How to approach? (TW-pet death)

[osulori]

To top off the shit sundae of this week of covid making its way through the house, we've made the decision to put our 15 year old dog down Saturday morning. Her mobility has been declining since the spring and we had agreed if her appetite or ability to control her bowels/bladder went then it was time, and well she'll now only eat yogurt and scrambled eggs so...it's time.

Does anyone have suggestions on resources etc for explaining this to our 9 year old? He's aware she's declining fast but I don't think he realizes how bad it's gotten.

[mrsGreeko]

I’m so sorry.

I don’t really have any resources. I was not prepared for the fact that my youngest would hold a major grudge against us for “killing his dog” for years when we had to put down our almost 15 year old dog almost 4 years ago. My DS was 7. So, you might want to approach it differently than we did. 🫤. It might be better to think the dog passed on their own for the kid’s sake. Like explain that the dog is really old and you think the dog might pass soon and have the kid say good bye just in case and then take it to the vet or have the kid go elsewhere for an in home euthanasia.

Anyway, to help my kids (they were 7, 9 and 12 at the time) I bought them necklaces that you can keep the pet’s ashes in and I also made a book for each of them to keep with pictures of her over her life. They needed that comfort. My now 11 year old still wears the necklace with the ashes, won’t take it off, it’s quite the source of comfort for him. My older two did not wear the necklaces, but hung them up in their rooms. We also have a bit of a shrine to Liberty on our mantle with her ashes, a framed picture, her collar, a picture my oldest painted with her paw print in the middle, and the two silicon prep bowls she ingested and had to have surgically removed.

[christy082]

Im so sorry.

My daughter was only 5 when we had to put our dog down. We told her that we spoke with our vet and the vet told us she would die soon and we were going to take her there to get medicine to be comfortable, and we (husband and I) would stay with her while she died.

[smock]

I'm so sorry. We just said goodbye to our dog of 12 years last week, and it's so hard.

Our 6 and 8 year old kids knew our dog was declining, and after we scheduled a vet to come out, we let the kids know that they needed to say goodbye. We kept the process vague because we didn't want them to misunderstand euthanasia. We also let their teachers know.

Here's a resource from our vet that really helped:

Seven to nine-year-old children often know that death is final and that it is irreversible. They are very perceptive of how adults react to the death and will often ask very morbid and direct questions about it. This is normal, and they should be answered in a frank and honest way. They don’t often think of death as something that can happen to them, but they may fear that it could happen to their parents. These children may show grief by having problems in school, exhibiting aggression, or lashing out, and even experience some withdrawal. They can also become overly dependent and clingy. As with other age groups, it is important to provide frequent reassurance to these kids. Encouraging them to draw pictures can also provide benefit when they are not able to express their feeling verbally.

[loira]

I'm sorry. I'm glad you're thinking of talking it through with your DS.

I was 9 when my parents had our cat put to sleep. She hadn't been doing too well and I knew she'd had thyroid problems but they didn't prepare me at all. I went to school and when I got home she was gone. Then they did the same for our other cat (also old) a year later. They were my first 2 experiences with death and I don't think it was a healthy way for my parents to approach it.

[VillainV]

We unexpected had to discuss this with our son (8) when we took our cats to the vet for a regular check-up and another family’s as there saying goodbye to their dog. They obviously had priority, so as they were explaining the situation of course the rest of us volunteered to wait. There was not a dry eye in that waiting room.

We explained it to our son this way: Sometimes when pets get very old, their bodies start to shut down, and it can be very painful for the pet. Out of kindness, we can help the pet by letting them pass away in their sleep, so they don’t have to be scared and in pain. It’s very peaceful and allows the pet to be with their owners, say goodbye, and know that they are loved as they pass into the next world.

Our son asked why we don’t do the same thing when people die. I wish I’d had a better answer for him.

[sdlaura]

My older kids were 8 and 7 when we had to put our dog down, and they made the decision to come with us to the vet and be in the room when we put our dog down. We explained it similar to VillainV:

We explained it to our son this way: Sometimes when pets get very old, their bodies start to shut down, and it can be very painful for the pet. Out of kindness, we can help the pet by letting them pass away in their sleep, so they don’t have to be scared and in pain. It’s very peaceful and allows the pet to be with their owners, say goodbye, and know that they are loved as they pass into the next world.

Minus the next world part, since that’s not part of our beliefs. For my kids, I wouldn’t tell them before the morning of the day it’s happening - they would have worried too much otherwise.

