Healing the Guilt of Pet Loss: Letting Go Without Regret

Losing a beloved pet is heartbreaking, but for so many of us, grief is tangled up with guilt. Did I do enough? Was it too soon? Too late? Did I fail them? These thoughts can haunt us, making it even harder to heal.

I know this feeling all too well. When I had to make the devastating decision to euthanize our 34-year-old rescue horse, Cherokee, I found myself overwhelmed with guilt—even after decades of experience in animal rescue. If you’ve ever struggled with these emotions, you’re not alone.

In this episode of Muddy Paws and Hairballs, I sit down with grief experts Ken Dolan-DelVecchio and Nancy Saxton-Lopez, hosts of The Pet Loss Companion podcast and co-authors of The Pet Loss Companion: Healing Advice from Family Therapists Who Lead Pet Loss Groups. Together, we’re diving deep into:

🐾 Why guilt is a natural part of grieving—and how we can work through it
🐾 The impossible pressure of “perfect timing” and why it never feels right
🐾 How our deep responsibility for our pets can turn into guilt, even when we make the best choices
🐾 The truth about self-forgiveness and how to stop replaying “what if” scenarios
🐾 Ways to honor and remember our pets in a way that brings peace, not regret
🐾 When to seek extra support if guilt is keeping us stuck in grief

If you’ve ever questioned your decisions after losing a pet, this episode is for you. Grief is proof of love, and learning to forgive ourselves is part of healing. Let’s navigate this journey together.

💜 Listen now and take the first step toward releasing guilt and finding peace.

🔗 Resources & Links:
🎧 Listen to The Pet Loss Companion Podcast
📖 Read The Pet Loss Companion
🌍 Visit muddypawsandhairballs.com for more suppor

Quick Update: We’re taking a short break and will be back with a batch of fresh episodes starting August 10! 
In the meantime, binge your way through 100+ past episodes packed with pet-saving sanity—and maybe even solve that one issue that's driving you (and your pet) nuts. 
Catch up, take notes, and we’ll see you soon! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Guilt After Losing a Pet
• 1:32 Meeting Ken and Nancy, Pet Loss Experts
• 4:35 Why Euthanasia Decisions Are So Difficult
• 10:03 The Gray Areas of End-of-Life Decisions
• 17:37 Dealing With Guilt and Self-Judgment
• 34:11 Finding Support After Pet Loss
• 43:37 Meaningful Ways to Memorialize Pets
• 51:18 Moving Forward: One Step at a Time

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:32

If you've ever lost a pet, whether through euthanasia, sudden illness or something completely unexpected, you know how quickly grief gets tangled up with guilt. Did I miss the signs? Should I have done more? Did I make the right call? Even after fostering thousands of animals and experiencing more loss than I care to count, I still found myself drowning in those questions when we had to make the heartbreaking decision to lift up our 34-year-old horse Cherokee. No matter how much experience you have, it is still gut-wrenching, because the love, caring and responsibility we feel for our pets makes their loss really messy. And, by the way, you might have noticed that our music sounds a little different today. I wanted to set a softer tone and be a little bit more reflective for this episode, because it's a heavy conversation, but it's an important one that we need to have. Stay tuned.

Amy Castro: 1:33

Welcome to Muddy Paws and Hairballs, the podcast where we get real about life with pets the joy, the chaos and sometimes the heartbreak.

Amy Castro: 1:41

I'm your host, amy Castro, and today we're diving into one of the hardest parts of loving our animals healing after the death of a pet, especially when guilt and self-doubt threaten to take over your grieving process.

Amy Castro: 1:53

To help us unpack all of this, I'm joined by Ken Dolan DelVecchio and Nancy Saxton-Lopez, the compassionate hosts of the Pet Loss Companion podcast and the co-authors of the book by the same title. Ken is a licensed therapist, author and grief expert who spent years helping people navigate the unique and often misunderstood loss of a pet. Nancy is a licensed clinical social worker who has supported families through both human and animal loss for decades. Together, they've built a safe space where pet parents can process their grief without judgment, and they're bringing their wisdom and warmth to today's conversation. We're going to talk about why guilt after losing a pet is so common, how to recognize that it is a normal part of grief and, most importantly, how to release that guilt so you can truly honor your pet's life and the love that you shared. So, ken and Nancy, welcome to the show. Yes, thank you very much, amy.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 2:49

Nice to be here, Amy.

Amy Castro: 2:51

So glad to have you here. So glad to have you here. Before we kind of get too too deep in the questions, I want to share my own little experience and why this episode is so important to me and why I mean, I know we had talked about doing an episode together for a while and it's. It's taken me a while to come back around to it, but I've just had a recent experience that I said. You know, if I'm feeling this way, after all, I have experienced in rescue than other people are probably suffering through and I'm going to get all choked up again. It's crazy.

Amy Castro: 3:21

So we got this horse named Cherokee when we bought our house in 2018, the people could not find a home for her and they couldn't take her where she was going, and so I get this phone call the night before closing from the cellar crying and asking if I would keep Cherokee, and I thought because she had lived here for 18 years of her life.

