Peace of Mind for Pet Parents Episode 62: After the Loss: What Your Surviving Pets Need and What They Give Back

Episode Transcript: 

Karen Wylie: Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents. I'm Karen Wylie here as always with my wonderful friend and colleague, Gail Pope. Today we're going to talk about something that I think many of you have probably wondered about, maybe even worried about when you're going through the loss of one of your own animal family members. You start to wonder what's going on among them: what they're thinking and feeling and how they're adjusting. Are they actually grieving? Are they just confused? Do they understand what happened, and what can we do to help them through it?

This is a topic that is close to Gail's heart as well as mine because between us, we have many years of having larger groups of animals than the average family does. We watch them play together, live together, love one another, and they lose each other. We believe they grieve just like we grieve their loss. 

Gail, let's start with you because at BrightHaven in the sanctuary, that was a larger family environment with many different animals. I think it'd be interesting for our listeners to hear your thoughts or your observations where you may have seen how the other animals would cope when one member of the family would die.

Gail Pope: An interesting question. It's really broad for me because I have to take myself back to sometimes the years, but at least the months and days before the death when the period of anticipatory grief is there. So we've seen particular animal friendships grow and even develop further during the end of life period. I think after the death, we do generally see a change in those animals where they become quieter. Well, humans are animals. Animals are humans. It's all the same thing, but the same grief response that they do get quieter, they do draw into their shells a little more. Yes, it's the same. Maybe they don't eat as much. They're more solitary and so it makes total sense that they would do that.

Others where I've seen groups of animals, like obviously the famous Ollie group, those six cats were with him for weeks before he left. They all showed different grief. So that was interesting to me because none of them were particularly close to him as friends before he wound down to the end of his life. That they were all there as doulas while he was dying. Then after he died, there were those like Beauregard, who was like the chief doula, he sat with him even after Ollie was dead. He laid down, he put his arm round Ollie's neck, and he put his head on top of Ollie's head and he just lay there with him. So he expressed his grief in that way and he stayed close.

Whereas one or two, Barney for instance, after Ollie breathed his last, Barney went off to the kitchen to see if there was any food coming. It was like, "I've done my job." It wasn't done nastily in any way, but it was like he had closure. So I think animals are very much like humans. We all grieve differently in different situations with different people and with different animals too.

Karen Wylie: Depending on how close they've been, how distant they are, sometimes I think they're reconciling any differences they had. I'll see two animals come together that during most of their lifetime weren't the best of friends. But then toward the end, there seems to be some reconciliation, some resolution, some baseline that they were able to achieve. At least that's what I've seen. And of course, when I had the larger numbers of cats, it was because I was in a purebred breeding situation. So I had several generations of family members. Over time the ones I would keep till their bodies give out between 15 and 20 for the most part. I would have a lot of them that had been together for 10 years or more. They didn't know what life was like without certain family members being there.

Gail Pope: Yes, they had a deep family bond and that would be very understandable to be much more like the human way of grieving, wouldn't it?

Karen Wylie: That's what I saw for mine. It's largely as I know, I've shared it other times, it's why I felt it was so necessary to have our own version of a wake because of those close relationships. Because mine were behaving in some ways like doulas, like you would describe, mine often laid together as a group on the couch or a group on a chair, or being together on a cat tree. So having them all together while one of the family was declining was just part of what happened.

Gail Pope: It was family.

Karen Wylie: It was family. So it wasn't like I had to isolate the one who was declining. Everybody was trying to take care of the one who was declining in some way. Whether it's giving them a little space, a few inches away if they thought that was needed or lending their body warmth, getting right up next to them.

Gail Pope: Grooming was always a big one. They groom them a lot, don't they?

Karen Wylie: You're absolutely right because that's one of the first things we start to see during a natural decline. That the energy is going toward living and not focusing much on cleaning up.

Gail Pope: Yes, exactly.