[osulori]

Thanks, all. We've dealt with this stuff with my parents' dogs (we see them all the time and their dogs are very much a part of all our lives) but it's different with her being our dog and not a sudden thing like has been the case with all their dogs. These explanations are a big help!

[luckystar2]

I’m so sorry.
Our cat suddenly got very sick and we ended up euthanizing her. My dd was 7. We had a day or so of her knowing that she was very sick. We made it very clear that our cat was very sick and likely wouldn’t make it. We had her say her goodbyes. Then we took her to a friends and just my dh and I were there when we did it. We never explained euthanasia and just said she passed away. I just think euthanasia is a hard concept to understand at that age.

Some things that we did that helped in case you find them useful. We buried our cat at home. They gave us a white box for her and my dd insisted on decorating the lid. She also made up a little picture book about our cat. The next day she stayed home from school and she and I just used the day to be sad and cry. That day we went out and bought a stuffed animal cat that looked like ours and a frame to put a picture in. She used to carry around the cat all the time. I also got the book Cat Heaven for her (there’s a dog heaven one too). We used to read that book often and I literally tear up everytime but it was very helpful for her. We are not religious but had talked about different religious ideas like heaven before. The book obviously speaks to a “Heaven” and I think the cat one mentions god once but it wasn’t overly religious if that’s an issue. Also I eventually made up a photo book of our cat and dd used to look through it all the time.

I’m so sorry. Losing a pet is so very difficult but adding in kids to the mix is just hard. It’s such a very difficult thing and I wish you all the best in dealing with it.

[puppylove64]

I’m sorry 😢

We just put our dog down. My kids saw how sick she was and how much time and energy I was putting into her care and medicine. I was very honest that she was not getting better. I told them she was hurting and the medicine wasn’t helping. I told them to be extra sweet and give her all the love because she wouldn’t live long. When it was finally time, I told them and they were ok with it. We were all sad and cried alot, but they understood. My boys are 8, 10 and 16

[ssmjlm]

We took a pretty direct approach because our dog was getting a daily IV at the vet and was declining rapidly. She knew something was wrong and that things had gotten bad.

She did not come with us to the vet. I don't regret that decision because DH was a mess and I could not handle any more during that appointment.

The one thing I think I wasn't prepared for was how long she is grieving the loss. It's not in a daily way, but more a story will trigger a memory, which will then trigger her sadness. She's had the ashes in her bedroom with the paw print and a photo for almost a year now. I gently asked once if she wanted to keep them in her room and she said yes (it was when we were reorganizing the bookshelf they sit on).

So, sometimes I think as adult we tend to handle things a bit more around the time of the death, but this has definitely had a much more lasting impact on her.

[hermione]

You just tell him in the most kind and loving way possible. We said that Jester was sick and he wasn't getting better and that the kindest thing we could do was end his pain. We said that 13 was long life for a cat and that he knew he was happy and loved. We made sure she understood he would not be coming back home.

We did not take her to the vet with us.

Ida, Always is a good picture book on death/grief.

[osulori]

Thanks for the input on whether or not to let him go with us. I know he'll want to go and I could see my husband caving on that but I'm pretty set on him NOT going-I was with my family's first dog when we had to put her down when I was in college and while it wasn't traumatic beyond the suddenness of it, it was still something that stuck with me for a long time. I know he's not ready for that. Thankfully, one morbid bonus to kid #2 getting covid from her babysitters is that they are both pretty well recovered and testing negative so one of them is going to come over and stay with the kids Saturday. I'm going to talk to him about it tomorrow after school so he can have some time to process but hopefully not too much time.

[redpenmama]

Well, this is unfortunately timely for me. We put our sweet 16-year-old pug down this morning.

Our kids are 11, almost 9, and 5. They knew he was declining, so we have talked for a few weeks about how he has had a great life, but his body is wearing down, and the most gentle thing we can do for him is let him go peacefully. I said we had options to do it with them at home or without them at the vet, but they all said they wanted it done when they were at school, so that is what we did. They are all very sad but seemed to accept that we had done all we could for him, and it was time.

I'm so sorry.

[pinkpeony08]

We had to put our then 12 year old lab that had been with our kids their entire lives during COVID. They were 6 and 8, I think? I do work in palliative care, and tried to really be upfront and honest with them. She was really not doing well, and we talked about it in terms of she was very old, her body wasn't working as well and they were going to come and give her medicine so she would be comfortable. We had the vet come to our home. We offered that the kids could stay in the room or they could leave. Both decided to stay for the entire thing. We were all very sad, but it went smoothly and they did very well.

