Abby, at right

The Empty Chair
Dedicated to the beautiful memories of Winley, Oaf, Abby, Peru, Seymour, Hope, Max, and the two kitties who died in the recent Belmont Shore house fire as well as all those who preceded them. May we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge.

1:30pm | My brother has a photo in his home office of his cat, Seymour, who passed away many years ago after enjoying a long life. In the picture, Seymour is lying in a sunny spot by the window, with half his body in the light. My brother said that, in retrospect, it was eerie how the picture turned out, cast in half-shadow like a memory someone deeply beloved and mourned.

Why We Grieve
What is it about our pets that their death brings out our grief so readily?

“People who suffer the loss of a pet family member often feel deep grief, sometimes surpassing the sadness they have felt when someone [human] they know has died,” said Dr. Bill Benson, MFC, a bereavement therapist in Long Beach and Los Angeles. “The relationship with a pet offers a unique bond in that there is little to no negotiation. The animal keys off you and responds to your perceptions and wishes, often without resistance. People, because we lead with intellectual thinking, are less dependent and less focused on [one another] during our interactions. People question us, animals accept us. As a result, we often feel a deeper or more dependent connection with an animal—we feel well supported and nonjudged. When that animal dies, we lose this special way of connecting with another living being, and therefore, the grieving process can be deep and long.”

Grieving often begins before the pet dies if the animal is suffering from a long illness. What many of us hope for our pets is what we would like for ourselves: a calm passing during sleep. As many of us have sadly learned, this doesn’t happen too often, and we’re faced with the question of when to let go, when to call the vet. Pets can’t call Dr. Kevorkian themselves, and making that final call is so very, very hard. Listen to your heart; if you have a vet whom you like, trust him or her to help you make the right decision.

What Do We Do When It’s ‘Time’?
The day comes when we cannot provide hospice for our pet, and we’re faced with what we may think of as betrayal to a best friend.

“It’s a very individualized choice,” said Dr. Ralph Sellman of the Blue Cross Veterinary Hospital in Signal Hill. “What I tell most people is, you want to do it when your pet is not enjoying being a dog or cat anymore. [With] most of your critical-care situations, you have two guilts: the guilt of not waiting long enough and the guilt of waiting too long. Some people don’t want their pets to feel any pain or discomfort whatsoever, and if we know they have a terminal condition, that’s the right choice for their pet. Some people want to wait until the pet stops eating or is not able to posture properly or is having some sick event. There are specialists I can send people to, but again, it’s a question about what you can do for your pet and what you should do for your pet. If you have a 4-year-old pet and a painful and expensive treatment may help them have another 10 years, that’s one thing. If you have a 16-year-old pet, it’s not fair to put them through it.

Judy Crumpton, who generally writes this article with me, emphasizes the importance of the decision being about the pet’s comfort. Judy and her husband were fortunate enough to stay with their dog, Hope, and offer one another moral support while caring for Hope as she was dying.

“We didn’t mind doing this, as we didn’t want to leave her alone, and we cherished our final days with her,” Judy said. “I feel sorry for people who must leave their dying animals alone because they have to do the things they must do. I am sure this plays into the decision to euthanize a bit sooner than we did, but even though your heart is breaking, you need only to look into their eyes for the answer. That final drive to the emergency hospital is one that can not be described. The only ‘easy’ part of this is the realization that they will not need to suffer to their last breath.”

Hope

The Decision
Pain and suffering aside, it’s achingly difficult to pick up the phone and make that final appointment with the vet. My own beautiful Oaf had kidney failure at age 15. Even though I knew he was done for, I watched him hopefully for signs that he was getting better, that he was going to make it after all. Every little bite of food when he clearly didn’t want it, a swat at a favorite toy, purring next to me in bed and licking my hand were signs of resurrection. Oaf was down to skin and bones from a weight of 16 pounds when I gently picked him up, and he squalled in pain. I set my jaw and made the call.

Oaf

No matter how many times you’ve had pets euthanized, it doesn’t get easier with practice. Whatever you do to make dying less painful for your companion, it won’t ease your own pain. My first two cats died at the vet’s. I cried for months. I left another at the clinic and got home as fast as I could. My next cat I stayed with, patting him and talking to him as he lay on the metal table until the injection shut him down. I had to be dragged out of the room. When Oaf was ready—when I was ready, because I think that Oaf was ready a lot sooner than I was—I asked my vet to come over so that my cat could die at home. Oaf went to sleep without struggle on my lap, on his favorite chair. It was kinder and calmer than a cold surgery room, Four years later, I still sit in that chair and mourn him, but I feel that I did the best possible thing for the friend who’d lived for the time I got home and slept hand in paw with me at night.

