It goes without saying that grieving takes many forms and is different for everyone. Yet, somehow there feels like there’s almost rules on what’s best or what’s “extra” and not healthy. Let me absolutely destroy those notions right now. It’s only 4 days since it happened, but I’ll tell you everything I’ve done.
1. Cry in public. Mostly its just happened at work and at the actual emergency vet. I ran into the emergency vet sobbing and I sat there in the public waiting room while they ran to grab him from my arms and took him away. It wasn’t busy, just one other woman in the room. But “normal” me doesn’t cry in public. I will quite literally bite my tongue to cause distracting pain to stop tears from flowing. I think that at this point, I was completely disassociated with my self. Who cares about my being when another life was fleeting? They took me back to a private waiting room where I waited for maybe 10 minutes before the vet came with the news that it wasn’t good. I could barely speak. I asked a few questions, but wish I could’ve asked more. It just didn’t happen. When I was checking out at the counter, I was bawling and there was a guy opposite me checking out. He kept looking at me. I knew it wasn’t judgment, maybe sympathy. It’s pretty obvious at an emergency vet what has happened if someone is this upset. Still, normal me wouldn’t have been in public this upset. That’s okay. There’s nothing normal about the traumatic event of losing a pet.
2. Change your voicemail greeting message. This sounds “extra,” but I specifically needed to let his vet know to leave me alone. Not his emergency vet. His regular vet. As it happens, I had actually called his vet the day he died to leave a voicemail chewing them out regarding their prescription practices. I had ordered a refill on his medication from chewy.com and it took a few days for chewy to tell me they reached out to the vet and they don’t partner with the chewy pharmacy??? Uh, what? For humans, a doctor has to send a prescription to any pharmacy requested. I assumed it would be the same. My after hours voicemail to them was letting them know I was shocked and asking them to let me know if they had his medicine on site because at this point I would need to pick it up tomorrow. Well, Gatsby wouldn’t make it to tomorrow. So, I changed my voicemail greeting (it hasn’t been changed since 2008) to say:
“If you are a vet trying to contact me about Gatsby, he is no longer here. Please do NOT leave a message as whatever information you may have is now irrelevant.”
Sure enough, the next day they called me back. I had a missed call, but no voicemail. Good.
3. Delete their pet profiles. Obviously I’m still crying everyday and I’m still very upset, but I decided right away to remove things about Gatsby that didn’t serve me. As soon as I got home from the emergency vet, I logged onto my chewy.com account and deleted his profile under my dogs. My voicemail greeting kinda helped me too with feeling like I needed to block out discussions about Gatsby. All of the physical things that remind me of Gatsby haven’t been touched. I haven’t even washed the clothes on the floor that I know he liked to lay on. But for some reason I just right away wanted to cut ties with digital records. (Not photos or anything! Obviously!)
4. Ordering self help books. I’m not much of a reader, but I knew that these would likely be as close as I would get to pet loss support. The same night he died I was up late and chose a couple of books on Amazon. Still waiting for them to arrive (I’m not a prime member!). I think it’s VERY important for me to read them cover to cover once they arrive. I need help and reading words from others to help me through this.
5. Going to the shelter two days after his death. A lot of what I’ve heard and read focuses on the passage of time. How important it is to process grief fully so you don’t assign it to the new dog. I honestly don’t even think I know what that means. I am so painfully aware that no one will replace Gatsby. Nothing would be “assigned” to the new dog except love. You also hear to check on the other dogs and how they’re feeling. I totally get that, but mine are okay. Gracie for sure hasn’t noticed anything because Gracie was always in the living room with me, while Gatsby was elsewhere. They never went for walks together either because a big dog is no match for the same walking speed as a small dog. Lexi seems sad and confused, but okay. Even though they obviously weren’t biologically related, Lexi and Gatsby were very much brother and sister. Gatsby would bark if he saw Gracie getting too close to Lexi because he knew in some cases if unsupervised, that doesn’t turn out well. Lexi would absolutely knock over anything in her way to come running and sniff Gatsby to check on him if she heard him whine. Gatsby was pretty sensitive so if I was trying to cut his nails and he made noises or I touched a part of his ear he didn’t like.... oh no. Lexi is coming running to check on her bro. Lexi is mostly confused by being the only dog in my bed since her and Gatsby slept with me. Lexi still eats her normal amount of food and hasn’t changed her energy levels, so I feel okay about potentially bringing home a friend. Because of everything we hear about the passage of time and people losing their dogs needing to close their heart and not get a new dog for a long time, anything else can seem abnormal. I was scared to say that “hey, it’s soon, but I’m already considering because the physical lack of a 3rd dog’s presence is too much and isn’t helping me heal.” Ultimately you gotta do you.
