Animals At Their End: Grief & Gratitude

When you adopt a pet or one just finds it into your life, besides all the joy and fun and exasperation, you also sign up for an eventual pile of pain. For whomever they may be, they have one fatal - literally - flaw - their lives are too short. Even shorter than ours, anyway, and unless you are already very old yourself when they show up, they will likely die before you do.

I'm "bipetual" - I love and live with both dogs and cats, thus doubling my fun and reward - and loss. I can be so "co-dependent" with animals that it led me to being unable to eat other mammals since I was a teenager. Without constraints, I would certainly be a crazy cat/dog person, overrun with dozens of each. But I've kept that in check so far... mostly.

A friend had to help her beloved 20-year-old cat die recently. This sad event recalled to me some of the times I’ve had to “put down” my own animal friends, and that is never, ever easy, no matter how old and what condition they are in. I also remembered a little article I authored on this topic years ago for a Buddhist publication. The editor asked for a piece on human dying, but I’d already done too many of those and offered one on pets instead, thinking I’d be off the hook. But they wanted me to write it anyway.

I’ve shared the resulting piece with others over the years, and some have said they found it consoling and helpful. So I dug it out here, updated it, and offer it in the hope that it might help others who have to say goodbye to their favorite beasts.

Their Lives Are Too Short

Personally and professionally, I’ve been involved in some way in many human deaths. Perhaps the most important factor in helping somebody through that process is communication – talking and listening, finding out and acting, where possible, on what the dying person wants. If anything is, that’s the essence of compassionate care at the end of life.

I’ve also been involved in many deaths of (other) animals, both when I worked in a veterinary hospital and as a lifelong “pet person.” Some of the challenges encountered with animals are the same or similar as with humans; others, obviously not. But with the deaths in recent years of two of the most loving, intelligent, demanding, silly, beautiful creatures I’ve ever shared my life with, the primacy of communication has been made even more apparent.

Why? Because it can be so excruciatingly hard to know exactly what is the right thing to do with a pet when their life seems over, or should be. How to know what they want and when? With animals the “active” role in hastening death, so controversial and mostly illegal with humans, is not only allowed, but encouraged as the humane thing to do with animals. And it very often is the most humane option. But when it’s your own beloved companion, how do you know when that time has come?

Some say their pets “tell” them in some way. I wish I’d had that experience more often. But when my pets become seriously, likely terminally, ill, the decisions about what kind of treatment, or none, and then about when to ease their dying often becomes very much a human decision. Unlike with other humans, we cannot ask them what they want - or at least, we can't expect a clear answer to that tough question. We have to guess for them, caught between compassion, the utter horror of seeing them suffering, and our own immense - and it could be said, selfish - desire to keep them with us longer. But the decisions and actions have to be made, and they are all ours to make. A heavy burden.

With humans, I have learned that sometimes the best thing is to take the family’s burden on, in part at least, by gently making the decisions and acting on their behalf (and of course, with consent). Sometimes that is one way to minimize anguish and even guilt. A veterinarian may do much of this for you; in my experience, most are very good at helping in this difficult arena, as they obviously have the training, experience and tools to do it right. Many vets will tell you this is the hardest part of their practice, but they do it willingly and carefully. There are also now more resources, such as grief groups for those who have lost pets.

But it is still us humans, who live with the silly creatures we have lost, who are left with the absence and the mourning. What does this mean regarding grief? For me, it has sometimes meant – and this may surprise or even appall some people – more feelings of self-doubt, even guilt, and raw grief than I’ve experienced with some human deaths. But with time, that questioning eases, and acceptance of what took place – and of mortality and impermanence as well – grows. And the very human reaction of guilt, of questioning what and when and how we helped them out of this life, mercifully fades away too.

So we take on a lot of responsibility when we adopt animals into our lives, and that extends through their lives – and deaths. The only downside of having pets is that their lives are too short, compared to ours, and loss and grief almost inevitably become part of the deal. But it’s a deal many of us make over and over, because the rewards so outweigh the costs, almost every time. And thus, even in grief, when we ask ourselves, Would we do it all again, the answer is almost always a clear yes.

There has been much debate about the souls, if any, of animals, but all I know is that for them, this life seems to be the only one they are concerned with. Some say that humans are the only ones who are aware we will die, and thus, most animals go at the end without fear. My latest pet death, of a lumbering loud loving large cat named King Tubby, made me wonder though; asleep in his own portable bed next to my head on mine, he awoke in the middle of the night, reached over and tapped me on the head, gave a little meow (he'd been uncharacteristically silent for days), and took his last breath. It sure felt like he was saying goodbye, but who knows. I was just glad he did it.

One thing that is certain is that animals can suffer. It is our role to try to minimize that, in their lives and their deaths. As long as we do what we can out of real compassion, with as much knowledge and care as we could humanely muster, grief, though of course still there, eventually evolves into memories and thankfulness, because it’s an almost inseparable symptom of something profoundly valuable.

Call it love.