“When it comes time for the actual procedure, I talk to people and find out if they want to be present,” Dr. Sellman said. “It’s a little disconcerting to see your pet lying there with the eyes open—we want to make sure you know what’s coming. The sphincters and bladder open—if you have the pet on your lap, we make sure that there’s padding between them and you. Quite a few people don’t care. As the body runs out of oxygen, there may be some twitching or the diaphragm will move, which looks like the animal’s taking a breath, and that can be really disconcerting. Some people don’t want to see that. If you don’t want to be present, you shouldn’t be.”

When cancer began to be too painful for both her sweet yellow lab and herself, Willa Heart offered herself no choice but to remain with the dog. Abby had been a patient at Blue Cross, and Heart is grateful for its end-of-life creature comfort.

“The day that Abby needed help to transition, Dr. Sellman was on duty and handled Abby and me so graciously,” Heart said. Blue Cross’s outdoor garden is a haven of flagstones, trees, a fountain, a couple of benches and ashes of former veterinary pets on the mantel. A mural presents a peaceful scene of playful kittens, puppies, rabbits, dragonflies, geese, squirrels and other animals, some looking through the fourth wall of the painting, possibly joyful over the final arrival of a human companion. The scene recalls the Rainbow Bridge pet requiem. The garden, said Dr. Sellman, is intended to make people feel more comfortable than does a “clinical exam room and a cold antiseptic table.”

Memorial Garden at Blue Cross Veterinary Hospital

“Everything happened just like that—Abby was so peaceful, and it was a healing moment,” Heart said.

Whatever you decide to do, don’t dump the animal somewhere to die alone and in pain. Anyone cowardly enough to do this has no business sharing a life with one. My only rant, and ’nuff said.

The Grieving Process
The death of anyone we love touches us to the bone of our soul. When a beloved pet dies, whether it’s sudden or a result of watching a long process of suffering, there’s a feeling that’s hard to put a finger on: emptiness, numbness, a space somewhere that leads to another dimension but you can’t find the door to enter it. Marge Piercy led in to her unsettling requiem for the people who didn’t make it to the rest of their lives because of 9/11, “No One Came Home,” with the sudden death of her cat with whom she’d shared a particular closeness: “My cats have always died in old age, slowly with abundant warning. Not Max. He left a hole in my waking.” Like other personal tragedies, pets often provide the doorway to grief. A couple of weeks ago, the mother of a friend of mine was in hospice, close to death, and my friend’s upper lip had been stoically stiff. A couple of days before she died, we came home from a trip and found that his otherwise healthy 9-year-old cat, Winley, had unexpectedly died of an embolism. That pushed my friend over the edge into grief, and he finally and openly expressed his sorrow.

“Animals are so unconditionally loving,” Dr. Benson said. “Our people-pet relationships are nurturing, so when we lose that, of course we’re going to grieve.”

Winley

In his work as a bereavement therapist, Dr. Benson gives equal weight to the loss of a human or an animal relationship. Joey Sweet Boy is Dr. Benson’s 17-year-old terrier mix; he’s a Long Beach ACS rescue who is certified as a Delta Society therapy dog and who also acts as Dr. Benson’s cotherapist.

“Joey’s the first exposure to an animal that clients have had since their pets passed, and most gravitate to him,” Dr. Benson said. “He’s very loving and puts himself in the room. I use him a lot with people who feel alone and isolated. They tell stories and pat him.”

Joey, of course, doesn’t “story-tell” but he’s very much there when the client expresses his grief.  Dr. Benson follows Joey’s lead. “I help them understand and decipher the story behind the grief they are experiencing,” he said. “I help clients normalize the pet-bereavement process in terms of losing a loved one, thus reframing any guilt or shamefulness they may have about being so affected by an animal’s passing. Since domesticated pets are so dependent on us for their survival, we often feel like we didn’t do enough to help them survive. I help relieve my client’s guilt about their pet’s death: Perhaps they left the gate open and the animal was hit by a passing car. Perhaps the client is second-guessing the decision to euthanize a beloved pet. Because a dog or cat remains intellectually similar to a human 3-year-old, when they pass, we feel as if our small child has left us, and we feel responsible. If a person is coming to therapy to talk about a pet’s death, then chances are good that they had a deep relationship with the animal. I remind them of this and ask them if their pet, based on the loving relationship they shared, would want them to be sad. Their response is always the same: No. This often is the change in perception needed to help the client begin recovery.”

Remember, it’s your grief and you have a right to grieve. If anyone tells you that “it’s just a (dog, cat, rabbit, rat, etc.),” mumble something like “Mmmph” and walk away. Don’t bother explaining yourself.

“People say insensitive things because they haven’t had [a similar] experience with animals and that’s too bad,” Dr. Benson said. “I generally tell people to stay away from them and stay with friends who ‘get it.’”

