Often we get our children a pet, it's to help teach them about responsibilities and the circle of life. But losing this loved one, a beloved member of our family, still stings and is difficult to deal with on an emotional level. This can be especially harsh for kids since this could be the first time they deal with the concept of death or loss.

Depending on a number of different factors, the age of the child, the issues surrounding the demise of their best friend, it can be an emotional roller coaster depending on any of these unusual circumstances. Dealing with this loss can be different on a variety of different levels.

Another Type Of Grim Reaper

It isn’t always death that separates a child from their pet, sometimes their animal could become lost or stolen. Although this can be a learning experience, it can still come with anger and resentment from a lad or lassie that doesn’t understand this concept. This may be the time they come to understand that the world isn’t a necessarily a kind place full of trusting people.

Dealing with “stranger danger” is a real and potentially deadly situation for some youngsters. This is the time to let them know that trust is something that’s earned and shouldn’t be expected. It’s also the time to educate them about an important fact: Just because something terrible happened, it wasn’t their fault or something they could have necessarily prevented.

Great Expectations

On a personal note, our family had a very young dog when we welcomed our daughter into the world. They grew up together, laughed and played, at times our child cried when she cuddled the little dog and they were the very best of friends. But dogs age much faster than children and by the time our little human girl was just coming into her own as an adolescent, our little furball was quite old in dog years.

Our beloved family dog passed away quietly in her sleep when our two-legged child was attending secondary school on that particular day. I thought our daughter would completely lose her mind and have a more traditional reaction when she came home from school and found out about the demise of her four-legged best friend. Instead, she was remarkably calm when she was given the news, while we were scared out of our minds and preparing for the worst from our teenage daughter.

An Unexpected Reaction

When our daughter arrived home from school that day, we sat her down to deliver the bad news. Fighting back my own tears, I told her that our beloved family dog had passed away, comfortably and quietly in her sleep. I was shocked when I heard the reaction from our child who said, “She (our dog) never liked it when I cried so I don’t want to do that now that she’s gone.”

After I got over the shock of this unbelievable response, as a family we began smiling and laughing about what a great dog she was and thought about getting another pet that we wouldn’t become so attached to … like a shark that we could keep in the bathtub.

Lesson Learned

Perhaps the most valuable lesson we all learned from this experience was to celebrate the time we had with our beloved little dog. After some time had passed, even though we all agreed we weren’t in the market for another pet, sure enough, there’s another canine curled up at my feet as I write. She’s completely different from our former dog in every way shape and form, but we love her just the same and we’ll keep loving her for as long as she’ll grace us with her presence.