One thing we did do that the kids seemed to find very meaningful - they vet clipped off some of our pup's fur for us to keep. We ordered small, custom wood boxes on Etsy for the kids to each have one with some of her fur. We also ordered them a stuffed animal that looked like her. They both still sleep with it at night.

I'm so sorry. It's so hard.

[redheadbaker]

I'm so sorry

DS knew that Reese was old, and that her heart wasn't working right. We told DS she wasn't going to get better. I think the month before she passed, we were honest and told him she wasn't going to last much longer.

He was home the day we made the decision (just the day before, she had been eating, happy-ish to get carried outside--she liked being outside, hated being carried). We told him what was different (she didn't want her favorite treat, wasn't even sitting up) and that we thought it was time to say goodbye.

[midwestmama]

I'm so sorry.

We went through this a few years ago. Our dog was 13.5 when she passed away, and she was a German Shepherd, so that is on the older side for their life span. I think when she was around 13, we did start talking with the kids (they would have been about 8 and 10 then) that our dog might not live much longer. We talked about how we might have to decide to have her put to sleep because we don't want her to suffer. DH and I had already decided we would have a pet hospice vet come to our home, because our dog had such anxiety about going to the vet and we couldn't make her suffer like that in her last moments. DH and I ended up having to make a firm decision about calling pet hospice when our dog couldn't walk anymore (it was a Sunday, so pet hospice wasn't open). DH called first thing on Monday to schedule a pet hospice vet to come in the afternoon. (It was beyond a horrible day for me. I had to go say my final goodbye that morning to my aunt who was dying of cancer, and she passed away later that evening. After I said my final goodbye to her, I had to race home to say my final goodbye to our beloved dog.) We asked the kids that morning if they wanted to stay home to be with us when the vet was there when we said goodbye, or if they wanted to go to school. We talked about how our dog wouldn't be there when they got home, and they both understood. They both decided to go to school. We didn't want to force them one way or the other, since everyone deals with grief differently.

[osulori]

Thanks again for all the advice and good thoughts ❤️ Things went about as smoothly today as we could have asked and our sweet girl is at peace. #1 ended up asking to go with us so we let him and while devastated I think it was what he needed to do.

Here's our sweet Georgie getting snuggled on by her dog brother a couple weeks ago...she was never a huge snuggler with him and barely tolerated this so we had to get a pic 😆

[Jalapeñomel]

I’m so sorry.

We just told my 8 year old the truth, he wanted to be there at the end, and we all cried together.

[sdlaura]

osulori, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm glad you let him go since he wanted to - I'm glad I let my older kids. I think it was closure for them.

[Susie]

I'm so sorry for your loss.  

We just totally unexpectedly had to do this with a very young dog (only 4), which has challenged us on a lot of "when you get older your body can stop working" type narrative.  The dog belonged to my dad, but my dad spends a lot of time with us now that it's just him and his dogs, so he and his dogs are part of our household.  While he was staying with us, his 4 year old dog arrived seeming totally healthy, then stopped eating, started having uncharacteristic accidents, started drinking a ton, and became really lethargic.  It all happened over about 3 days.  We thought he might have a GI obstruction; he was still puppy enough to steal socks and other things he shouldn't.  My dad took him to our local e-vet, and sadly it wasn't a sock.  It was cancer that was in his spleen, his pancreas, his blood, and probably bone marrow based on cell counts.  We were all completely blindsided.  My dad euthanized him without even bringing him home, as there was no treatment option besides steroids to give the people more time to process, and already he was not eating, was not himself.  It was the kindest thing, but our kids never even said goodbye.  He was there, and his usual sweet self (if sedentary and not eating, which they did not see) when they left for school.  He was gone when they came home.

We're leaning a little on our 2nd grader's teacher and guidance counselor for the assist on this one.  We're answering all her questions as directly and honestly as we can.  The young age is a real loop for us though, both in explaining to the kids and in accepting for ourselves.

[osulori]

Susie, I was so sorry to see your FB post about your dad's sweet pup. We've found ourselves in similar situations with my parents' dogs (coincidentally, also goldens)-we see my parents a ton and their dogs are very much family to us as well. Both times it's happened when #1 was old enough to know what was going on, we took the same approach in being as direct and honest as we could without giving too much detail (both passed due to sudden cardiac issues and not advanced age). It's so freaking hard though.

Good call on looping in the guidance counselor, I didn't think of that but did let #1's teacher know-it turns out she lost her 14 year old dog a few months ago so she's keeping an extra eye on him.