Amy Castro: 3:40

She was 34 when she passed away, and so I was like, sure, we'll keep Cherokee. And from there, we ended up acquiring a pony and three donkeys, so she had plenty of companions, but she was suffering with Cushing's, and I have had this experience where I've put I mean, I've put hundreds of animals to sleep, sadly, and I've seen, you know, hundreds pass away in my 14 years of doing animal rescue but this one was just brutal. And I think what made it so hard was it wasn't a black and white kind of thing, it was really I had to make a conscious best decision, looking at different factors and saying, yes, let's do this now versus waiting, versus giving her to somebody else. Why is that decision? Well, even when it is black and white, why is that decision so hard for people? Do you think?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 4:36

I think it is because we so don't want to kill our friend, and it's very hard to move from killing to ending their suffering, and I think that's just an extremely hard decision for us to make, because it's also it doesn't apply anywhere else in our lived experience. Really, it's not something that commonly happens in our experience with other human beings. And so I think jumping the hurdle of killing to ending their suffering and then I think, amy, it's what you were talking about which is there's so much gray, it feels like there's so much gray, and we have a very hard time coming to a decision of this magnitude when there's not absolute certainty.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 5:26

That's right. It's one of those things where you know there's so much going on and you want to make the right decision, but you don't want to make that decision either, right? That's what Ken's saying, right? So you know, and for your horse, I mean, there was also interesting when you were saying that, amy, I'm thinking there were so many other things going on in your life too at that time, right. Your life too at that time, right.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 5:54

And when things are going on in our life that are affecting us, then we have a little more uncertainty about what we're really doing or should be doing, because we're kind of jumbled up with a lot of stuff and you know, we certainly don't want our animals to suffer and you know, ken, and I have done this for a long time. Most people you know, ken, and I have done this for a long time Most people either think that they made that decision to end a life too soon or too late, right? So? Because there isn't any exact time where you could say, yes, what this animal did and at this day, and this is what this animal is going through, which means that I need to make that decision and I'm okay with it.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 6:40

Most of the time people are not okay with it and even though they may intellectually think okay, I guess because the quality of life isn't there or there are others, I think because of your circumstances, the horse could not go with you. I think that was part of the horse could not go with you. I think that was part of with the horse, right, right, with Cherokee, okay. So then you're thinking, oh well, I could, like you said, I could give her away or I could maybe take her, you know, and so that also complicates that decision right, yes, a hundred percent, yeah, and it's.

Amy Castro: 7:21

You know, it's interesting that I literally had the vet scheduled to come out like six months ago she had a really bad summer and it's like, okay, it seemed physically that it was really really time and then she kind of rallied and then I canceled it. But you're right, you know the circumstance and you know the listeners know that I'm in the process of of a move and I talked extensively with the vet about moving her or and I couldn't take her with me. That would be way too much. But even a neighbor down the street offered to take her and the vet was pretty adamant that that would probably in her experience, that generally doesn't turn out well.

Amy Castro: 7:49

The herd doesn't accept them, the animal is too stressed from the change in environment because she's been here so long. Is that person willing and able to provide the? Because she needed pretty, you know, she needed some medical care that was not cheap and medication that was not cheap, and so I had all of that going in. And it's interesting you brought up the timeline is, and both of you mentioned it. It's like when it's black and white it's easier and it's like it even came down to the fact that here I am, we're sitting here now.

Amy Castro: 8:20

At the end of February I made the decision and I did euthanize her. I think it was two weeks ago. You know, I could have waited another month. I probably could have waited another two months. I don't know when my house is going to sell, and so it was like making that decision to just make the decision. What guidance do you give people as far as like, how do you navigate through that? And I'll tell you what I did in the end was I ended up. I actually looked into chat, gpt and said ask me some questions that will help me make the right decision, and it was incredible. The questions that I asked.

Amy Castro: 8:52

But yeah, but because I, you know, as somebody that does rescue, I could do the quality of life thing, and I realized that, you know, there's certain factors that are just a little more black and white for me, but there was still so much gray and so much guilt about making the decision.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 9:09

We do use a quality of life skill, but on top of that, that's subjective right. How do we know that they're having it Animals? But on top of that, that's subjective right. How?

Amy Castro: 9:17

do we know that?

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 9:17

they're having it. Animals can't tell us really, so how do we know they're having a bad day or not, or how? I mean? We can watch them drinking or their food intake or their mobility, but how do we know when they're in pain? Right, yeah, yeah, really.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 9:28

I'll say that one of the things that I think is most valuable is consultation with other people. So, yeah, so you're not alone in the decision, if at all possible, that there's a veterinarian who, optimally, has some history with the animal and has some knowledge of where they are now relative to where they are the last time, the last visit, the last few months, and that you talk the decision over with people who love and respect you and hopefully also have some familiarity with your animal, because it is a, it's a major decision and it's a really good thing to have support with it.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 10:08

so that's what I think. I also believe that in a crisis, we are apt to be riddled with anxiety. We're at the vet's office we brought this happened to me a number of times. I bring my animal companion there. I know they're having a hard time, but now I'm told that I have to make a decision, that they're dying, and I feel like we need to give ourselves grace and say okay, we take the information we got from the veterinarian, we look at them, we get a sense of where they are, we sit with it for a very short period of time because we don't want them to be lingering in great distress, and then, if we make the decision to euthanize them, we remind ourselves that we made the best decision that we could with the information at hand at that time. We keep reminding ourselves of that, because what will happen is almost always we'll come back and we'll just torture ourselves with questions. Shouldn't I have taken them home and waited a little while longer? Shouldn't I have gotten another opinion? Should I have taken them 50 minutes away to the emergency, where maybe they could be in an oxygen tent? Or should I have had the surgery that they said was vaguely possibly going to actually give them more time.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 11:27

