Pet Loss Grief – You’re Not Alone
Navigating the grief of pet loss can be an extremely depressing, debilitating, and isolating experience. However, you can find solace in knowing that your pain is something countless others can empathize with – and that the feelings you are experiencing have been felt by other people just like you.
Here are 8 books that may help you navigate your feelings and mourning over pet loss:
(Descriptions provided by Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.)
1: Losing My Best Friend: Thoughtful support for those affected by dog bereavement or pet loss
“Remember me with tears and laughter. Remember me though it hurts to do so, because the pain you have is equal to the love we shared. There is no goodbye if you carry me in your heart. Remember all the joy we shared, because there was so much of it for both of us.” — Herbie Longfellow Alderdice
Are you a dog owner who is in the process of losing your best friend to illness? Or have you lost your beloved pet and you’re struggling to get over them?
Pet bereavement is tough. Not everyone can, or will, sympathise with you.
After losing her beloved boy Herbie, Jeannie Wycherley found herself lost in grief, struggling to find her way through it.
2: Soul Comfort for Cat Lovers: Coping Wisdom for Heart and Soul After the Loss of a Beloved Feline
“More than just another book on pet loss. Reading this book is like talking to a friend who knows you almost better than you know yourself…it doesn’t stop at just helping you through the grief…it will help you find an even deeper connection to your lost loved ones.” – Ingrid King, ConsciousCat.com, author of Buckley’s Story and Purrs of Wisdom
If the loss of a feline friend has hit you particularly hard, know you are not alone. In Soul Comfort for Cat Lovers, you will find validation, coping insights, and practical wisdom conveyed with spiritual warmth.
Author Liz Eastwood weaves her own experiences with advice from grief experts and stories from cat lovers to help you: process your feelings and recognize them as normal, create something positive out of the energy of grief, cultivate a continued sense of connection to your cat, deal with inconvenient grief, and strengthen your natural coping reserves.
3: The Amazing Afterlife of Animals: Messages and Signs From Our Pets on the Other Side
If you are grieving the loss of your beloved pet the uplifting and insightful stories within these chapters will help you break through your grief so you can begin healing. Included are actual messages from departed animals who share details about what they experienced as their life ended and from beyond the veil of the afterlife.
You will discover how pets feel about dying, euthanasia, cremation, reincarnation and so much more.
Award-winning Animal Communicator and Afterlife Expert, Karen Anderson, reveals tantalizing evidence that our pets communicate with us throughout their lives as well as after their physical death. This former deputy sheriff shares how she followed this unusual path of understanding the animals and discloses actual cases where pets on crime scenes provide eye-witness accounts. The detailed accuracy of the animals’ messages may surprise you and may even present new perspectives about life after death.
[Check out the Top Five Pet Loss Books for Children]
4: The Anatomy of Grief: Processing the Loss of a Pet
The Anatomy of Grief; Processing the Loss of a Pet is a self help book with the goal of helping people on their journey through grief. Dr. Lisa Lembeck Roberts, a veterinarian, understands that the process of grieving is unique to each individual. She relies on her many years of interactions with bereaved clients to help people realize that they are not alone in their grief when losing their beloved pets. Dr. Lisa offers compelling and heart warming stories to illustrate the tools needed for the journey.
5: The Pet Loss Companion: Healing Advice from Family Therapists Who Lead Pet Loss Groups
Everyone who’s ever loved an animal companion will find wisdom and solace in this book. The authors share stories drawn from decades of experience leading pet loss groups and practicing family therapy. Their recommendations for taking care of yourself and loved ones during the rough spots of grief will answer all of your important questions and help you feel well-supported. I highly recommend The Pet Loss Companion for companion animal lovers like me.
– Ed Sayres, President & CEO of the ASPCA®
The Pet Loss Companion is a wonderfully reassuring book for anyone who cares about pets. It is a loving book, full of personal and practical details about how to care for oneself after loss. The authors are sensitive pet-lovers, empathic and engaging in this moving and meaningful book.
6: The Loss of a Pet: A Guide to Coping with the Grieving Process When a Pet Dies
Understanding helps heal the hurt when you lose a pet.
This award-winning book has been hailed as the seminal work in the field. And now the fourth newly revised and expanded edition offers so much more to the bereaving pet owner. This edition also includes a significant new way of considering the meaning of afterlife for us and our pets. It discusses the topic from a twenty-first century scientific perspective that is very different from existing religious or metaphysical ones, offering a new comfort to skeptics and agnostics as well.
7: Coping with Sorrow on the Loss of Your Pet (Third Edition)
Coping with Sorrow on the Loss of Your Pet is a compassionate, comprehensive guide to help you deal with the heartbreaking pain of losing a beloved animal companion. It shows you that you’re not alone, or crazy, or “over-reacting” to your loss, by calling upon the experiences and advice of dozens of pet owners like yourself. You’ll find words of comfort, understanding, and strategies to help you heal in this time-honored book. Moira Allen knows first-hand how much the loss of a pet hurts, and what a hole it leaves in your life.
8: Saying Goodbye to Your Angel Animals: Finding Comfort after Losing Your Pet
In this thoughtful book, Allen and Linda Anderson walk you through the numbing pain and dreadful sense of loss that arise when a beloved animal dies. They offer solace to help you deal with grief, remember and honor key moments in the animal’s life, find comfort through groups and with professionals, and get past the depression. They also include exercises, affirmations, and meditations to use through the various stages of grief.
[Check out the Top Five Pet Loss Books for Children]
