funeral -- in the bathroom -- for 4-year-old Rudy's recently deceased goldfish.

The scene was played mostly for humor, but underlying it was a pair of fundamental truths -- one of human nature and the other of modern society. Children have a need to memorialize and grieve the loss of a loved one -- even if that loved one is an animal. That is why the death of even the most humble of family pets can trigger an emotional outpouring.

Yet in American society, we often show little tolerance for those who have experienced a human loss, let alone an animal one.

"We're not good at dealing with grief," Laurel Lagoni, director of the Argus Institute for Families and Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine in Fort Collins, told United Press International's Animal Tales.

"Pets are a pure relationship with as close to unconditional love as we can get so it can be an intense grief but it can also be a way to learn how to deal with loss."

Pet Loss Hotlines, staffed by volunteer veterinary students in about a dozen veterinary schools nationwide, provide emotional support and an empathetic ear. Volunteers listen to callers and attempt to answer questions, concerns or provide referral to private counselors and crisis centers.

"With the breakup of the nuclear family and more and more people living alone, there's a lack of support for those who lose a pet," said Gail Golub, spokeswoman of the American Veterinary Medical Association. "The hotlines provide structured support by the telephone and the Internet outside the veterinarian and the family."

The AVMA has developed guidelines on training, siting, supervision, records, supply of volunteers, funding and marketing of the hotlines.

The first Pet Loss Support Hotline was established at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine in 1989 and, "When an animal dies due to ill health, or is lost or stolen, or must be placed in a new home, the end of a relationship with a special animal can be one of the most difficult times of your life."

"Most of the other pet loss hotlines have been trained by UC-Davis," said Lagoni. "About 20 years ago, veterinarians started asking for more training and the development of better communication skills."

Veterinarians have to deal the death of their patients five times more often than their colleagues in medicine because their patients live an average of 15 years and most often they are there when the animal dies, according to Lagoni.

"In fact, we recommend that when pet owners have a puppy or a kitten and are looking for a veterinarian they ask how the practice deals with death," she said. "Studies show that 70 percent of pet owners consider their pets the same as their children, so the end of pet's life is important."

The Argus Institute makes the emotional support of people as much a priority as the medical care of pets.

"The clinic at the Veterinary College attracts patients from all over the country and as part of our on-site grief support programs we provide an environment for a quality death if there is bad news for the pet's owner," Lagoni said. "We use role playing so that veterinary students can learn empathy for the pet owner and they can also practice what they would tell an owner."

The institute has developed the first grief education curriculum for veterinary medical students and has taught thousands of veterinary teams how to provide grief support for pet owners.

"Lots of medical schools now require empathy training, communication development and dealing with human emotions," Lagoni said. "But we have sleep-deprived doctors and veterinarians who have to deal with anxious family members."

Argus Institute personnel can bridge the communication gap between veterinarian and anxious owner and family systems medicine does the same thing, Lagoni explained.

The Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine, in Ithaca, N.Y., instituted a Pet Loss Hotline in 1997 because "Having someone who will listen, may be the first step to healing," Leslie Appel, faculty adviser for the hotline, told Animal Tales. "Our hotline uses veterinary students as well as Cornell staff as volunteers. Each volunteer is trained to learn what he or she can handle and what he or she can't."

Three student coordinators manage the hotline and one deal only with messages from the Internet.

"If a person writes in, several volunteers will respond, so the person can get messages from six people," Appel said. "We also provide follow up, if children are dealing with pet loss we'll send a personalized packet of information that includes material on children and the loss of the four-legged members of the family."

The Virtual Pet Cemetery is an online burial ground where thousands from all over the world write, read and share the epitaphs of their pets.

According to Appel, pet owners should provide some type of memorial with family and close friends if possible.

"Owners can also memorialize something to remember the pet, I have the rabies tags of my two dogs that died on my key ring and I remember them every time I look at them," said Appel. "I also took the dog dishes and put plants in them and I like the idea of new life growing in the water bowls of the dogs."

The Argus Institute uses modeling clay to make a paw impression of an animal that dies at the facility.

Although most pet owners can find a memorial, what to do with the pet's body is a bit tougher.

"Some local governments allow the burial of a pet in the back yard -- there is private cremation and pet's ashes presented in a container and there is group cremation for those who don't want ashes," Appel said. "Most practices will take care of this but people can contact a crematory or pet cemetery themselves."

Unfortunately, some people will take advantage of the vulnerable. One veterinarian has been accused of taking money for a crematory but police found two dogs in a dumpster.

"I've worked for veterinarians and I've seen them pad bills for disposing of animal bodies," Maureen Finley of New Jersey, told Animal Tales. "When my retriever died, the crematory picked up the dog and for $200 I got a private cremation and the ashes returned in a box, but some vets charge $500 for the same thing and the vet gets a discount."

Most pets owners would be outraged if they knew their veterinarian had made a profit form the death of their animal, according to Finley, who started a petition at petalertowner.org that would require veterinarians to present a written statement showing "what, to whom and for what" services were purchased.

Pet owners should know they have options and they can make their own decisions and arrangements, according to Finley.

Golub said although veterinarians must apply principles of veterinary ethics, attempts to assess veterinary costs can be difficult because overhead and other expenses must be factored in, just as in other medical procedures.