Grieving Pet Death: Normative, Gender, and Attachment Issues

Abstract

Grief over the loss of a pet was investigated to clarify the usual course of symptoms experienced, gender differences in the experience, and the role of attachment to the pet. The sample included 174 adults who had lost a pet dog or cat to death. Participants were administered a modified CENSHARE Pet Attachment Survey (Holcomb, Williams, & Richards, 1985) and a survey of symptoms experienced. Results indicate that initially 85.7% of owners experienced at least one symptom of grief, but the occurrence decreased to 35.1% at six months and to 22.4% at one year. Males and females reported significantly different rates on six of 12 symptoms surveyed. The severity and length of symptoms is significantly correlated with the degree of attachment to the deceased pet. These findings indicate that pet loss can be a potential area of clinical concern, especially if the person's attachment to the pet was strong.According to Cowles (1985), the degree of attachment between owner and pet determines the psychological impact on the owner resulting from the death of a pet. People form emotional attachments with their pets, and these attachments are sometimes very special and different from the ones they form with people. Pets can be a source of unconditional love, support, comfort, safety, security, and stability. In circumstances in which a person feels either physically or psychologically removed from human attachments, these attributes of a relationship with a pet may be especially significant (Sharkin & Bahrick, 1990). For many complex reasons, the emotional attachments which many humans develop for their pets not only equals, but indeed frequently transcends the emotional attachment which they form with humans (Cowles, 1985). 385

Pet Attachment Quastionnaire: Validity and Reliability Study

“…Evcil hayvan ve insan arasındaki ilişkiyi konu alan araştırmalarda bağlanmanın özellikleri olması dikkat çekicidir. Evcil hayvandan ayrılmanın kaygıya veya evcil hayvan kaybının yasa yol açtığı (Hunt, Al-Awadi ve Johnson, 2008;Kwong ve Bartholomew, 2011;Schaffer, 2009;Wrobel ve Dye, 2003), evcil hayvanla yakınlığı korumanın önemli diğerleriyle yakınlığı korumayla benzer olduğu (Hall ve ark., 2004;Kurdek, 2008;Prato-Previde, Fallani ve Valsecchi, 2006); kaygı verici durumdayken bireylerin evcil hayvanlarını destek mekanizması olarak gördükleri ve bu durumda olan bireylerin evcil hayvanlarına bağlanma düzeylerinin daha yüksek olduğu (Albert ve Bulcroft, 1988;Allen, Balscovich ve Mendes, 2002;Geisler, 2004) gösterilmiştir. Dolayısıyla, kuramsal ve görgül arka plan evcil hayvana bağlanmanın, bir bağlanma yaşantısı olduğunu desteklemektedir.…”

Continuing Bonds Research with Animal Companions: Implications for Men Grieving the Loss of a Dog

“…According to Sable (2013), clients who come for emotional support after the death of their pet are often most distressed due to lack of sympathy from those around them. Because there are numerous people who do not consider a pet to be an important attachment figure, they also do not acknowledge other people's grief when their animal companion dies (Wrobel and Dye 2003). As a result, bereaved pet owners may hide their feelings and suffer in silence.…”

Public attitudes towards grief in animals

“…There was a gender effect in our results, which is supported by the literature. Specific studies about the relationship between women and cats show that females are more likely to see cats as sentient (Phillips et al 2010), and to grieve more when their cats die (Wrobel & Dye 2003). Over 70% of participants believed that pigs and cows could experience grief.…”