Human relationships are complicated, but our relationship with our pets almost never is. We seldom argue with them. They don’t hurt our feelings. They don’t keep score. They have seen us through tough times and never judged us. They love us without conditions or expectations. 

How did our pets come to have such an elevated status in our lives and become so important to our emotional, physical, and social well-being? Unlike the pets of our grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ day, our pets sleep at the end of our beds, lay their heads on our laps as we stream Netflix, accompany us on vacations, and generally participate in all the activities of our daily lives. 

It isn’t “just” the death of a pet

Loving our pets doesn’t diminish the love we feel for the people in our lives. 

Anyone who needs proof that Lucky isn’t “just” a pet should look at the numerous studies that show the benefits of having a pet. 

• Pet owners are more satisfied with their lives than non-pet owners. 
• Pet ownership has emotional benefits. More than a third of people in a recent Blue Cross survey described their first pet as a best friend. More than half the people Blue Cross surveyed said their first pet taught them unconditional love or the meaning of friendship. Pets give people emotional support and help manage loneliness, depression, and anxiety. 
• Pet ownership benefits physical health. Pets can help people recover or cope better with a wide range of health problems and they increase opportunities to exercise and socialize. Children who grow up with a pet are less likely to develop allergies or asthma.
• Pet ownership can help young people learn responsibility and discipline and help children’s emotional development. 
  
• Pets (and more specifically dogs) can even help us get along better with others. A study has shown that people act more trusting, friendly, and cooperative in the presence of a dog. Another showed that people found someone with a dog to be more approachable than someone without one. Pet owners are more likely to know their neighbors and dog owners particularly are more likely than non-dog-owners to call their neighbors friends. And what young man has ever walked a puppy in a park and not realized it’s a “chick magnet”?

Loneliness and comfort

With more people living alone and with families that are smaller and living great distances from one another, we may not have as many opportunities as we want or need for social and emotional interaction with a human family – and our pets are there to fill this void.  

We are all busy – with jobs, families, running a house, staying physically fit, staying well-informed, volunteering,…. It can leave us physically exhausted but emotionally unfulfilled. It can mean that our socializing is electronic. Nothing against Facebook and text messaging, but sometimes the closeness we seek with other people is more readily available from our pets. When we lose a pet, we may also be losing an important source of comfort and meaning.

More specifically, we often get from our pets in abundance what we hope for from our human relationships: acceptance, forgiveness, support, dependability, and unconditional love. People who don’t understand our loss may never have experienced the unconditional love and constant companionship our pets offer. 

Fur babies

Changes in social and family structure mean that many of us are in a position to transfer our mothering and fathering instincts to our pets. Who among us hasn’t anthropomorphized a pet – attributed human characteristics to them? Or had meaningful conversations with them? From there it isn’t a big leap to viewing them as our fur babies.

Hardwired to want to feel happy

We are hardwired to feel happy when we create happiness in others – brain scans show this! What a lift it is to come home to our dog prancing around with enthusiasm for our very presence, or to our cat that greets us at the door in the more subtle way cats have to show they are happy. And suddenly there is no one there to greet us, no one to dance at the sight of the leash, no one to use our lap as a bed.

Part of our identity

Pets may be a vehicle for our exercise and socialization as we walk our pets and chat with neighbors along the way.  Their loss may mean a bit of our identity is lost as well. You are no longer the guy at the dog park with the exuberant Labrador Retriever. You are no longer the neighbor whose cat can usually be seen in the kitchen window, surveying the neighborhood.

You are no longer a caregiver

Our pets often take a great deal of our time (walks, runs at the dog park, feeding, grooming, etc.). Perhaps your pet has required extensive care in your in-home pet hospice. Providing that care can take an emotional and physical toll – and possibly even a financial one. Mary Beth Spitznagel, associate professor of psychological sciences at Kent State University in Ohio, was lead author of a study comparing the owners of healthy pets and unhealthy ones. The study found overall higher levels of caregiver burden and stress, greater symptoms of depression and anxiety, and lower quality of life in owners of sick animals compared to owners of healthy ones. When a pet dies after extensive care, you are dealing with the residual effects of giving that care.  Plus, suddenly, that whole caregiver role is gone — yet another way the death of can pet can affect your identity.  

What else does the death of a pet mean?

When we lose a pet, we are actually experiencing multiple losses. Grieving the Loss of a Pet describes them as:

• The loss of unconditional love.
• The loss of a protégé.
• The loss of a “life witness.”
• The loss of multiple relationships and routines.
• The loss of a primary companion. 

Dr. Siew Tuck Wah makes these points about our relationship with our dogs:

1. You see your dogs much more than your friends or relatives. You were there from the beginning till the end.
2. You taught them life lessons.
3. Dogs are like our little children. 
4. Scientific proof: love grows with dogs.
5. You learned unconditional love through your dog.
6. We are their world.
7. Dogs express themselves and taught you how to as well.
8. Dogs are full of personality.
9. They were always there when you needed someone.  

No rituals to allow you to share grief

There is truth that “A sorrow shared is a sorrow divided,” and the rituals around human deaths provide opportunities for that sharing to take place. But this is not always so for animal deaths. A factor that contributes to why losing a pet is so hard is that few rituals surround what is largely a disenfranchised death – a marginalized death that some don’t consider worthy of observing. And so we keep our grief to ourselves or preface it with an apology like “I know he’s just a dog,….” How is parting from a beloved pet not made harder by our need to minimize its impact on us?

All these factors help account for why our pets are so important to us and why losing one is so – sometimes unexpectedly – hard.