Pet death and kids

[shakinros]

Hey all. I posted my updates in TWERKS but here's a question for the group.

We have two cats and one of them is 18yo. 18. I have frequently joked about this guy living to 30, just to spite me. (We can't have rugs or carpet cause this cat takes any such thing as his personal litter box.) But he's losing weight, sleeping all the time, and I just noticed how few teeth he has left. He's obviously not going to live forever.

The problem: DD is 5.5 and loves this cat. (So do the neighbor kids but I'll let their parents deal with that.) When the inevitable comes and we need to put this poor guy down, how do we handle this? Do we prep her to say goodbye? Go to the vet while she's at school and tell her when she's home?

I don't think this is imminent but I want to have a plan before I need one. TTMA how you have handled aging pets with your kids. TIA.

[2chatter]

Our dog is slowing down at 15 so we have been talking with DS about life expectancy (she could live to 22 but likely won’t), how that relates to life expectancy for people (most don’t live to 105 but many make it into their 90s), how we should enjoy her now, we take pics of how happy she is with the kids and talk about where our other dog (who lived until 10 and they all remember) went.

It’s this much because for whatever reason parent death is a huge topic in this year’s kinder group. That hadn’t happened before....but I think knowing it will someday happen for the dog somehow makes DS feel better about it - I think some parents are going the “don’t worry! Dog is young!” Route...

[sandandsea]

When our dog was getting older we told ds that she was getting old and sick and that when dog and peoples bodies get too old they don’t work any more and that’s when they die and go to heaven. Then in heaven then get new bodies that last forever that don’t get old and they don’t hurt anymore. About a year and a half after First telling him this, our dog got sick and died very suddenly (4 hours from perfect to her death). He wasn’t there when it happened but we told
Him afterwards and he took it really well. He often still talks about how when we get to heaven she’s going to be so excited and run up to greet us. Since we are religious, the heaven way worked well for us. The vet also gave us some pamphlets on how to tell kids after the fact.

[waverly]

I would do some general prep- pets get old and sick etc. But wouldn't take them to the vet or tell them the day of in the morning. I would tell them after the fact that the cat died and reinforce what you told them earlier.

[sunbutter]

Hmmm....that is a tough one. We have had three cats pass in the last five years. DD has been pretty young for most of them. DS wasn’t as phased as I expected for the first - he was 4.5. At that time, I bought a bunch of books about the issue for the kids, the best one was called Lifetimes.
Then one the second one became ill, I used Lifetimes as a means to introduce the concept to the kids - that her lifetime was soon to come to an end. They knew she was sick. She became very ill overnight and I had them pet her and kiss her in the AM before I took her to the vet. I did not tell them that she was being put to sleep. That would have been too much of a weight on them. I told them that night that she had passed away.
The last kitty was getting ill and then stroked out at around 3am the night before they were starting school. I drove to the pet hospital that night. They didn’t notice him gone in the am because they were excited for school. I waited till that night to sit down with them and tell them. They were very sad but they were not shocked because we had been kind of preparing them that his lifetime was coming to an end.

I know all this lifetime stuff sounds a little dippy but I am agnostic and didn’t want to take the heaven route. I wanted to use the same language that we would use if it was a grandparent or another family member.

[shakinros]

Thanks for the book rec sunbutter. We're not religious either so I'll check that one out.

Also appreciate you all sharing your experiences. When you've taken a pet to the vet during the day to be put down while the kids were at school, did they ask where the pet is? Did you bury something? Do kids say "I didn't get to say goodbye!!!" Or is that an adult thing?

Thank you for talking me through the mechanics. This may be my own advance coping mechanism. I've had this guy for 15 of his 18yrs. He's moved cross country with me twice and lived in 6 different homes with me.

[mommyatty]

I think you’re smart to start thinking about this now. We never buried anything when I was younger. My parents told us the vet did that for pets. I do kind of think the saying goodbye concept is more of an adult thing, but I’m torn on whether to tell them ahead of time at least that the vet might have to decide that it’s time for the cat to be put to sleep because he isn’t going to get better and it’s the right thing to do.