Ultimately, it comes down to just being very kind to ourselves. One of the things that Nancy and I will ask people is if this were a friend of yours who was telling you the story that you're telling us now, how would you support them? Would you say, oh my God, did you think of this? Did you think of that? Why didn't you do this? No, probably not. Many people, particularly the kind of people who are so conscientious with their animal family members, are so much more empathic toward others than themselves, and so you can ask them what would you tell somebody who you loved and respected who is telling you the story you're telling us now?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 12:11

And it can free them a little bit to not be so damning and be so challenging of themselves and try to be kind to themselves.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 12:40

It is painful, it is sad, but guilt is really difficult. Because any, I would say, the majority of people who, even if the animal goes missing, even if there was an accident, why didn't I let my cat out that day?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 12:51

Why did I do that?

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 12:51

Right. It's always there and it's really hard to work through because, like I was saying, we can't take it away from you. But hopefully, as you talk about it and as you work through it, that you will eventually be able to forgive yourself and incorporate the loss, because guilt is just. It's really a difficult and challenging emotion to go through and most of us have it with our animals.

Amy Castro: 13:20

Yeah. Well and with people too.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 13:23

Yeah, yes, with people too.

Amy Castro: 13:27

It's a similar process that we go through in making some of those decisions. I want to hit a couple of things that you mentioned. First of all, like Ken, you had mentioned about the veterinarian being able to guide you and I have many fantastic veterinarians because of the rescue for various types of animals that the challenge that I think people might run into and maybe you can address this is that it's fairly rare, unless it's a real black and white, that the veterinarian will say yes, I think you should do this today. I literally told the vet when she came out here I'm probably going to euthanize her, but bring her Cushing's medicine, like you know, six months worth. Just in case I changed my mind, like I, I was still.

Amy Castro: 14:11

I was still because I wanted her to look at her that last time. But you know she would say things like you know, I support you in this decision. I don't think it's a wrong decision. And when I start, you know and maybe this is just the communication maniac in me there's a big difference in saying I support you in this decision or it's not a wrong decision and saying it is the right decision. You should absolutely do this today.

Amy Castro: 14:33

So that makes it a little bit hard, do this today, and it makes so that makes it a little bit hard, and I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that because they don't want to add to that guilt and that feeling that you feel, because it's like, oh, I could have waited till the weekend when my daughter came home from college or something like that, and could have said goodbye to the pet or you know things like that.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 14:50

It's really it's really difficult for veterinarians because many years ago years ago they would say right.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 14:56

I think that they were more apt to say, no, I think you need to do this, but they got so much push back right and people would get really angry and they wanted to know. But they didn't want to know, right. So what they do is really what your veterinarian is doing. Well, you know it's not a wrong thing. And they're thinking well, you're not saying you should do it, you know. So there's a lot of question around that, but they are taught now not to really say too much. Now, that said, some people will say well, what would you do to the veterinarian? What would you do if it was your animal?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 15:33

That's my question to them. I was just thinking the same thing.

Amy Castro: 15:37

I always ask that question, yeah.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 15:40

What my veterinarian has said and this has happened on three occasions, I guess, in the last several years. What she'll say is well, clinically there is no path to health here, but you love her, so you have to decide. She'll always make that decision. She'll say, clinically, this is the way it looks and she's not going to get better, but you have to make the decision. And then she'll kind of look at me like do the right thing, ken.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 16:13

Wink, wink, nod, nod. Yeah, I find that.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 16:17

I'll say what would you do if she were yours? And she'll be pretty clear about it. I mean pretty definite, like I would. I would let her go, I would ease her out, yeah, and I always feel like they won't tell you what to do because they fear liability, they fear a lawsuit right as yeah.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 16:34

As we are an incredibly litigious society, people sometimes get outrageously emotionally overwrought in their recriminations and they'll say well, you told me, and so I can understand that. I also think it's important for people to realize the position that the veterinarians are in and to not see them as a God figure or somebody who has the ultimate responsibility, because we do have the responsibility, and that's why I think that the guilt is so profound and I think the guilt is so profound because we've had responsibility for every aspect of this animal's care and life, what they eat, what they do during the day, the environment in which they live, food we give them the medication we give them the company they keep.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 17:27

We are in control of all of that and we're responsible for all of that. And so many people feel, I believe, that we should be responsible for preventing their death, and I think that this also ties into the fact that mainstream culture is incredibly phobic about the reality of death.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 17:49

And we need to get more comfortable with the reality that every living thing dies. Every one of our animal companions is going to die, we're going to die, our friends are going to die, our children are going to die. We're all going to die and that is not a catastrophe. That is simply the law of nature and we do not have control over it. And I feel like people just beat themselves up because their animal died and you know. Really, the question is you didn't expect this to happen.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 18:18

Most, of our animal companions have much abbreviated lifespans compared to us, and so, when we adopt them into our family, we know that we're likely to lose them and it's very important to just keep that in mind and, as the time approaches, to realize that we cannot prevent this from happening.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 18:45

