I found it harder to put my dog ​​down than my father’s death. Here’s what an expert told me about the three stages of grieving the loss of a pet and how you can overcome guilt and sadness

As Scarlett collapsed dead in my arms, I felt my heart break. The worst part of it all was knowing that I had done this to her. It was March 29, 2021, and she had just killed my dog.

I was the one who called the vet and made the appointment, and who made her last meal (the best burger ever from M&S). I was the one who took her to the surgery, lifted her onto the stretcher and held her while the vet put the cannula in her leg.

I motioned for the vet to begin administering the lethal solution and saw what no one else saw, a flash of reproach in her eyes, even as she fell lifeless into my arms.

It was the saddest day of my life, more heartbreaking even than the death of my elderly father six months earlier. It seemed to me to be the right and appropriate closing of a circle and part of the cycle of life, with no decisions to make.

All we had to do was make sure we got there to say goodbye, bid him a fond farewell, and then take care of my mother as she mourned the loss of her partner of 57 years.

The fact that this, the loss of Scarlett, made me feel worse was a source of guilt, of course. She was just a bitch, wasn’t she?

We had also done everything by the book, purchasing a “transition dog,” Vesper, two years earlier so that Scarlett could show her the lay of the land and we would still have a dog to continue the routine of dog ownership (and love) after she was gone.

We had taken the advice that “a day sooner is better than a day later” and made sure to follow up when Scarlett no longer seemed to enjoy or was unable to control her life. We didn’t want her to be that little dog on wheels or in a stroller. We knew that would have upset her.

So why did I feel so bad? I think it was because I felt like God, and not in a good way. I felt like I had ended a life. All my dog ​​had done was love me unconditionally, 100 percent, every minute of his life. And what had I done to repay that love?

Meanwhile, Vesper, no longer simply a dog in transition, was clearly battling her own demons: straight from her litter of puppies to our arms and larks with Scarlett, she had never been alone.

She was now left home alone while my husband, our children and I went out. She couldn’t stand it. She howled and barked every minute we were out. Not ideal when you live in a terraced house.

Over time, when many of my friends told me to get over my god complex and realize that Scarlett had lived a long and good life at 14 and a half, and with the new dog needing my attention and training, I pulled myself together, because she was just a pet…

Until January of this year, when my friend, Killing Eve director Harry Bradbeer, called me to tell me that his beloved dog Socks had just died.

“I’m devastated, Susannah,” he sobbed. “It’s like I’ve lost a part of myself. I can’t stand it. I knew you’d understand.”

As I spoke, I thought sadly of Socks, a wonderfully eccentric dachshund (a cross between a sausage dog and a Chihuahua) we had cared for a couple of times, immortalised as Socks the Wonder Dog in the 2020 adventure film Enola Holmes, which Harry had directed.

“Oh, Harry, I feel your pain…” I said, and then stopped. Because I did feel pain, but not his. Selfishly, it was all mine. A tsunami of misery and horrible grief for Scarlett washed over me, as overwhelming as it had been three years ago, and I couldn’t really speak because of the physical feeling of loss.

Harry and I cried together that day and on a few occasions since. After all, he is the man sensitive enough to convince Phoebe Waller-Bridge not to strangle Hilary the guinea pig in Fleabag, which he also directed, as she had done in her original stage monologue. Animal lovers will be relieved to know that Hilary lived a long and happy life.

But where had my sudden, ugly resurgence of pain come from?

I searched the internet for an explanation and that’s how I found Dawn Murray, a 60-year-old Scottish pet grief counsellor.

Dawn is the founder of the new Association of Pet Bereavement Counsellors (APBC), which brings together independent counsellors across the UK to self-regulate what could become an industry of charlatans preying on and profiting from the vulnerability of others.

I tell her Scarlett’s story: how she was the first dog I had as an adult and the first pet I decided to put down; how I feel like I didn’t own Scarlett, but that she and I were one unit, and that’s why I felt so bad about taking her life.

She clicks her tongue sympathetically and says, “Susannah, you are the person we want to get our message across to. No two people suffer the same way, but we can help.”

For the first time in three years I feel like I’m not being ridiculous.