A word of warning. As with all things kid, no two kids are going to take it the same, so you may need diff strategies for diff kids. Our next door neighbor was a vet. His daughters were well-acquainted with the idea that animals died. His older daughter would still sometimes get weepy talking about a dog they had who died when she was 4, well into her teens. The younger daughter was so blasé that she would preplan her next pet long before the current one died. ‘When Wendy dies, can we get a pug?”

[covergirl82]

We have a German Shepherd that is 11.5 years old. We have talked with the kids for the last couple years about how she's getting old and may not live more than a few more years. Honestly I'm not sure what we'll do at the very end - if we'll tell the kids before or after. I guess it may depend on the circumstances.

[welly01]

I have this book on my shopping list for this exact reason. smile.amazon.com/dp/0312553692/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I3MTAT4LJ1T3QC&colid=1C9U5DMDQTSDJ (it might be too religious though, just based on the title).

Growing up, we always had pets and so several of my pets were eventually put to sleep. My mom always did it when I was at school and told me afterward. I remember being so devastated to come home and find my pet gone. She did it that way up through middle school though so I think I was 9-10 when that particular pet was put down. I'm going to try to find a different approach when it's time to put our pets down. Although, if I had to put our pets down this week (DS is 5, DD is 2) I might take the "while they're at school" approach.

I think talking about it now before it's an immediate issue is a good way to prepare them.

[leap]

I wonder about this as well. Our dog is 10 and has nerve damage in her back. She has a very hard time walking these days as she cannot feel one of the back legs. She is completely healthy in all other respects, but I do feel our time is limited. I know the girls see this and so we talk about it from time to time. I think I will tell them and let them say good-bye before we have her put to sleep (hopefully not for awhile yet). I think good-byes are important.

[sunbutter]

I second the idea that it is very kid specific. I just sort of did some background preparation and then let my kids drive the discussion.

We didn’t bury anything, they were all cremated and are currently on our dining room hutch, lol. Gave us a good opportunity to discuss cremation vs burial, etc..

[186momx]

DD went with us to the vet but she was just shy of 3 and we all went. She took it okay but will bring up Kellie at the most random of times. Like over the weekend she was drawing this really cool picture and I asked if she was making it for anyone special and she said it was for Kellie. I was like DD you know that Kellie isn't here and she was yes but I was thinking about her. She is now 6 so this always throws me for a loop.

[shakinros]

Omg 186momx I don't know what I would say. Like "oh ok kid." It's amazing to me what they remember.

[sandandsea]

Yes! Ds (almost 6) still talks about our dog and how much he misses her. She passed the day Ds2 was born almost 1.5 years ago. His current kindergarten teachers have asked me about our dog and didn’t know she had passed over a year ago.

[vvvvvfee]

we dealt with this last year... one of our cats stopped eating and began declining rapidly- turned out he had cancer. he was only 11 so we really were not mentally prepared at all. DS1 was 4 at the time. our cat was in really bad shape for a week or so- where we were wondering if he was going to be dead every day when we came home-- so every morning we would make sure we all petted him and hugged him before we left the house. ultimately we decided to have him put to sleep. we had been prepping DS that the cat was really sick and he might die... so after we got back from the vet we just told him that he died. he cried a little bit, but he wasn't as upset about it as we thought he'd be (probably because he was still too young to really get it). we read the book cat heaven by cynthia rylant (which is really sweet even for us non-denominational folk), and we talked a lot about how much we missed him, and how maybe he got to see my and DH's childhood cats in cat heaven, etc. etc. we put several pictures of him out in frames, too.

so yeah, i'd maybe be mentioning that your cat is really old and he's slowing down and not going to live forever, and you should be extra nice to him while he's here. if you have to put him down i'd give your DD the opportunity to say goodbye (but without telling her)- like make sure she gives him lots of hugs and kisses that morning. then tell her when she's home. i think 5 is too young to bring them. it can be traumatic depending on how peacefully the pet goes (i mean, it's traumatic regardless, but our cat sort of fought against it for a minute and it was really awful).

you might also want to think about what you want to do with your cat's remains (sorry if this is getting too morbid)- we had our cat cremated and got his ashes back. strangely DS never asked what happened to our cat's body, but if he ever does at least i will be able to show him the little box instead of just saying he's in a mass grave somewhere. or maybe you want to bury him on your property- but i think it's nice at least to be able to tell your kid where they are.