When Your Pet Dies: How to Cope With Your Feelings

Rating:
Summary: real grief is ok
Review: I'm surprised no one else has reviewed this wonderful book. I happened to run across it at my local library.Two weeks after euthanising my Cat of seventeen years,I practically fell apart in the bookstore browsing the pet section .I knew i had to look at my feelings of grief. This book was such a compassionate friend to me during that time.He quoted alot of others' experiences with their losses and the pain they felt. This helped me so much to truly feel my loss,especially since I had put him to sleep.the guilt over that can really wreak havocwith you.There is a section specifically about that ,too.His chapters cover all the ways you can lose a pet,which was welcoming.What I loved most about it was his understanding that your grief is as real as losing a person,just as deep and your love,just as strong.As soon as I opened the book,I didn't feel foolish any more,and let the tears flow.And consequently,I was able to move through my grief much quicker.It's a warm,compassionate book,and I was looking for it for a friend who just lost a pet too.I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Very good book
Review: I've read three pet loss books for adults (two when my dog was dying, and one a few months after her death), and I think this is the best one of the three. The author pretty much hit it on the spot about all my feelings associated with the loss of my dog. The book made me feel that I'm not alone in the loss of my doggie "soul mate", that it's okay to feel this bad for a while when an animal companion dies. Yet he doesn't make generalizations, like some books do. He said certain things work for most people, BUT there are exceptions. Although at the end I feel that I'm just like most people, but at least the book gave me "permission" to think of other options.