Peru

There can be other guilts as well. The friend I mentioned in the beginning of the article had to deal with not only his own guilt at his absence at Winley’s death but also with that of our kind friend who had been cat-sitting and found the body. She felt unreasonably guilty herself. We let her know that if she hadn’t called and stayed there until we got home, it would have been a greater shock for us. Then there was Eugene, the other cat. He and Winley had been loving friends and playmates. Eugene was nuzzling the body when our friend had walked in and spent the rest of the evening sniffing the spot where Winley had lain after we removed him. Dr. Benson said that animals understand “gone” more than humans, particularly if they’re allowed to see the other pet’s body. Sudden disappearances can confuse them. They may express grief as well—Eugene still isn’t playing with his toys, his appetite’s down, and he needs a lot of physical contact, which we give him.

There are several ways of dealing with the physical remains of a pet, just as with humans. You can leave the body at the vet’s or a crematorium; you can request the ashes and keep them over the mantel, scatter them in a favorite resting place or request that they be buried with you or mixed with your own ashes; you may take the body to a pet cemetery; or call a taxidermist (which gives me the willies, but again, it’s a matter of choice). Dr. Benson suggests celebrating the pet’s life by planting a tree and scattering the ashes near it or donating to an animal charity in the pet’s honor. Justin Rudd and Ralph Millero had a beach memorial service for their iconic bulldog, Rosie at the Dog Zone, which Rudd brought into being and where she was the first to charge into the water when it opened. The Zone has been renamed in her honor.

More difficult is dealing with what remains in your heart and memory, and that’s a matter of time.

Always in Your Heart
There will never be another pet like the one who died. You’ll grieve in your own way; the pain will ebb and then suddenly rush back, but it will heal in time. And if you’ve loved one pet—well, the heart has infinitely more rooms than two auricles and two ventricles, and there will always be a place for every pet you’ve ever loved. But the new room has to be ready, and sometimes well-meaning people will offer you a new pet or ask if you’re going to “replace” a pet as you would a worn-out rug need to be told that you’re not ready.

Again, don’t explain yourself other than to say that you’ll do what you’ll do if and when the time’s right. You may decide it on your own, you may foster a rescue pet and “flunk fostering” (as I did four years ago and now have Mildred as a result), or love may literally walk into your house in the form of a stray or an abandoned pet who needs unconditional affection as much as you do. Weeks later, you’ll find that, although no one will ever replace your departed friend, you’re in love again. As Maude said when she was breathing her last and Harold tearfully told her he loved her, “Oh, that’s wonderful, Harold! Now go out and love some more!”

Dr. Bill Benson may be reached at 310.849.9399. Click here for his Doc Talk broadcast about pet bereavement.

Pet Projects

Help find this kitty
Attention all Belmont Shore-area residents: Please call the number on this flyer if you should see a cat that matches Chace’s description, or e-mail us here. No photo is available. Chace ran off during the fire and may be frightened, so approach gently. It was too late for the other two cats to be saved by the special oxygen masks donated by Friends of Long Beach Animals to the LBFD. This was a horrible way to start Thanksgiving; in fact, we had three fires in town on that day. Our hearts are with them all.

New Farmer’s Market to offer pet licensing
Long Beach Animal Care Services is now offering pet licensing, spay/neuter vouchers and information about animal adoptions each week at the Old McDonald’s Farmer’s Market, which has newly opened from 8:30am-2:00pm every Sunday at the corner of Spring Street and Clark Avenue. Admission is free and parking will be free at a nearby parking structure.

“We are looking for ways to make it easier for residents to register their cats and dogs”, says John Keisler, Manager of Animal Care Services, “The Old McDonald’s Farmers Market is a perfect place to connect with residents and educate about responsible pet ownership.” Residents will be able to pay for cat and dog licenses, submit rabies inoculation records, and provide proof of altering to get their pet licenses current. Click here for more information about pet licensing.

Increase in Rabid Bats Found in LA County Prompts Concern
With an unusually high number of rabid bats recorded in Los Angeles County so far this year, the Department of Public Health is reminding all residents to avoid touching any wild animals, especially bats. So far in 2010, 21 rabid bats have been detected countywide, compared to an average of 10 per year.

“The reason for the increase in the number of rabid bats reported in LA County is unclear,” said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, director of Public Health and Health Officer. “Regardless, it is important that all county residents understand the potential dangers posed to themselves and their pets, as most of these rabid bats have been found in and around homes. Make sure that children know to leave bats and other wildlife alone, and keep pets away from wild animals. If you see a sick bat or other sick animal, contact your local animal control agency.

Make sure that your pets’ vaccinations—cats and dogs included—are up-to-date. If you are bitten by a wild animal, contact your doctor immediately to determine if you need rabies post-exposure treatment. If your pet has been found with a bat or other wild animals (except for rodents, rabbits or squirrels), report the exposure to the Department of Public Health Veterinary Public Health and Rabies Control Program by calling (213) 989-7060. Click here for more information.