Home · Thoughts · Dates · Policy
Pets are fun things to have. They are there when you are happy and sad. Sometimes the pets can cause happiness or sadness also. Everyone has had a pet of some kind, whether it was a dog, cat, hamster, fish, snake, frog or toad; they all are pets of one sort or another. Anyone that is around those pets also seemed to become attached to them emotionally whether they realize it or not. It is as if the pet becomes part of the family. So as part of the family, if the pet gets hurt or sick, the family feels for the animal.
This is also true in death. Friends and families will morn the loss of someone whether it is a direct member by blood or not. My brother just lost his cat due to sickness. There are many people in the family that are feeling the loss of his cat. The cat was not that old, so it did make an impact to my brother and others that met the cat.
There are many of us that do not know how to express the pain that you feel from the loss of someone. It is especially difficult when it comes to a pet. Although it is weird to many to consider an animal part of the family, there is still an understanding of it. It is difficult to imagine the pain (feeling of loss) that people feel when they lose their pet in the first place, but to have it die also is a pain that no one should need to feel.
With the knowledge of how many strays are around everywhere. To know that many of them are suffering to survive, but there is no way to stop the suffering. Knowing that the death of a stray may not be noticed, the mind starts to wonder why the death of your pet was so important to happen. The stray is in more pain by far because it is barely surviving in the first place, you would think that death would be helping that stray.
It doesn't seem right that the pet had to die when you take all that into consideration. There will be a greater feeling of a loss for my brother; he has lost a dear friend. It seems that people (on average) prefer cats to all other pets, although cats don't like going swimming when you go. For those people that like dogs, cats can be trained to do the same things as dogs (except go swimming) such as fetch (may not be by stick) and not drinking out of the toilet (dogs haven't been able to be taught this one) however out of the sink is a different story. Cats can be a hand full when it comes to furniture and carpet however they are easier to house train (this is why some say that cats are smarter than dogs).
The feeling of a loss will never go away no matter how much time goes by. If the pet was greatly loved (or cared for), the hurt that people feel from the death will be longer than if a family member that you occasionally see (if they died) would be. When someone (pet or other) gets really close to you, you do take a "hard hit" when they die. I thought that there was no one close enough to myself to make an emotional response no matter what, however when I was told about the death of the cat, I felt like a good friend had died.
I have found that if you don't let anyone close to you, they can't hurt you in return. It has worked so far with people however I didn't think to have that theory go the same for pets (animals). With the loss of my brother's cat, I actually feel something. It is unexpected, however it is a feeling of a loss. My brother's cat and I had a unique relationship. I was the only one that could go in front of the cat (face to face) when it is chasing (or hissing) at another cat. Everyone else the cat would hiss at whomever got in its way, however it didn't do that to me. It would hiss at me, however I would drop down on to the floor (on all 4s), get close to it, hiss back to it, and any time it would take a swipe at me, I would do the same to it (swat air is front of its face). It was a unique relationship however it was one that could not be duplicated by anyone. I will miss the cat because I could have fun with it as if I were still a child.
© COPYRIGHT 2004