Karen Wylie: So the family members would take care of that. So I really was motivated to try to find ways to help the rest of the kits cope afterwards. Then of course I've also seen it between cats and dogs. Most noticeably what I've spoken about with the two Aussies, Chey and Livy, and their kitty, Mr. Hope. That was difficult for them and they were present during his palliative care for two and a half years and the last three months of his life. We probably should have considered it hospice because he was on a lot of medications but he still acted as a member of the family.

But I think they knew, I think they had a sense. It took them a while. Their eyes would go to his cat tree, their eyes would go to his bed on top of Chey's crate. They would always be visually, of course they're herding dogs and with Hope being a member of the family, they were always looking. I would say that went on for several weeks. It was not just a day or two. It was very much, "WHERE IS HE?"

Gail Pope: I think one of most things that we always used to do, I don't know for some people perhaps it's not as important, if the animal that had died had a favorite bed that they used, I would leave it where it was. It would be very clear that other animals would go up to it, sniff and smell it, walk right by it. They all behave differently, but nobody used that bed. Then eventually I would pick up the bed and find it a different home. Wash it if it needed, or put clean blankets in it and then someone would claim it right away. It's a new bed. But while it was there and it was his bed or her bed, they honored that bed. So they had their own way of honoring too.

I think when the animal has passed on initially, allowing them to be with the body is also important. Some not, and others as I've said before, would just literally walk over them as though they couldn't even see them or didn't care. Others would go and spend time or give them a quick lick and walk on but they would acknowledge the body. I always wondered whether it was that they're higher beings than us, obviously, and they realized it was the Earth House and the spirit was no longer there so what? Giving him a quick lick and he's not there. "Cute house. Off we go."

Karen Wylie: I do think that for those of us who provide hospice care for our pets over a period of time, the other pets in the family can make observations and can adapt and they seem to cope pretty well.

I believe I've mentioned it another time on one of our podcasts, I did have an emergency surgery, a cat, a few years ago and he survived the surgery but within an hour died. He came home, I brought his body home, I guess maybe say 36 hours after I had brought him to the ER. The two cats, their critical group— there was a group of three kittens that we took in during COVID so they wouldn't be sitting in the shelter for seven months. So they were a pretty tight group.

The guy that died during the surgery, Gunner, he and his sister Giselle, they looked like twins. They behaved like twins, always together. This happened when they were about three years old and I brought him home and the clinic had a little white cardboard casket basically for him. They'd wrapped him in beautiful little fabrics and I brought him in and I arranged him for the two. I always think of them as kittens. They're six years old now. I put him on the floor in this bed so that they could easily access him. His sister was almost glaring at him — just staring and staring. She went over to his body and smelled his body. She took her paw and she started hitting him just because I don't think she could—

Gail Pope: There was no energy. He wasn't there but the body was just there.

Karen Wylie: Yes, and I swear she was angry. It was confusing. There was anger and then she'd move away two, three feet away and just sit there and kind of look around. Then she'd be looking back at him. She'd be looking around, looking back at him, and then she'd come over and she'd do the same thing.

Gail Pope: Wow.

Karen Wylie: And you know, I've been so used to natural decline and natural transition.

Gail Pope: That was different.

Karen Wylie: It was very different. I haven't needed to euthanize a pet in many years. So for that death to happen as a result of emergency surgery, this kind of thing I know happens to everybody at some point, but it is very different. I saw that family group of animals act very differently. They didn't use his bed. They were looking for him for a long period of time. It does seem to affect them.

So I guess the next part is what do we do? How can we help them cope? I know one of the things I have tried to do, and this may be something you do also, is that I try to keep to the household routines the best I can.

Gail Pope: Yes, that's good for us too. It's a time when everybody's grieving. So, routine I think is very important. Feeding, dinner time, all the things that you're used to, maybe they're not so exciting for a little while but gradually I think the animals get back into the routine because it is something they can hold onto.

Karen Wylie: Yes, and if we do keep to the routine, that encourages them to keep to the routine and we're more likely to notice who's having a tough time and who's coping okay. If all of our habits and routines of the days or weeks or totally off, we're going to miss who might be having a tough time.