We can make decisions about how to help it happen in the most comfortable fashion and we can take the best care of them through illness and infirmity, but we cannot prevent them from dying. And really the last gift the way I see the last gift that we give them, is as painless as possible, a transition when there is no path forward. I remember making this decision with my mother when she was at the very end of her life and was having a conversation with my brother who wanted to do everything possible, including coding her again, you know, the defibrillator which had really traumatized her and I remember saying to him very pointedly I said our task now is to help her die as comfortably as possible. There is no path back to health. That is not possible. That's why we're in hospice. We don't want to just create more trauma for her. She is transitioning out of this life and that's what happens. Our animals, if we're lucky, if they're lucky enough not to be killed in an accident or an emergent medical crisis. That's where we're going to end up with them.

Amy Castro: 19:53

Right right medical crisis.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 19:56

That's where we're going to end up with them, right, right, sometimes. I mean, you know, ken, there was one of our people that came on the podcast and he's still struggling, and you know it's complicated because I think Amy, with Cherokee it was a little complicated, right.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 20:10

So his animal was elderly, had dementia and had mobility issues. Okay, and this was his sole dog, right, he loved this dog, but he was the only one taking care of the dog and there were issues in the family and they're like, oh, the dog's up all night because he's sundowning and all this and he had a bad bat. It was really difficult. There were so many things. When he had decided maybe we should euthanize him, the vet came love this vet, know her great vet. But what happened is? He asked, is this the right thing? And she said well, look, the dementia is going to be a problem. Maybe he has another few weeks around his mobility, right, he chose to euthanize him and then, boom, it was like he could have had a few more weeks.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 21:09

Why did I do this? Why did I do this? She said that, you know. And so I had to work really long time with him, you know, to kind of go through that guilt, because after, obviously, the death, he was not doing all that physical work. He felt better, and the more he felt better, the more he believed that he did the wrong thing. And this is what guilt does to us and, like Ken said, it's really hard and we have to slowly work through it and not be so hard on ourselves.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 21:38

And I think that's an important point, Nancy that with the death of a loved one, there are also some changes that we experience as relief, as opportunity, and that doesn't mean that we don't grieve for them. It doesn't mean that the loss is not very important to us, and it doesn't mean that we're betraying them.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 22:01

It's just the way life changes and this is something again that people feel like did I do this to free myself from this burden? And they have to go back and say, no, I did it because it was the appropriate thing to do to end their suffering. I mean, to me, the phrase that keeps coming back is end their suffering. That's what you do and, as you said, one of the things that you notice over time is how many people think they did it too soon and how many people think they did it too late. There are some people who are absolutely okay with the timing.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 22:39

We do hear that with some regularity but it's much more likely that there's like this whole swirl of recriminations, of woulda, shoulda, couldas, and I've said this many times. One of the things when I get any of those kinds of feelings, things when I, when I get any of those kinds of feelings, I look at the boxes that have their ashes, I mean it's real, it's a little morbid maybe, but it immediately orients me to the fact that they're not here anymore. And this is not helpful, because there's there's nothing, there's nothing good that will come from this, this chewing on this emotionally more and more and more, and so the reality is you did the best time that you could at the time, and their life is over. We don't know what that means ultimately for any of us, but you're not going to change that. There's no way to change it.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 23:32

Right, but you're also never going to forget them, right.

Amy Castro: 23:35

You're never going to forget them.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 23:36

We talk a lot. These animals are so important to us, right? They give us such gifts and such love and you can't have a relationship with a human like you can with an animal. So it doesn't mean that they may be gone and that's devastating and there is guilt around it trying to work through the guilt. But they're always with us, you know, and we have to remember that because you know they gave us that wonderful life with them for so many years. And sometimes and sometimes I mean people get really angry when it's so soon. You know when something happens when they're young, but if they're older and have gone through a lot of life, you know it's a little bit different, but they still have given us so much right.

Amy Castro: 24:24

Definitely yeah. And do you think so? Because, ken, you had mentioned, you know, when people question themselves and they say, did I do this for me or did I do this for them? I and maybe I'm wrong on I don't think I am, but I I feel like I did it when I did it for both of us, I think it was time.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 24:44

Could she have?

Amy Castro: 24:45

could she have gone on longer time? Could she have gone on longer? But we did an episode with the founder of Lap of Love a while back, the home hospice in euthanasia, and she said and I'm not going to quote her exactly and I don't know if this is her saying or from somewhere else, but better a week too early than a day too late. And Ken, you kind of alluded to that as well, and so part of my thinking was kind of going back to the questions that I asked myself. You know, like quality of life for her, because they're obviously it's different for dogs and I think it is important. And Nancy youT was, you know, for a horse. Remind me, what are those, what are those elements? And you know horses are herd animals. Her entire herd had been systematically kind of removed. The pony got adopted, the donkey got adopted, the other donkeys got adopted because we knew she wasn't going to be going anywhere. And you know as much as I would look out the window every morning and hope, oh, she's laying down, maybe she. You know, like I hoped I wouldn't have to make that decision. You know it ultimately came down to the fact of, yes, it was like Ken said, her health was not going to get better. The vet had mentioned the summer was coming and it was going to be brutal because of the. You know, the heat is just a lot for a Cushing's animal to handle. The heat is just a lot for a Cushing's animal to handle.

