You survive the loss of a dog by first embracing the reality of mortality in all living creatures and taking the opportunity to plumb the depths of your own impermanence as a transient human, while you lay your friend’s remains to rest, to turn to serve others next.
Is this too blunt a statement to make? Coming from one dog lover, who has lost many pets over several decades, to another who recently lost one, I suggest you take my remark in good conscience. It is meant as a healing balm rooted in adult reality.
You will survive your loss. But you will do so through internal growth. And this is the last gift that your beloved pet would have bestowed on you. So, do not waste it. Embrace it as gladly as those moments you enjoyed your pet in your arms.
How to Grieve The Loss of Your Pet Without Guilt or Shame
You may be grieving the loss of a pet after euthanasia or perhaps after an accident. You may be wondering how long does it take to get over a pet’s death? The loss of a dog is like the loss of a good friend and, for some, as that of a child. As with every death, there is an emptiness after a pet loss that is hard to face. How to accept death of a pet? “I lost my emotional support dog!” you may cry out. “I can’t accept my dog’s death,” you may fear.
But, yes, you will come to accept it, the moment you accept the function of death in the timeline of life.
Many will be there to tell you to understand the feelings that you’re going through to find a way to ease your pain. In a way, I’m doing the same. But understanding your pain will not remove it any less from your side. I’m not denying that saying good-bye to your dog and investing in a memorial or mementos will not help you cope, and this is useful. But how to survive the loss of a dog has more to do with doing than with feeling.
Involving yourself with others who are likewise grieving the loss, such as other family members or friends, especially children who may not fully understand why death happened, is a revealing coping strategy. It will begin to focus you in the right direction, even while not resolving some deeper issues that arise from within despite shining a path ahead to consider following.
For, you see, some people may tend to feel guilt for failing to achieve the impossible for their pets, especially if they had to come to a decision to euthanize them. They also fight guilt in thinking about replacing their friend. How soon is too soon, they may wonder.
If a pet loss came as a result of running away or theft, the feeling of guilt may be somewhat justified due to negligence. “Why didn’t I lock the fence again? Why didn’t I teach my dog not to run out but rather to heed my commands?” Self-doubt could come to plague a lonely heart after the loss of a dog.
Yet guilt and shame are no solutions for that emptiness that you will experience in the absence of your dog. It certainly will not bring back your dog. Don’t let guilt or shame send you in pursuit of a fantasy, therefore. Root yourself in reality. And nothing is as real as life and death.
How to Avoid Depression After The Loss of a Pet
So, the first habit to form to avoid falling into a depression after losing your pet is not to grieve in futility. You want to learn how to survive the loss of a dog without grieving? Grief is unavoidable at this time. It is the appropriate response to the knowledge that someone you so much wanted always to have with you is now permanently inaccessible to you. And this lack of control tells you something about your human condition, something quite unpleasant yet true.
It says that no matter how much you may will something to be, your will does have limits. Your positive thinking won’t change reality. Because the limits to your will are permanent in nature. Why continue attempting to will, therefore, what your will shall never bring into existence?
Reflecting on this fact is a practice that soon will give you perspective about how to manage your feelings. Yes, you may grow angry. Hurt turns to anger when we know the damage is wrong. And death is wrong, even if natural. We want to live and those we love as well! And that is good. However, death moves contrary, unstoppable and merciless against this good desire.
But unable rightly to cope with anger, this hurt may turn to bitterness and become destructive of so much. Don’t let it. Anticipate it instead. Realize your pet was a good sign of all that is good in life. And be thankful. Gratefulness begins your healing process. It fills the void left behind by a loss, because it acknowledges that your limits are set elsewhere, and you accept it.
But turn now toward service. Wasn’t your dog there for you always? Did it not demonstrate how to be cordial, loyal, constant, and always forgiving? Then, do it justice. Go serve someone else. It will ease your pain to ease that of another. Make it that of another dog. Visit a shelter. Take a jailed dog out for a walk. Give it some love. Make a new friend. Heal yourself through service and self-sacrifice. Immerse yourself in someone else.
How to Move Forward After Losing a Dog
Next, gain perspective. Life is as much a disquieting journey as it is an adventure. One day you will reach a deep, dark valley, another will show you a golden, sunny peak. But you must keep walking. Others won’t do it for you. You alone can and must do this. To gain new vistas, to change perspective, you must move on, even if just a little every day. Two steps forward, one step backward still means moving ahead. Take your departed dog mentally out for a walk and move on…slowly.
There is always plenty of love to spread around, if you have any. And there are plenty around us who need love. Share it, then. But to do so, you must move on. Act. Don’t cloister yourself indefinitely and brood, no matter how agonizing and debilitating the feeling. Lose yourself instead in another’s sorrow and you will witness how soon your own anguish will gain perspective. Do it to honor your dog’s memory. This is how to survive the loss of a dog as a mature adult, responsibly, conscientiously, soberly.
Lastly, remember that I’ve never said not to mourn. What I am saying is that mourning is part of life and yet not its main focus. Are you not sure that there were a great many good things in the past? Is that not why you’re mourning? Then, ask yourself why today could not be best for you to enjoy, and why tomorrow could not be even better. Because this is the essence of surviving the loss of a dog or any other major loss in your life. The way you look at the prospect of living is what defines whether you will enjoy being alive.
The past cannot be undone. The future is uncertain. But today, you are alive for the moment. And if there is one thing that dogs may be said to teach us only too well is how to live for the moment. Learn this lesson, therefore, from your departed friend and live today.
Make the most of your day today, as you course through your pain, meditating on the purpose of your life in overcoming loss, in serving others, in being grateful for what you still have and may yet be able to enjoy. And this will make your suffering meaningful and useful, and your dog’s departure one filled not exclusively with pain and sorrow but with purpose and goodness as well.