12 Steps of Grief Recovery After Pet Loss
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Losing a pet is a heart-shattering experience. It’s not “just a dog” or “just a cat”; it’s your best friend, your comfort, your shadow, and sometimes your soul companion. Yet many grieving pet parents feel dismissed or misunderstood.
It’s widely understood that there are 10 stages of grief most people move through (lots of studies have come to an agreement on this) and understanding why you feel the way you do, can bring comfort.
That’s why understanding the 12 steps of grief recovery, specifically through the lens of pet loss, can help you move through your sorrow with intention and compassion.
Whether your loss was recent or long ago, we have designed this guide to hopefully support you on your healing journey after losing your beloved pet. Follow us step by gentle step.
Acknowledge Your Loss as Real and Valid
This pain you feel, it’s real. The bond you had with your pet often runs deeper than words can express. Validate your loss. Acknowledge it for what it is, even though it feels hard to do so.
You might want to avoid your feelings in the moment and deny what’s going on, but that’s not the best thing to do right now. Recognise it as real, even though it hurts. Grief needs recognition before it can start to move into the next stages.
It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, your heart knows how deep this love went.
Accept that grieving your pet is natural
When it comes to understanding the 12 stages of grief recovery, you’ll also need to accept that grieving the loss of a pet is natural.
Grief is not something that should be rushed, fixed, or hidden. It might not take the amount of time you expect it to, but it is part of the natural emotional process. Give yourself permission to feel all of it without shame or guilt.
Take your time and fill yourself with acceptance.
Recognise and challenge pet loss myths
People try to help while comforting those after a pet loss. Well-meaning people might say things such as “you can always get another one”, or “at least they’re no longer suffering”. But these are not always helpful things to hear when you’re grieving.
These types of comments usually dismiss and minimise the pain and heartbreak in the moment, even if unintentionally.
Losing a pet is a traumatic experience, and nobody should make you feel otherwise. Don’t internalise those comments. Your loss is valid and unique.
Name your feelings honestly
While moving through the 12 steps of grief on the road to recovery, you will be faced with a multitude of feelings and emotions. Pet grief is not one-dimensional, so at times you’ll feel just one emotion, and other times you could feel multiple emotions at once.
You might feel guilt, relief, emptiness, anger, or even numbness. Maybe even feel more that we haven’t listed. Every single one of these emotions is valid.
Denying them doesn’t make it go away, it often makes them linger for longer and keep you stuck. You need to feel and release all your emotions as they come and avoid suppressing them in order to move forward.
Reflect on the Relationship with Your Pet
Take some time to remember your beloved pet. Really remember everything you can about the relationship you shared. The silly habits, unconditional love, the companionship.
It is often easy to reflect on all the positive things you remember, you would have had a lifetime of love to think through. However, you should also reflect on any regrets or complex feelings you have.
Healing involves embracing both the light and the shadow in order to find peace, even if it’s uncomfortable at the time.
List Unspoken Words and Emotions
If you could reverse time, what do you wish you could go back and say? Maybe you want to apologize to your pet, express gratitude to them or simply say “I miss you”.
On your recovery journey through grief, one of the 12 steps welcomes you to write out your thoughts rather than keeping them trapped inside you.
Writing a letter you never send, and speaking your thoughts out loud, can be surprisingly powerful for emotional release.
Take responsibility for your healing
Others may not understand the magnitude of what you’re feeling during this time. They might not grasp the level of grief you feel, and that’s okay. Your healing isn’t about them, it’s about you.
Be proactive in your recovery journey, even if that means asking for support and comfort some days, and setting boundaries on others.
Your goal for now is to take your time and allow yourself to move through the motions, owning your grief recovery.
Make the Choice to Let Go of Guilt and Pain
Feeling guilty after losing a pet does not mean you did anything wrong. Guilt is extremely common while grieving, especially when it comes to euthanasia and sudden pet losses.
Letting go of pain doesn’t erase the love you shared. It honours the connection and the companionship you had together, while also setting your heart free.
If you don’t allow yourself to release the guilty feelings, you can stay stuck in the shadow of grief and struggle to move past it.
Create a Ritual for Closure
Memorials and rituals can help to bring meaning to the loss. They don’t always have to be spiritual based, but if spirituality brings you comfort you can benefit from this too.
You could plant a tree, light a candle, donate to a pet shelter, or create your own memory box filled with your cherished pet’s favourite things. There are many different memorial ideas you can use for inspiration to honour your furry friend.
Rituals bridge the emotional gap between love and release.
Rebuild Your Daily Life With Intention
Losing a pet disrupts your routine, your nervous system and your comfort zone. You start to miss the sound of paws, snoring, the daily walks and the feeding times.
So when this pattern is disrupted, it can feel disorienting, along with the deep sadness that often takes over while grieving. It can feel challenging to complete simple tasks you previously never paid much notice to.
Rebuilding your daily life with care and compassion for yourself can help to soften the emptiness you feel. Take it step by step.
Keep the Bond Without Clinging to the Pain
You don’t have to forget your pet to move forward. Let the memory of your pet become a source of comfort, instead of pain.
Take the time to honour their life in new ways, to share with yourself, or the world all of the things you love about your pet. Create a legacy that keeps their spirit close without anchoring yourself to the suffering.
You can continue to keep the bond of love, through stories, releasing creativity, keepsakes and photographs. Not to mention remembering all the loving memories you can take with you each day into the future.
Help Others by Sharing Your Experience
Although there is absolutely no rush, when you are ready, consider supporting others in their grief. Sometimes, it’s comforting to speak to others who can connect through a similar experience, and it can make you feel the warmth of supporting someone in need.
Whether you write a blog post, talk to those in a support group, sharing your experience through a blog comment, on a forum or sitting with someone going through the grief in person, every little interaction can help.
Your small dose of voluntary comfort could feel like a huge help to someone who might need it. It could be the exact lifeline they need during their own 12 steps of grief recovery.
Final Thoughts: Recovering is not forgetting, it’s remembering with love
Grieving a pet takes courage, patience, and compassion. Just like the stages of pet grief that most people move through, these recovery stages don’t have to be practised in the same exact order.
Grief ebbs and flows, goes through the motions, and your healing journey should allow for just that.
These 12 steps don’t offer a “cure” to make the pain completely disappear through your grief recovery, but they offer a path. A path you don’t have to walk down alone, as we can go step by step with you along the way.
One paw print at a time. Healing is possible.