Amy Castro: 26:07

But there was a little bit of self-serving in there as well, because, although she was not hard to take care of, here I'm trying to sell my house. I've got this old kind of sickly-looking horse. I didn't want people to come and think, oh, you're not taking care of that horse. And, as morbid as this sounds, I thought about the fact of if I wait till the very, very end, you know, if I'd waited another month, let's say, now I have this big burial mound in my pasture and everybody's going to say what's that? And now I've got to tell them there's a dead horse in their backyard, kind of thing. And you know I didn't want to have those conversations or I didn't want people to feel uncomfortable.

Amy Castro: 26:43

But one of the things that I kind of console myself with is what would have been gained for her to keep her around for another month or two months or whatever. She's out there by herself, you know, I don't know exactly how she was feeling, but I can't imagine at 34 with Cushing's and you know not being not having many teeth left. You know she probably wasn't feeling awesome. You know she probably felt when she was six or seven years old. And so what would I have gained by allowing her to stick around a little bit longer? Maybe I'd felt a little less guilty. I don't know. I mean, I guess part of that is how do you talk yourself through that guilt, like I have these little conversations where I play my own devil's advocate to try to make myself feel better. What else can people do to navigate that guilt?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 27:30

Well, I think one of the things you can do is you can remind yourself of the care that you gave all of those years and how deliberate the decision was, and all of the consultation you had, and that point which the person from Lap of Love and I think that's a brilliant way to put it better a week too early than a day too late and also think of the fact that, indeed, your needs should figure in to the formula. They really should. I mean, if you have an animal that you simply cannot manage to care for anymore and they are at death's door, you need to take care of yourself too, because you deserve to have the capacity to live a healthy existence as well, and all these things are on a continuum. That's what I think makes it so challenging. I mean, we've heard one of the classic stories that Nancy tells is that the people brought their cat to the vet and asked that it be euthanized because it no longer matched their new furniture.

Amy Castro: 28:36

That was true. I've heard things like that myself.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 28:39

One end of a continuum of. You know I have needs too, but what you're talking about is this infinitesimally small other end of the continuum where you have to balance the fact that you have to manage your life too, and so this comes up. We see this a lot, with people who simply cannot pay for what would be needed next.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 29:02

They would become destitute. We recently had a person tell us that their animal was going to cost over $2,000. The animal was very sick. They didn't have any more to their name than $2,000. They would literally be destitute and they decided to euthanize.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 29:20

And what we said to them was you made the right decision because you need to live, you need to have shelter. You did the best you could, which is another way of thinking about this. We do the best we can with all the resources that we have, both internally inside ourselves and accessible to us in the world. But again, I see that, as as long as that's navigated thoughtfully and deliberately, as long as that's navigated thoughtfully and deliberately, that idea of you know we're going to be moving and they're in the process of near death and you know probably be a good thing for this to happen before the closing on the new, on the property that we selling, all of that is reasonable, because they're not, they don't have much time and you need to have an organized life that makes sense too. And so I think that's all of that, again, as long as it's deliberate and it is not just like flippant.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 30:23

Like you know, there's a Monty Python skit where the family is going away on vacation and one of the family members says, well, we have to put the cats down. And one of the other ones asked, well, why? And they said, well, we wouldn't want to come home to a dead cat. Now I mean, it's like that and that's a joke in that, but like that's, that would be the that other end of the continuum. Well, you know, we're kind of done with them. We don't people who give away their pets because they get to be like seven years old and they're not able to go running with them anymore, maybe something like that. That's that other end of the continuum. But we deserve to pay attention to our own needs too and figure them in. That's the way I think about it.

Amy Castro: 31:04

Yeah Well, and you were talking about the financial aspect of the paying for whatever a procedure, medication or whatever to buy what for that pet. It's like you now have put yourself in older pets and that sundowning is not for the weak of heart. I mean it is. You lose a lot of sleep.

Amy Castro: 31:21

You know the older dogs. You have urinate. You're constantly cleaning up pee, you're putting diapers on them and it's like at what point is enough? Enough for for both of you. But you're right at the other end of the spectrum. I remember being appalled when I used to volunteer at animal control in a town over from here and this very nice looking couple came in and they were super excited about the fact that they were retiring and they were going to hit the road in their RV and they wanted to bring their cats in to euthanize them, not to give them up for adoption even. They just wanted to euthanize them and I think the cats were like 10 and 12. It's like I just want to punch you in the face. I'm sorry, that's just wrong. We get it.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 32:14

We see it, figure it out yeah.

Amy Castro: 32:15

I'm sure you see it. Yeah, and we see that all the time, with people coming to the rescue to relinquish pets for what I feel are not the best reasons, but maybe that pet's better off.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 32:27

Well, that's yeah, whenever I hear that kind of story.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 32:29

I'm like you know what kind of life were they living if they were just like an ornament in the home.

