Coping with Pet Loss: Understanding Guilt and Grief

Deborah emphasizes that losing a pet isn't the owner's fault and encourages healing through shared experiences.

### Coping with Pet Loss: Understanding Grief and Self-Forgiveness
* 🐾 Hi, I'm Deborah from peoplelovinganimals.com, and today I’m sharing my first blog post along with insights on **coping with the loss of a pet**.
* 💔 "Your pet's death is **not your fault**," a crucial message that resonates with many, as evidenced by my YouTube video on this topic, which has garnered **9,700 views** and around **350 heartfelt comments**.
* 😢 Losing a pet is an incredibly painful experience, often filled with feelings of **sadness, despair, and hopelessness**, but the video provides coping strategies such as **staying busy** and **allowing time to heal**.
* 💬 It's important to remember that we all make mistakes, and no one intentionally harms their pet; we are human and **cannot know everything about our pets’ health**.
* 🐱 For instance, cats are known to **hide their illnesses until they are quite severe**, and young dogs may appear healthy even when they have a **high fever**, making it easy for owners to **miss signs of distress**.
* 🕊 Drawing from my personal experience of losing my mother, I understand that guilt can linger, but feeling guilty about a loss speaks to one's **character and care** for that loved one.
* 💪 As pet owners, we must give ourselves grace and recognize that we do our best based on our **knowledge and circumstances at the time**, and it's through **experience that we learn**.
* 🤝 I encourage you to watch the video on coping with pet loss and engage with the supportive community in the comments, as **sharing and encouraging one another can be incredibly healing** during such a difficult time.

Hi everybody, it's Deborah from peoplelovinganimals.com. Thanks so much for tuning in and watching my video today. I recently started a blog for peoplelovinganimals.com, and in today's video I would like to share my first blog post with you. I'm going to give you a link

to this blog post in the description box. I'll also give you a link to subscribe to my blog if you would like to. If you are new here, my name is Debra. I own a website called peoplelovinganimals.com, and several times a month I do videos about the care, health, and training of

dogs and cats. I would love to have you on board as a subscriber if you're not already subscribed. Your pet's death is not your fault. One of the most popular videos on my YouTube channel is dealing with grief over the loss of a pet. I made the video more than two years ago, and

since then it has received nine thousand seven hundred views and approximately 350 comments. I'm going to post that video in the description box, and I'll also um tag that video at the end of this video if you would like to watch it. I have replied to every single one of those

comments, and I'm not lying or exaggerating when I say that while replying to about 99 of them I did so with tears rolling down my cheeks. Losing a pet is absolutely terrible, no matter how it happens. All of the comments on that video offered a description of sadness, despair, loss, depression, and

even people who felt absolutely hopeless about how they were going to go on without their beloved pet. The video offers several coping strategies to help people to deal with the loss of their pet. The best advice I think anyone can give is to stay busy and allow time to pass. There's just no way to solve

how severe the pain is when it first happens we
really don't have any other choice but to bite the bullet and wait it out it's only after some time
has passed that we can begin to calm down and heal it's never your fault I am always extremely sad
when someone says they think their pet's death

was their fault I'm sad for two reasons
one is that I know what that feels like I too have had instances where I've lost
a dog or a cat and afterwards thought I could have done something to prevent
it had I done this had I done that

the second reason it upsets me is because I know
that it is not the person's fault if their cat was sick and they didn't realize it and if they
only would have realized it sooner and taken the cat to the vet maybe the cat would have survived
if the pet wasn't eating and they were so busy

in their daily life that they didn't realize the
food bowl wasn't going down as quickly as usual if the pet got dehydrated and they didn't
realize they weren't drinking enough water if they mistakenly left the front door open and
their pet ran out and was hit by a car I've even

heard stories about someone's cat falling out
the window of a multi-story apartment building devastating but the thing is we are human
beings we make mistakes we don't know everything seriously you don't know until
you know we're all doing the very best we