Gail Pope: You know, one of the things that's coming back to me now that I have seen is if I'm having a tough time then other animals will come to me, to be with me, to help me. Those that wouldn't normally come and sit on my lap would come and be with me and rub up against me and "Oh, it's okay." So they would console me rather than always the other way around. So that was very beautiful.

Karen Wylie: It is beautiful— in sensing your energy.

Gail Pope: Yes, cats are so good at that, don't they? Dogs too, I think. They come and sit in front of you and put a paw on your lap and look lovingly into your face when you're crying. That just makes you cry more, doesn't it?

Karen Wylie: And they say, "Let me take those tears away." And they're licking your face incessantly.

Gail Pope: Exactly. Exactly. What would we do without them?

Karen Wylie: Oh, God knows. I can't imagine my life without them. My hands have always had an arm full of a cat or two or more. In fact, yesterday, I think I had mentioned to you that what made me want to talk about this kind of stuff today was that I was looking at Facebook for a few minutes while I was having my morning tea yesterday. A video from a rescue, a farm rescue that would take in all different kinds of farm animals, was showing two horses grieving as a goat member of the family was being hauled away in a trailer. Good for the goat. The goat was not going to be the only goat. He was now going to live with another family of goats and goats are very social.

So I'm sure that sounded very good to them and perhaps great to that one goat. But at the same time, the goat was calling to the horses and the horses were running the fence. Their little friend had been packed up and was leaving.

Gail Pope: Oh, that's so sad.

Karen Wylie: It's so easy for us to notice the relationships when they're underfoot in our homes and in our beds and walking them every day or whatever. But the farm animals have very strong relationships as well. I know I said this to you yesterday too. The only thing I think Facebook is great for is that they have shown animals having relationships with one another, how smart they are, how sentient they are. For the last 15, 20 years, however long Facebook has been a factor in our lives. I think that's changed our culture in a lot of ways.

Gail Pope: Oh gosh, yes. Let's hope so.

Karen Wylie: Let us hope so. We've talked about BrightHaven as a large group environment. Mine is still a group environment, but a little smaller. Then of course, last fall you lost Purrci and Andy in a two week period last September. You and I had a conversation about it on a podcast episode that we published that is still our most downloaded episode.

Gail Pope: Oh, wow!

Karen Wylie: Here eight months later and that was when we're focusing on how different it was for you to have gone “from we to me”. Now you had one pet, one dog, and that was very different for you.

Gail Pope: It still is. I find myself talking more and more recently about the sound of silence. It's deafening and it's hard to adjust. It's lonely. I think for me, it's a little bit different because my one dog, Ollie is not only 18 years old but he's deaf and blind. I don't know his history. I wish I did but he has absolutely no understanding of affection. If I cuddle him, there's nothing. If I pick him up and I hold him, he wants to get down. I sit on the floor with him so he's more comfortable because he's blind, so it's not scary. You can almost hear his brain saying, "What in the world is she doing?"

So that makes it more difficult because it brings back the highlight of the loneliness of grief and the loneliness of just being without the love of animals around you. Except I shouldn't say that because I know Ollie loves me. I've only got to move from my desk. Whether I smell really strongly, I'm hoping it's just my beautiful energy. I move. He follows me. He follows me to the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the front door, to the back door. Wherever I go, I have him with me and that is just— I've learned to accept that because that takes away my loneliness because although I can't cuddle him in the way I want to, I know how much he loves me.

So that is very reassuring. At this time of my life, I know that another cat is going to— I can't be without felines and I know the right feline is coming and she will knock on my door at the appropriate time. But it is difficult because for people like me who are this senior in our lives, we have to be very careful about animals that we adopt into our family of one. It's a big responsibility whether you are married or you live in a community of some sort.

But when you are on your own and you are elderly, you have to think carefully about planning for the future. If something happened to you tomorrow, what would happen to your animals? And that's something that you and I have talked about quite a lot and it really comes up and it's very prominent in my mind. Luckily, I have family close by. They're just worried that I'm going to adopt another hundred cats.

Karen Wylie: Not 100 but maybe not just one more.