Amy Castro: 32:35

Yeah. So if, if somebody is working through this process and they're struggling with the guilt and they've heard what we've said so far and they're still struggling with it, how important is it for people to seek out help, community support and you had mentioned something earlier, ken, about, you know, talking with trusted people. I have found, and this was in my experience when my husband passed away, I was literally on my way to the hospital and he was going to be put on a ventilator, which was kind of the beginning of the end, but uh and but he was conscious and he was part of that decision and, um, I got a phone call from somebody and instead of, I said, oh, I'm, this is what I'm doing, I'm, I'm heading to the hospital for this. And she's like, well, did you ever go see that doctor? I recommended, and I was like, yeah, no, oh, well, you really should have. She could have cured him.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 33:25

And it's like this is not what I want to hear right now.

Amy Castro: 33:27

What a nut and the doctor she was referring to was a total nut job. Like you know, a snake oil salesman kind of kind of person, and it's like, so my point with that is you do need to be careful who you reach out to and not that I reached out to her, but you know who. You share this experience, because not everybody is going to give you the compassion and helpful communication that you need. But where can people find that support?

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 33:53

Well, there's websites. There's a lot online now about like PetLawsorg, petlawscom, aplb, the Association of Pet Laws and Bereavement. You know podcasts, you know Ken, and I do ours, you know yes we'll definitely put links in the show notes to your podcast, for sure. It helps people. I don't think like I can't. We were talking about this last night. Everyone that has written to us that we share on the podcast, right like Amy, they say thank you so much for doing this, because we really appreciate that we don't feel so alone.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 34:31

Isolation is one of the most painful aspects of grieving and I'll also mention that I facilitate a Zoom pet loss group. It's usually on the second Tuesday of the month and it runs from 6 pm Eastern to 7.30 pm. It's a Zoom meeting. It's for anybody who across the world may benefit from coming together. We cap it at 50 people. We usually get about 25 to 30 people and it doesn't cost anything and it's something to see that there are people from everywhere that there might be an English speaking. Yes, people from the UK, from Ireland, there's always people from Australia. We've got recently a person from Saudi Arabia, from Singapore, and they share strengths. Basically, they share stories, they share strengths. There are different points in the journey of coming to terms with their loss, but those kinds of opportunities are really important. I want to just stress something, and Nancy and I have said this many times Be cautious about who you share this with in the workplace.

Amy Castro: 35:38

Oh yeah, it's just a cat. You can get another one.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 35:42

Yes, and sometimes people you know they may have a supervisor who seems very empathic and connected and whatnot, and they tell them about this and now the supervisor thinks that they're nuts and won't give them a new, expanded role, doesn't see them the same anymore, questions their confidence. We've heard this too many times to not mention it. Right, heard this too many times to not mention it, and I'll also say that one of the things that I feel like you experience is comes back to again. Our society has grown so shielded from death and from negative feelings. There's a great book by a journalist she recently died, three or four years ago Barbara Ehrenreich.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 36:26

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book called Bright Sided and it's about the culture of positivity in our society, the idea that you're always supposed to be happy and up and energized and if you're not, well, you just need to get with the program and it's really. There's a whole school of psychology called positive psychology, which I've always seen as being really problematic for this reason, because life includes a full palette of emotions the good, the bad, the painful, the confusing, the awesome. But we have a culture that has grown so apart from negative feelings and I also often mention this that one day I opened up my AOL account. This was quite a many years ago.

Amy Castro: 37:15

I was going to say you're dating yourself now, Ken.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 37:17

I don't really use AOL, I use Gmail. Let's just be clear.

Amy Castro: 37:21

Yes, you do, because I can confirm that I emailed him earlier today.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 37:25

So and there was a headline that said worst catastrophe for Julia Roberts and I clicked on it and her like 91 year old mother had died and while that is sad and painful, it is not a catastrophe and I felt like we were being infantilized, like that headline was so infantilizing like we're not children, we know that people die and that is not a catastrophe, and I felt like it was so emblematic of the very childish way that mainstream culture approaches many things, death among them. But there are people who, like when they hear a story that somebody is dying or their animal companion has died, they find it so rattling that they can't be empathic, they can't just be with you in your distress. Many people they're not practiced at being compassionate.

Amy Castro: 38:20

No, that is a fact.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 38:22

In order to be compassionate, you have to be able to tolerate being in the presence of somebody who is in emotional pain. And if you're not used to being in the company of somebody who has emotional pain and just knowing that you can tolerate what that stirs in you, and just knowing that you can tolerate what that stirs in you, then your impulse is to push it away and to say things like well, you know they were very old and they were very sick and you know maybe you'll get another dog soon and you know they're in a better place now.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 38:54

All kinds of things, all kinds of crazy things that are actually going to be experienced by the person who's grieving as dismissal yeah, exactly you know pretty much, like you're dismissing how I'm feeling right now, when really all that you can do that's helpful is just bear witness and be with them.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 39:11

You can only listen and that's hard for people because, like and you said, they don't want to deal with their own pain they don't want to deal with, with bad things right so they get really nervous or anxious and they say things that they mean well but don't mean well, I mean meaning the context of the person right and that makes it more difficult.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 39:29

Because it increases isolation Right, it pushes the isolation further.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 39:36

Right, and it's also important for grief in total, to try to be gentle with ourselves, right. This is what we've been talking about with the guilt, but it goes along for all of those emotions and it's really hard to take care of ourselves, but it's really important to do so, you know, to try to eat well and to get some rest and to do some exercise. A lot of times it's very difficult to do that, but, you know, but the gentleness, giving ourselves a break, taking care of ourselves, loving ourselves, you know, because this journey, the grief journey, is very challenging and it can be very difficult and complicated depending on the death.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 40:18

It comes and goes. It's not linear. It takes whatever time it takes. There's nothing wrong with you if it takes a long time.