6. When it is time to bring a new furry friend home, leave all expectations at the door. I’m not saying I 100% believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that your fur angel picks them. I’ll share more about her if she actually becomes mine (not getting attached yet), but the dog I ended up putting an application in for was not who I expected. I went in with the mindset that I wanted it to be a tiny boy dog. Breed didn’t matter, but I was really missing the boy dog presence and I love small dogs so they easily sleep with me and won’t attack each other. Except for Gatsby luckily being available when I got him (he was my first!), I have NEVER gone to the shelter for who I wanted to see and left with them.
(My local shelter requires in person visits before you can apply to adopt and there's no holds).
It’s even harder now because you have to make appointments to visit the shelter, so if a dog comes on the site at 10am, but you have a 3pm appointment, you’re not getting that dog. Mostly that applies to small dogs as big dogs are always tougher to adopt out. My appointment was at 5pm and at about 4:15 (cuz yes I was refreshing the site all day!), a small little wirey haired girl dog was posted. She looked like a lighter version of Lexi honestly. I was excited to see her and when I got there, the animal officer said “she’s available so let’s take her to play!” And I kid you not, another officer walked by and said the reason her status wasn’t updated is because the adopters were waiting in line in the lobby to put the application in on her. The officer still told me to take her outside so we did. But I kinda knew in my heart that she was taken (back up applications honestly are 99% not likely to be chosen) so I was quick to politely ask if I could see someone else. I had 3 more pictures on my phone of other potential medium sized boy dogs. The officer said they were all aggressive. 😩
In the kennel next to the wirey little dog I came to see was a 9 month old girl that weighs 36 pounds. Initially I thought “oh that’s too big, I can’t.” But I asked the officer to let me take her out and let’s just say... her personality is the exact OPPOSITE of Gatsby. This dog wouldn’t stop looking back at me to make sure I was coming. No independent other room situations happening there. But I’m pretty sure Gatsby knew maybe it was time for me to have another dog that wants to smother me with love. We’ll see what happens, but I do believe that it worked out this way for a reason. I don’t know what it’s like to have 3 girl dogs ?????? But if it happens, I’m hoping for the best. Girl squad!
Expectation VS Potential Reality
7. Lying about your dog to strangers. Don’t be embarrassed to talk about them as if they’re still alive if you’re not ready to be vulnerable with acquaintances. It feels weird to say “oh yeah he’s a jack Russell and chihuahua mix and such a little independent little dude with big personality!” BUT, it’s not your responsibility to tell the truth about YOUR animal if it’s going to hurt YOUR mental health. The very next day after Gatsby died, 3 people I work with (and I’ve only been there two weeks) commented on the picture of Gatsby in my office. So I had to lie. I just didn’t feel like sobbing in front of these people that I didn’t know well and that have to see me everyday. That’s okay! I’ve also been answering “good” when people ask me how I am, but I know we all do that even if we’re not, so it feels more normalized. The only time it got weird was when I literally had tears running down my face at Taco Bell and told the guy I was good. Yikes.
Anyway, despite all the things we hear about grieving, it comes down to what works best for your self preservation. Fuck the “expectations.” Gatsby said “fuck you” to the expectations of being a clingy lap dog, so why not, right? ;)
