When Your Pet Dies: A Guide to Mourning, Remembering and Healing

I enjoyed that book. I lost my poodle Oct.23 2018 and I can't get over his death He was 16 years

This book is part memory book and part written exercise book designed to help you put down in words all the things you want to say to your deceased pet. Your sadness, grief, fears, maybe guilt, your shared joys, deep love and never ending remembrance of them. Its sad, its painful to do sometimes but it really moves grief towards mourning, which as it points out, is an externalized emotion. And necessary for healing. I found it immensely useful.

I discovered this book when I lost my 2d dog to cancer. She was a rescue and had been with me only 2.5 years - cancer took her in 9 weeks. The grief was overwhelming, both the anticipatory grief as I watched her health failing and the actual grief when she was gone & my heart was broken without her. This book validated that grief and gave me permission to feel it without concern if others thought it was silly - it's a natural reaction to the wonderful, close connection I had with her and is a testimony to what a wonderful dog she was. This book helped me work through the grief process and get to the other side in a healthy way and I wish it had been available to me when my first dog died. I loaned my copy of this book to a friend when she went through this sad process with her beloved dog and she said it was a great help to her too. If you are hurting because your pet has died, get this book. It will help you grieve & help you heal.

Written by a grief counselor and director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, this text is divided into three main topic sections: mourning, remembering, and healing. The author walks the reader through the process of grieving and mourning after a pet's death in simple terms. The intended purpose is to help the adult reader accept the death and grieving process. Personal stories of people who have lost a pet are interspersed throughout the book. Several pages in the mourning section are workbook pages for the reader to write expressions of love and grief for their pet. The text is not condescending, but rather supportive of the reader and therefore helpful to anyone having difficulty dealing with the death of a pet.

This is a neat little book, very special. I think it would be very helpful for those facing the loss of a pet. As a veterinarian, dealing with owner grief is an important part of my practice. I'm happy to recommend this to all of my special clients who may experience the trauma associated with pet loss. Well done! Shawn Messonnier DVM author, 8 Weeks to a Healthy Dog, The Allergy Solution for Dogs, and the award-winning The Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats (...)

As an animal lover myself, as a certified hospice bereavement counselor, and as another author who's written about pet loss and specialized in pet loss counseling since 1992, I loved this book. Like all the rest of Alan's books, this one is clearly stated, clinically accurate and beautifully written -- and it comes from the heart of the author's own personal experience with pet loss. Because Alan Wolfelt is so very well known and respected in the field of death education and counseling, I believe his book about pet loss will do more than help bereaved animal lovers. I think it will lift the experience of pet loss into the mainstream of professional grief literature where it rightfully belongs, and that alone is a cause for celebration. For many years I have felt that uninformed and insensitive mental health professionals can do more damage to disenfranchised bereaved animal lovers than any member of the lay public can do, because they should know better -- and it is up to those of us who know the agony of pet loss to teach them. I want to thank Alan for writing this book, and I wish him every success in its sales and distribution. For my part, I've already listed it under the BOOKS ABOUT PET LOSS category on the Articles and Books page of my own Grief Healing Web site (http://www.griefhealing.com), I've recommended it to both pet loss support organizations with whom I consult, and I will continue to recommend it to my clients and participants in my pet loss support groups as well.