Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine

Sense of Loss: Pets offer great enjoyment, but overcoming their death can be hard.

Screenshot 2016-06-23 14.47.36For many of us, experiencing the death of a pet is like losing a loved one.

You grieve. Maybe you feel guilty, wondering if you did all you could for your pet. Anger and depression might surface, too, along with shock or denial.

All of this is normal, said Ruth Karns Rudderow, a trained pet loss bereavement counselor at the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area. It’s also normal to wonder if you could ever love another pet as much as the one you just lost, she added.

“It’s like losing a human,” explained Rudderow, who is also executive vice president of Karns Quality Foods. “From what I’ve seen, for people who don’t have children, it’s harder. It’s harder if you live alone.”

That said—it’s different for every person, she added.

“Some miss the companionship and being greeted at the door by their pet,” she said. “For dog owners, it’s a loss of habit. I’ve had clients who can’t walk the same path that they walked with their dog,”

 

Best for Them

Since 2013, Rudderow has counseled bereaved pet owners at the Humane Society, veterinarians’ offices and the American Red Cross on as-needed basis. Some weeks, she gets three or four phones calls from bereaved pet owners; some weeks, she gets none. Sometimes, Humane Society staff will give Rudderow’s card to a bereaved pet owner who seems particularly upset.

“It varies,” she said.

Rudderow, who has three cats of her own at home, began volunteering for the Humane Society in 2007 as a cat socializer and helped out with animal adoptions. When she noticed that some human clients cried while there, Rudderow, who carries a bachelor’s degree in social work, was naturally curious and asked why they were sad. As it turned out, the clients invariably were crying over the loss of a beloved pet.

Rudderow googled “pet bereavement” and discovered there’s a whole field devoted to helping people deal with the loss of their animal companions. Soon, she was trained as a pet bereavement counselor through the Association for Pet and Loss and Bereavement, a nonprofit volunteer organization.

Sometimes, Rudderow even has done “anticipatory counseling” for pet owners facing the critical decision of euthanizing an animal. For this, she helps owners evaluate the situation using a quality-of-life scale that assesses a pet’s pain level, happiness, mobility and other factors.

“Animals only know right now,” Rudderow explained. “So, if an animal is suffering, all they know is that they’re suffering. We have to put or our feelings aside and do what’s best for them.”

 

Saying Goodbye

Two years ago, Kathy and Paul Roberts of Lower Paxton Township were faced with the decision of “doing what’s best” when Flashlight, an 11-year-old pointer mix, was ailing.

Of course, the decision to put Flashlight down wasn’t easy for anyone in the family, but it was particularly difficult for the couple’s son, Sam, now 18, who had lived with the dog for most of his life. It was he who named Flashlight at 3 years old.

Kathy Roberts picked up her son from school the day that Flashlight was euthanized so he could be there, but he still was angry that it was happening.

“At first, Sam wouldn’t come in the room with Flashlight, but then Paul brought him in so he could say goodbye,” she recalled.

Two months later, the Roberts family heard about a mixed cattle dog and Brittany breed puppy that needed a new home. For them, the time seemed right to get another pet.

“We grew up with dogs,” Kathy noted. “When you lose a dog, your whole house feels empty.”

By then, Sam Roberts had gotten over most of his anger about Flashlight’s death, his mother said. He named the new puppy Elsa after Disney’s “Frozen” heroine.

“There’s no right or wrong time to get a new pet after losing a pet,” Rudderow advised. “It’s when your heart is ready, but everyone in the household has to be ready, too.”

Karen Baraniak of Duncannon said her father wasn’t ready to get a new pet after the loss of the family’s 12-year-old German shepherd, Tasha, but her mother got a new dog three months later, anyway. Baraniak, now the Humane Society’s intake center team leader, was so devastated by Tasha’s death that she stayed home from school for a week after it happened. Fortunately, she “started to feel better” after the arrival of Brownie, a 1-year-old Spitz mix, she said. Today, Brownie is her father’s best friend, despite his initial apprehension.

 

In Your Heart

Charlotte Hassman of Harrisburg always has kept a houseful of pets and, consequently, has had to put several down over the years. The first dog she lost was 14-year-old Phoebe, with the loss perhaps being hardest on Hassman’s son, who grew up with the animal. Hassman, the director of animal care at the Humane Society, admits that there was a void.

“Even if you had five dogs and you now have four, it’s still a loss,” she said.

Even trained pet bereavement counselors grieve over lost pets. Such was the case when Rudderow’s 19-year-old cat, Jasmine, died two years ago.

“A couple of days afterwards, I was very snappy to someone on the phone and I thought, ‘What is wrong with me?’ Then I realized it was anger, a stage of grief,” she remembered.

But it wasn’t long before Rudderow was ready for a new pet to join her two surviving cats at home.

“It wasn’t a replacement,” she explained.” The pet (you lost) is still in your heart. Your heart has lots of pockets. Your pet may no longer be by your side, but it’s always in your heart.”

For more information on pet end-of-life and bereavement, visit the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area at www.humanesocietyhbg.org and the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement at www.aplb.org.

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