can no one not one of us has ever gotten up in
the morning and said to ourselves I think I'll hurt my pet today seriously no one ever has
the intention of harming their pet in any way do we make mistakes as pet owners yes just like
we make mistakes in every other area of our lives

but let me present you with these thoughts first you cannot possibly know everything cats for example will go to great lengths to hide their illness it's one of their survival instincts so as a cat owner most likely if your cat is having a health problem they're going to be

quite ill before they show any signs of it you cannot blame yourself for that a young dog for example just like a human toddler will run and play with a fever of 103 it's not until they drop that we realize they even had a fever that high they'll keep going and going even if they're

sick you can't blame yourself for not having magical powers to see everything and you also can't blame yourself for not being a veterinarian and not knowing absolutely everything about pets I'll leave you with a thought that is made an enormous difference for me in my life I lost

my mother approximately 17 years ago she died from cancer over a seven month period in my home and in my care even though 17 years have passed I still struggle with guilt all the same things we're talking about here what if I had done this what if I had done that what if I had seen the signs

sooner the list goes on and on so I am constantly looking for books or articles or YouTube videos trying to find ways for me to cope with that guilt because it's difficult even 17 years later the best advice I have received thus far regarding feeling guilty over the loss of

a loved one whether it's a person or a pet is this if you are feeling guilty in my case still feeling guilty after 17 years then that alone speaks to your character just the fact that you're watching a YouTube video trying to get help with coping with the loss of your pet the fact that you are

crying over the loss of your pet the fact that you are devastated that your pet is no longer with you the fact that you are actually blaming yourself and feeling guilty about the way your pet passed this speaks to your character I think as pet owners we have to cut ourselves some slack we

do the best we can based on our resources based on our schedules and other life demands and based on whatever amount of experience and knowledge we have at any given moment of our lives the longer you own pets the more experiences you will have and the more you will know

you don't know until you know I hope that this has helped somebody I hope that you'll go ahead and watch that video about coping with the loss of a pet if you haven't already the comment section of that video is becoming somewhat of a forum for people helping each

other with this so when you get there look at the comments read them some of them will probably help you if nothing else it helps you just to know that other people are going through the same thing and I'm going to ask you to reply to somebody's comment with some

encouragement let's try to help ourselves with this because you know what no matter how it happens losing a pet is very difficult so I hope that this helps thank you again for watching

Your Pet's Death is Not Your Fault  #petloss  | Pet Grief | Dog Loss | Cat Loss | Pet Death Guilt

People Loving Animals

Deborah introduces herself and her website, peoplelovinganimals.com.

She announces a new blog post and provides links in the description box.

She describes her YouTube channel's content: pet care, health, and training.

She mentions a popular video about pet loss grief.

Analysis of Pet Loss Grief Video and Comments

She discusses the high view count and numerous comments on her pet loss video.

She describes the emotional content of the comments, including sadness, despair, and hopelessness.

She shares coping strategies mentioned in the video, emphasizing the importance of time and staying busy.

Addressing Guilt and Self-Blame in Pet Loss

She addresses the common feeling of guilt after pet loss, stating it's not the owner's fault.

She explains her sadness when people blame themselves, sharing personal experiences of loss.

She gives examples of situations where pet owners might unintentionally contribute to their pet's death.

She emphasizes that humans make mistakes and that pet owners are doing their best.

She explains that pets often hide illness, making it difficult to detect early.

She uses examples of young dogs and human toddlers to illustrate the difficulty in recognizing illness.

She shares her experience with her mother's death and ongoing struggle with guilt.

She discusses the best advice she received about guilt, emphasizing that feeling guilty shows character.

She highlights that seeking help and grieving deeply demonstrate a caring nature.

She encourages pet owners to be kind to themselves and acknowledges that experience grows with time.

She encourages viewers to watch her pet loss coping video and engage with the comments section.

She asks viewers to offer encouragement in the comments to support each other.

She expresses hope that the video has been helpful and thanks viewers for watching.