It turns out I am going through stages of grief, but not the ones we are said to go through when a human dies. The three stages of grieving for a pet are very different, and the feelings of sadness themselves, Dawn says, are easier to resolve.

First, there is anticipatory grief, which is unique to humans, as we are the ones who decide when our animal will die. APBC offers pre-euthanasia telephone counselling to address not only the agony of indecision about what to do with a sick pet, but also the ignorance of what euthanasia actually entails.

Too often, people begin to grieve the loss of a beloved pet before it is even gone and then become consumed with guilt for having chosen the wrong time.

Dawn tells me about a small, elderly woman who suddenly had the strength to lift her huge collie dog up the stairs when she needed to go out, so great was her grief (and denial) about her ill health.

“We can help people in that way,” she says. “We can guide them through the euthanasia process and take away their fear, and remind them that animals want quality of life too.”

“Your Scarlett almost certainly didn’t want to remain as stiff and still as she was. And remember, everything you did was with the intention of making her comfortable and at rest, so you don’t have to feel guilty about it.”

Then there’s private grieving, the feeling of being “just a pet” that means you can’t grieve for more than a couple of days before bottling up your “self-indulgent” misery.

Dawn tells me about a client who had to call in sick to work because he didn’t feel like explaining to his boss why he was so upset.

“These animals have been so important in our lives though,” she says in her comforting West Lothian accent, “is it any wonder we miss them so much? Working from home, you and Scarlett probably spent more time together than anyone else.”

Suddenly, I have a heartbreaking memory of writing my books from the couch in our old kitchen, with Scarlett curled up beside me with her warm, woolly body.

Poodles are always affectionate, but not always as present as Scarlett – I still miss that feeling of closeness. Our son often got chest sick as a child and he still remembers lying on Scarlett and feeling the enormous comfort she could bring him just by being there – we called her “The Nanny”. How could this gentle soul be “just a pet”? Absurd, Dawn and I agree.

Finally, there is “incomplete grief,” when you later pay the price for repressing your grief for the pet and move on.

We both think this is what happened when Harry called me: his news opened the floodgates of my pent-up emotion, overwhelming my fresh sadness as if it had been there three years earlier. Left unaddressed, this can manifest as prolonged grief disorder, a newly recognised mental health condition.

“A guy called me and told me all about the death of his dog Lucky,” Dawn says, “and how he couldn’t accept it at all and how it was affecting his relationship with his current dogs because he was so scared they would die. Turns out Lucky had died ten years earlier!”

One chat with Dawn later — in which she realised he had never understood Lucky’s euthanasia process and had blamed himself for it ever since — and the man walked away informed and comforted, able to see the forest for the trees for the first time in a decade.

After an hour of phone conversation with a pet grief counselor, my grief and guilt have also disappeared. I have shared my “silly” feelings with someone who didn’t think they were silly and has given me the immeasurable gifts of perspective and sympathy.

It also reminded me that maybe I’m living too much in the past; that dogs live only in the present. In fact, we laughed, I should be more of a dog.

I think Dawn is probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever spoken to. She’s been a pet grief counsellor for over 20 years, ever since she lost her mum and her beloved dog, Caz, within weeks of each other and spent a lonely Christmas trying to get over it.

She has since lost over 25 dogs and a few cats (so she knows what she’s talking about) and married her “wonderful husband” Dave, who has a good enough job to support her financially.

This financial help is important, because while over the past two decades Dawn has comforted hundreds of clients (often aged between 35 and 55, only slightly more women than men, surprisingly, but almost all of them softies from the south of England), she has done it all for free.

She spends up to 16 gruelling, exhausting hours on the phone every week, helping vulnerable, tearful people through their grief (mainly dogs, but also cats, horses, rabbits, guinea pigs and even a rat or two).

There are both free and paid advisors on her APBC advisor roster, which we think is totally fair because they provide an experience that takes time and energy away from them. However, Dawn is adamant that she will never charge.

“I’ve always promised that no one would ever have to pay me to comfort them,” she says. “That way, this service is open to everyone and that’s important to me.”

Later I take Vesper for a walk and I feel lighter than I have in months.

See: apbcounsellors.co.uk; livingwithpetgrief.com An e-book, Introduction to Pet Grief Counseling, by Dawn Murray, is available on Amazon and free on Kindle Unlimited.