One of my dog walking friends Alan has had a bereavement recently, his dad, Stan, who also used to join us on our dog walks around Sefton Park. Stan had been unwell for some time and to join us needed the assistance of his mobility scooter. About 6 months ago he arrived with a dog of his own, a little nowty terrier called Millie who he had re-homed. Millie was initially quite apprehensive of the activity in the park so had a little basket in the footwell of the scooter that she could return to when it all became a bit much. Latterly she has been coming with Alan as Stan had been in and out of the hospice or too poorly to venture out of the house much at all. Alan would report that Milly needed some coaxing out of the house were he was reluctant to leave her poorly owner. In amongst the dog owning community the subject of bereavement is a reoccurring one. We do tend to outlive our pets and hence conversations consoling pet owning friends and acquaintances on their recent loss are fairly common. Its often said that one of the advantages of children having pets is that they get the opportunity of experiencing loss through the death of the family pet that puts them in good stead for coping with losing significant humans in their life.
My own childhood had such an experience and like much of my life it was by accident more than design that events unfolded as they did. My parents had a strictly enforced “NO PETS” policy. When however, a hamster appeared one day in our out-house, cowering under the washing machine to avoid the attentions of excited children we collectively sensed a chink in the armor of this ruling. It turns out it had escaped from our next but one neighbors house and we got to keep it by pushing my mum to speak to our neighbor over the issue. She subsequently came back from these tense negotiations with a cage to house said animal and a few quid less in her purse.
We called it Hammy, boy or girl, I’m not sure if we knew. I thought of it as a boy and that he was great fun. The best things were his expandable cheeks, his clambering abilities and his athletics on his wheel. Come Christmas of that year he was in my thoughts when planning presents for the family. I had secreted a piece of cheddar cheese (Cracker-Barrel no doubt) from the fridge and wrapped it a-la-Christmas, bright paper, contrasting ribbon topped with a bow. I was looking forward to watching him unwrap the parcel and gobble it up or store the cheese in his special place in the rear of the cage. The wrapping too would no doubt be re-cycled in his bedding. Sadly, it was not to be. The morning before Christmas I came down the stairs to a almighty kerfuffle as my elder sister Clare was announcing through tears the death of poor Hammy.
My own response was more muted. At times of high emotion I had/have a tendency to freeze emotionally, scientifically they call this disassociation, only I didn’t know that at the age of ten. It’s generally understood to be a useful coping strategy in the short term when dealing with traumatic events. What it means for me in terms this story is that to this day I can’t remember what happened next. Did we have a shoe box funeral ceremony at the end of the garden, I don’t know. What happened to the piece of wrapped cheese over the coming days, I think we can all guess- but I really can’t remember. The stresses of the experience clearly had a effect on me of processing events at the time. One thing that this probably illustrates is that while having pets can teach us stuff about mortality when it come to the workings of the mind things are seldom that straight forward.
As an adult I have had a number of pets. As part of a small family of three humans our numbers have swelled at times with dogs, cats and rats. All of whom, when dying, their demise has been marked in some way. My partner Gillian has worked in Hospice care for many years and was comfortable in arranging elaborate ceremonies to say good bye to these creatures. We arranged for cremations for all our pets as we have never had our own garden/cemetery and have now quite a library of funeral urns/caskets. Funeral ceremonies have been located in various places over the years, a scottish loch while on holiday with a miniature barge, ashes strapped onboard, overlaid with wildflowers floating into the sunset being the most noteworthy.
Each and every time we had these celebrations I was to be found lurking on its fringes both physically and psychologically. Maintaining this isolation in amidst a seemingly touching ceremony seems obtuse. I guess I was presenting as involved on some level but really this was not the case. Internally I was mimicking the disassociated behavior that had become my standard response to such events. Being removed from the expression of pain can also cause for some distorted conclusions about the whole nature of what it is to be a human being. I have concluded that some of my psychological problems over the years stem from this inability to allow myself to express pain appropriately and thus connect with others. For example a conclusion I drew with regard to Hammy’s death is that my sisters display of upset over his death lacked the sincerity of my silent mourning and ergo made me question the sincerity of any subsequent overt expressions of grief.
So writing this piece on a blog exploring our collective emotional responses to pets is posing some difficult and soul searching questions for me. While I may well have come to some strange conclusions over the years I wonder to what extent this is as unusual as it can sometimes sound. Do we all live in a world were the solutions to dilemmas do fall easily into place or as I suspect we often inhabit positions were we feel separated from the collective and draw dark conclusions expressing this isolated position.