Amy Castro: 40:27

Well, let me ask about that, because that's where my mind was going. I was thinking about what you said about not sharing at work and how somebody might perceive you differently, because you're feeling these big feelings about something that they don't think is maybe of value or deserving of those big feelings. At the same time, is there a place where somebody has gone from quote, unquote, normal grief even though there is a spectrum to a point where they should be seeking?

Amy Castro: 40:56

help beyond you know, maybe beyond a group like a grief counselor or a psychologist or something like that, because they're just stuck or their, you know, their own quality of life has now been negatively impacted.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 41:08

Well, that's complicated grief, there is such a thing and so, yes, at that juncture, if it's gone on and it's still as intense in six months that it has been, you know in the beginning, there's something else happening in there and it would be important for someone, especially around animal loss, to find a pet loss counselor, because even grief counseling which is really it's a difficult thing to do, but grief counseling in general does not necessarily address pet you know I mean you could get a therapist.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 41:41

That's really good with grief counseling, but they don't quite understand the nuances with companion animal loss. So you know it would be helpful to look for an actual pet loss counselor.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 41:53

And I would say also that there's no downside to getting therapy and counseling. I mean, we're both therapists. We've been in therapy ourselves over and over again. You know I'm a crazy person in many ways, Aren't we all.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 42:09

I don't feel like that's a bad thing. I think it's just part of the human condition. Your mental health is a continuum. I don't believe that there are mentally ill people and there are mentally well people. I think we are all floating around on that continuum. I don't believe that there are mentally ill people and there are mentally well people. I think we are all floating around on that continuum and we go to different places, just like all aspects of health the physical, the social, the spiritual, the financial, all of that and so we deserve self-care, and that often comes in the form of a therapist or a counselor. I will tell you that one thing that I always keep in mind is, if you are incapacitated, you can't crack a smile for a period of two weeks you can't get out of bed or you can't go to work.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 42:50

Yeah, if you're incapacitated, you need to see a therapist. If you start having self-destructive fantasies or plans or you're actually hurting, you need to see a professional. And not only. But the language that I always use is deserve. You deserve to see a professional, just like you would see a specialist in any other kind of medical care. You deserve to see a therapist.

Amy Castro: 43:17

Yeah, that's, that's good, definitely good advice. All right, so to wrap things up, I want to switch to not that you know, this is all positive and good advice, but maybe a little a happier note to end on. And we did an entire episode I think I'd mentioned this to Nancy in our back and forth communication about, you know, memorializing our pets and the things, the products and the things, ceremonies, things like that. But what have you seen from people you know, since you're working with people in this area and you've got your groups any particularly unique or interesting ways that you have found that people have, number one, honored their pets but made that something that helped them to move I don't like to use the word move on, but I like to focus on moving forward.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 44:02

Yeah, exactly To incorporate the loss.

Amy Castro: 44:05

I mean a lot of times.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 44:07

You know we've got a lot of gardens. You know memorials in the backyard. You know the little plaques, the dogwoods, or you know the butterfly bushes right, all of that with a little, you see. Or you know the butterfly bushes, right, all of that with a little, you see. It's really. The other day I was working with someone through the death of her cat and the vet said this and I wasn't aware of this I know that a lot of people are getting jewelry now. You can have ashes put into different types of jewelry. She said that tattoos are now taking ashes.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 44:42

I did not know that the tattoos are including ashes.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 44:45

Wow.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 44:46

That sounds interesting.

Amy Castro: 44:47

So I yeah, I would have to talk to my doctor about that before I did that.

Amy Castro: 44:51

Yeah, that sounds a little unhygienic, but who knows right, I mean, it's something you know yeah, but I think that just shows the wide range you know from, from the more common um. You know, I, even I, I I kind of went back and forth on this because I've seen a lot of videos. There's a. If anyone wants to cry, you can go and um, try to find a video about the horse with no tail. But a lot of people will take their horse's tail, um, and I was like I don't know, I was kind of torn about it, like what am I going to do with her tail? But in the end I thought I have this one opportunity and then it's not going to be available to me.

Amy Castro: 45:27

So I did cut some of her hair. I don't know what I'm doing. It got stuck in a moving box and you know. But the young woman that I had, her name was Gia. She actually works at a funeral home in Charleston, south Carolina. I'll put the information back in the show notes on that. But her beloved horse passed away and it was very sudden and she had the tail hair made into a bracelet, so it's amazing the products that are available.

Amy Castro: 45:51

Another thing that Dr Mary from Lap of Love had mentioned was, you know, people doing kind of a last party for their pet and things you know kind of an Irish wake type of thing.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 46:02

Oh sure.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 46:03

Yeah, yeah, before or after the pet.

