Ms. Goodfriend, 79, who began counseling pet owners in 2005, attributed this increase to the pandemic, which she said has made people “more aware of grief and more inclined to express it.”
Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, which has served Manhattan since 1910, has offered a free pet loss support group to clients since 1983. Susan Cohen, 79, a veterinary social worker, came up with the idea for the group, saying it started with about five people attending each in-person session. By the time she left her job at the center in 2011, that number had doubled.
The demand for such meetings prompted the center to expand its offerings: there are now several grief groups that meet several times a month for video calls. One is aimed at people whose animals have died within the last three months, while another is aimed at owners who are still grieving pets that died within the last year. Judith Harbour, 40, a veterinary social worker at the center who runs the bereavement groups, recently launched a third group for owners of dogs with serious health problems. Each group has 20 participants from across the country and some have waiting lists.
Participants come from a variety of backgrounds, Ms. Harbor said, and range in age from 18 to 85. The pets they mourn include not only cats and dogs, but also session-trained turtles, cockatiels, parrots, lizards, horses and rabbits, she said.
Ms Harbour, whose duties include providing daily advice to individual clients and vets at the centre, said many group participants had said they felt unable to fully express their grief over a dying pet to those close to them. Some felt judged for grieving the loss of their pets, she said, while others felt rejected by loved ones who told them to get another pet and move on.
She said the pain of a pet’s death often goes unnoticed by the community and society at large: “When you go through something like that, you really feel invisible and kind of on your own.”
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2024-02-04 10:02:22
www.nytimes.com