Well this has all got a bit heavy. One thing I would say to lighten this train of thought is that as an adult revisiting sadness and grief via our pets it opportune reflections on this subject and with reflection often comes self-knowledge. And on another lighter note the latest news on Millie is she has been successfully re homed to a friend of one of our regular dog-walkers Paula and I fully expect to see her in the park soon.
My own childhood had such an experience and like much of my life it was by accident more than design that events unfolded as they did. My parents had a strictly enforced “NO PETS” policy. When however, a hamster appeared one day in our out-house, cowering under the washing machine to avoid the attentions of excited children we collectively sensed a chink in the armor of this ruling. It turns out it had escaped from our next but one neighbors house and we got to keep it by pushing my mum to speak to our neighbor over the issue. She subsequently came back from these tense negotiations with a cage to house said animal and a few quid less in her purse.
We called it Hammy, boy or girl, I’m not sure if we knew. I thought of it as a boy and that he was great fun. The best things were his expandable cheeks, his clambering abilities and his athletics on his wheel. Come Christmas of that year he was in my thoughts when planning presents for the family. I had secreted a piece of cheddar cheese (Cracker-Barrel no doubt) from the fridge and wrapped it a-la-Christmas, bright paper, contrasting ribbon topped with a bow. I was looking forward to watching him unwrap the parcel and gobble it up or store the cheese in his special place in the rear of the cage. The wrapping too would no doubt be re-cycled in his bedding. Sadly, it was not to be. The morning before Christmas I came down the stairs to a almighty kerfuffle as my elder sister Clare was announcing through tears the death of poor Hammy.
My own response was more muted. At times of high emotion I had/have a tendency to freeze emotionally, scientifically they call this disassociation, only I didn’t know that at the age of ten. It’s generally understood to be a useful coping strategy in the short term when dealing with traumatic events. What it means for me in terms this story is that to this day I can’t remember what happened next. Did we have a shoe box funeral ceremony at the end of the garden, I don’t know. What happened to the piece of wrapped cheese over the coming days, I think we can all guess- but I really can’t remember. The stresses of the experience clearly had a effect on me of processing events at the time. One thing that this probably illustrates is that while having pets can teach us stuff about mortality when it come to the workings of the mind things are seldom that straight forward.
As an adult I have had a number of pets. As part of a small family of three humans our numbers have swelled at times with dogs, cats and rats. All of whom, when dying, their demise has been marked in some way. My partner Gillian has worked in Hospice care for many years and was comfortable in arranging elaborate ceremonies to say good bye to these creatures. We arranged for cremations for all our pets as we have never had our own garden/cemetery and have now quite a library of funeral urns/caskets. Funeral ceremonies have been located in various places over the years, a scottish loch while on holiday with a miniature barge, ashes strapped onboard, overlaid with wildflowers floating into the sunset being the most noteworthy.
Each and every time we had these celebrations I was to be found lurking on its fringes both physically and psychologically. Maintaining this isolation in amidst a seemingly touching ceremony seems obtuse. I guess I was presenting as involved on some level but really this was not the case. Internally I was mimicking the disassociated behavior that had become my standard response to such events. Being removed from the expression of pain can also cause for some distorted conclusions about the whole nature of what it is to be a human being. I have concluded that some of my psychological problems over the years stem from this inability to allow myself to express pain appropriately and thus connect with others. For example a conclusion I drew with regard to Hammy’s death is that my sisters display of upset over his death lacked the sincerity of my silent mourning and ergo made me question the sincerity of any subsequent overt expressions of grief.
So writing this piece on a blog exploring our collective emotional responses to pets is posing some difficult and soul searching questions for me. While I may well have come to some strange conclusions over the years I wonder to what extent this is as unusual as it can sometimes sound. Do we all live in a world were the solutions to dilemmas do fall easily into place or as I suspect we often inhabit positions were we feel separated from the collective and draw dark conclusions expressing this isolated position.
Well this has all got a bit heavy. One thing I would say to lighten this train of thought is that as an adult revisiting sadness and grief via our pets it opportune reflections on this subject and with reflection often comes self-knowledge. And on another lighter note the latest news on Millie is she has been successfully re homed to a friend of one of our regular dog-walkers Paula and I fully expect to see her in the park soon.