Gail Pope: Exactly. They'd be fine with one or perhaps even two. But it's a difficult thing when you're used to the love of animals and you find yourself in a situation as a lot of people do that in their living accommodation, maybe they simply can't have another animal. And that I think is a huge grief on its own.

Karen Wylie: That would be huge. I don't think I would live long after that kind of situation. I've always had animals: cats, dogs and horses since I could move. For you, I'm rooting for a pair of middle-aged kitties too because it's hard for them to usually place bonded pairs.

Gail Pope: Yes, I know. I am actually keeping watch, when I think about it, on a local website that I've known for a long time where they take senior special needs, medically challenged. Particularly cats with Ataxia and Cerebellar Hyperplasia. They also have FIP, FeLV. So they're really focused on special needs and from time to time they have bonded pairs.

It's very difficult for them. There was a bonded pair recently that luckily they got adopted. I might just have been drawn into them. They didn't have any illness. They were sisters and they were both blind in one eye.

Karen Wylie: Oh, isn't that interesting?

Gail Pope: I found that absolute fascinating. There were photos of them and it could have been almost the same cat in two photos.

Karen Wylie: Wow. Wow.

Gail Pope: Amazing. They literally looked almost as though their eye was sewn up but there just was no eye. I guess they've been born that way but that was interesting.

Karen Wylie: I'm not surprised that you've been "window shopping".

Gail Pope: I can't help it sometimes.

Karen Wylie: We've been talking about your experience and just for anyone who might be interested in listening to the whole episode. It's episode 30 from September: "When We Becomes Me: Navigating Life When Your Pet Family Becomes One."

Gail Pope: Wow.

Karen Wylie: And I have to say it's one of our best because—

Gail Pope: I've forgotten all about that.

Karen Wylie: We recorded it not even quite two weeks after Purrci and Andy had died. We were talking about it all and I asked you if you'd be willing to talk about it because it was really early in your grieving process. But you shared how you were feeling and what you were thinking about it all and it touched a lot of people.

Gail Pope: I think there's a huge lesson there. I think very often we are almost like tortoises and when we are dealing with grief, we go inside ourselves. For me, I think letting it out, sharing with people who care— it may make you cry, it may make them cry. However, kindred spirits touch the heart and that can only offer healing. So yes, I think I do remember that a little bit now, and it was very special to be able to talk rather than to be shut in this cavern of loneliness and silence that we all experience at the end of life. I think that really is a good lesson to share and care and allow others into your world when you feel lonely like that.

Karen Wylie: Yes because we published it as a podcast episode but it was really the kind of conversation about things that you and I always talk about. We just happened to record it that day. I didn't have an outline. I didn't have a—

Gail Pope: We just chatted.

Karen Wylie: And it doesn't surprise me that it's still the most downloaded episode because you really shared your heart and you were so truthful about your experience. It touched so many people.

Gail Pope: Wow!

Karen Wylie: So even if Mr. Ollie doesn't want or need touch— we need to get you a cat.

Gail Pope: He makes me laugh.

Karen Wylie: That's good.

Gail Pope: His intelligence— they always say, if you lose one sense or another sense, you develop something else. For him, his joy of life is amazing. He'll be so excited, he'll run into a wall because he's leaping and bouncing with joy. He actually loves toys that have a treat hidden in them. It's a puzzle mat of some sort. Oh my gosh. He absolutely loves things like that.

At 18 years old, he'll pick up a ball and fling it in the air and then he'll go and find it. Sometimes he can't find it but for the most part it's fairly close by. He'll find it and then he'll fling it again. But that to me says, there's a puppy inside.

Karen Wylie: Yes, and as you're describing that to me, I don't remember you describing that kind of behavior from him before Andy died.

Gail Pope: No. No, I don't.

Karen Wylie: So that's a totally different adaptation for him because although you rescued the two of them together, found together and you rescued them together, but they weren't always physically entwined with one another.

Gail Pope: No, they were very bonded but not physically.