Amy Castro: 46:06

But yeah, I think you know, finding those kindred people to celebrate the life of your pet and then, whether you do anything with the ashes or not, or whether you do something with the paw print no harm, no foul to get it done and then you can decide later on what you want to do. But I think it's something to consider. If you even think you might want to do something later on like you said, a piece of jewelry or something like that go ahead and get the ashes back so that you have that opportunity.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 46:35

And there's. I mean Ken and I, we've been through this a lot, so a creative endeavor. You know writing a poem, writing a song. You know doing scrapbooks. You know having a little place in the house.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 46:50

Like a lot of people have their little ashes in different.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 46:53

I have teapots right, so I have little teapots.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 46:55

You have all the little boxes. Oh, that's cute.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 46:57

And hair you know, and so our memorial garden, you know, have little plaques or something. Or we had a guy. Years ago there was a man who made guitars and he literally took a white guitar and had his dachshund's portrait on it. Oh, wow.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 47:17

Yeah.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 47:17

Yeah.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 47:17

I mean there's all kinds of things. There's so many. One of the things I've heard a lot recently that I think is very interesting is people carrying artifacts from their dogs so they might go for a walk, and they've always got their dog's collar in their pocket or around their wrist or they keep their tags. It's very interesting to me. We've seen more and more of that, where they do these rituals of repeating and going to places where places that were familiar to them with their animal companion. But they've got something of their animal companion with them, yeah, and it's just very, very interesting to hear how meaningful that is for people. Yeah.

Amy Castro: 47:59

Yeah, but I think it's also okay for people Like one of the things that I have started. I mean I did take the tail hair from Cherokee because I mean she's literally the only horse I had, a horse when I was in junior high, but like other than that, she's been my only real, you know, adult, adult horse. But when I look at dogs and cats, I've had a lot of pets and I noticed that at one point that I had an awful lot of those plastic boxes just lined up on the same shelf with my shoes in my closet. I know that sounds terrible. They were not being honored and it's like, okay, how many pets ashes am I going to stack up? And like, am I going to have to buy a storage unit for these at some point? So what I did was I I couldn't quite just throw them away or get rid of them, but what I did was I took like a little bit from each one and put them in one box. So, just so I still have them.

Amy Castro: 48:50

I didn't, you know, but um, but then even with my last few pets that I've had to euthanize, I got the little paw print that the vet does, but I did not get their ashes back and and I don't feel guilty about that because it's like this is how I decided to do it. Now it's getting the ashes back made me feel better back then I don't. I don't feel that need. Now it's okay to change. So I just want people to realize that no matter what you do, it's about you know your pet is gone. So it's about what brings you comfort. If it brings you comfort to have them, great. If you don't need that and the memories or the photographs or whatever you've got are good enough, then fine. It's not about what other people do, it's about what makes you feel right.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 49:29

No, it's about how you want to do it and how many times you want to do it. What feels?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 49:33

right to you and it could be very different in different circumstances. One of my cats is buried in my garden and I planted a whole bunch of coreopsis on top of her, so it's perennials. Always I, whenever I go by there, I say hello to her.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 49:45

Others of my dogs are all in little little boxes of ashes and chickens I take up and leave for the coyotes up at the woods when they die yeah, I mean yeah and to me like yeah, it's, it's it, but it you know, just whatever makes sense to you individually and because there are not prescribed rituals the way there often is in a community of faith for our human beings, like if you're a part of a particular sect of christianity or whatever other faith. There, when we die there's an expectation that there's a certain pattern of ritual that you're going to go through. That doesn't happen with an animal campaign.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 50:29

It can, yeah, it can, but so we have to. We do what feels right for them and for us at the time.

Amy Castro: 50:36

Right, right. So for somebody that is going through this right now either they're contemplating having to euthanize a pet or they just did it and they're in the thick of things any final thoughts or advice for them?

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 50:49

Yeah, I mean. For me, grief is about putting one foot in front of the other and keep going and you try to be as loving and gentle as we both said toward yourself as you can be and also just accept that this is what you signed on for. The flip side of love is grief, and we will experience it many, many times in life with all of our important relationships and in the end, far down the road, we're wiser and stronger usually.

Nancy Saxton-Lopez: 51:13

Yeah, yeah, also, it's a process. All of the emotions are valid. They're always valid. It's going through the process of them and trying to take care of yourself. The last task of mourning is to take in the loss in your daily activities so that you've incorporated the loss into you and that you can go through your life again. Will you always grieve? Yes, we always grieve. We always think about those who have died. But what they're saying now? The amount of grief is equal to the amount of love.

Amy Castro: 51:54

Well, ken and Nancy, thank you so much. I feel like I just had a therapy session with you both. You can send me a bill afterwards, but I appreciate your experience and your wisdom and advice and I hope that everything that we talked about today is super helpful to those of you who are listening, because you know it's interesting. We've done a couple of episodes, like one that was really one or two that was really directly about the death of a pet, and they always tend to be. I call them the slow burners, because it's not like everybody says, woohoo, I can't wait to go out and listen to that, but it's there when you need it and um and there's have been some. To me they've been some of the best episodes that we have done on the show, including including this one.

Ken Dolan DelVecchio: 52:36

I think too, for being here. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Thank you.

Amy Castro: 52:40

Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs. Be sure to visit our website at muddypawsandhairballscom for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, so you'll never miss a show. And hey, if you like this show text someone right now and say I've got a podcast recommendation. You need to check the show out and tell them to listen and let you know what they think. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.