Karen Wylie: Yes and so it's interesting that Ollie had to adapt because he doesn't have another—

Gail Pope: And he's taken a new lease on life. I think we all thought that after Andy had died and he lost his anchor as it were, that he would slowly wind down. I was prepared for that. It was what I expected but he's wound up instead of winding down which is astonishing. Astonishing for an animal of his age to take on this new lease of life. It's very beautiful.

Karen Wylie: Yes, I think that's an interesting way for animals to adapt after the loss of a family member. Because it was very much him and Andy for a very long time and yet he's found a way to enjoy himself.

Gail Pope: Oh yes, he's got a new lease on life now. It's fascinating. He's got a job, hasn't he? He's looking after me.

Karen Wylie: He's taking care of his mom. Looking forward to year 19. There you go. They find joy in the life that they have. A lesson for all of us to take.

Gail Pope: You know what, I guess we're about finishing off. I wonder if he's here in front of my desk. I'll bring him round and introduce him.

Karen Wylie: Okay, very good. Let everybody see him.

Gail Pope: Oh my word. Hey, look at you. I know. I disturbed you, didn't I?

Karen Wylie: Oh.

Gail Pope: I know. It's okay. Now, prepare yourselves. This isn't the prettiest sight in the world. He's always got a dirty face, and there's nothing I can do about it. Here's the gentleman.

Karen Wylie: Look at that little baby.

Gail Pope: You want to cuddle? He's "Oh."

Karen Wylie: "Oh God. I'll tolerate it. I'll tolerate it."

I always called them the “white grandpaws”. He's still a white grandpa.

Gail Pope: He's chubby but I think he's actually put on weight since Andy left.

Karen Wylie: That's interesting too.

Gail Pope: He's sitting on my lap now and all he can do is turn. He's like, "How do I get out of here?"

All right. All right. I know you want to get down.

Karen Wylie: Mommy's going to let you go. Back to your sleeping area.

Gail Pope: He'll probably go to the kitchen to see if there's any food anywhere.

Karen Wylie: One must have priorities, Gail.

Gail Pope: Yes.

Karen Wylie: Got to have priorities here.

Gail Pope: Actually, the kitchen has always been one of my biggest priorities in life.

Karen Wylie: Then you and Ollie share an interest in something.

Gail Pope: Yes, we both love our food.

Karen Wylie: Both loving your food. Well, as we bring today's conversation to a close, it keeps coming back to something that feels important to name and that is that we started thinking today about other animals and about how we can help them. What is it that they need when other members of the family are lost? When we are all sharing grief in some way because they feel it too. 

But caring for them through their grief as you were saying a little earlier, Gail, noticing them, maintaining their routines, maintaining our routines for ourselves at the same time, giving them space to process their grief in their own way.

That's not a distraction from our own grief about an animal. It's grief expressed as love because God knows we love them. It's what we've always done for the four footers in our care. So Gail, how would you like to close us out today?

Gail Pope: Oh, I know. You probably know what I'm going to say because it's one of my favorite things at the moment that has touched me so deeply and it's always in my mind. That is a short little poem or a quotation from Jamie Anderson. I won't read out the whole thing right now but just the part that touched me, it's only four little lines: "Grief is purely love with no place to go.”

I get goosey every time I think of it because when you think it through, grief is love. I've never thought of it actually as love before. It's sadness, it's sorrow but it's because of the love and so it is the love. And it's very deep.

Karen Wylie: That's just such a beautiful way to look at it. I guess this is a good time to remind everyone that the Rose Ceremony for May is on Sunday, May 10th, so that's coming up in another— not quite two weeks. That is Mother's Day Sunday so that might mean that some people can't come. But for anyone who would like to celebrate the life of a pet that you've lost, whether you've lost them recently or a long time ago, you are welcome to join us. Just go to the BrightPathForPets.com website and the page on the Rose Ceremony. We'll put that link in the show notes so you can find it easily as well.

Gail Pope: Perfect.

Karen Wylie: All right. And with that, we will say thank you as always for joining us and have a wonderful week. Bye-bye now.

Gail Pope: Goodbye.