Help clients say goodbye

You may not always have the right words to express your sympathy when a pet dies, but the right book might be just the tool your clients need to help them grieve. For example, When Your Pet Dies: A Guide to Mourning, Remembering, and Healing (Companion Press, 2004) is one resource that offers pet owners a guide to mourning the death of a pet.

Author Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, uses statistics and exercises to help pet owners understand and acknowledge their loss. He also shares his own pet-loss experience and others' stories about their special pets, including Wally the parrot, Katie the dog, Freddie the horse, and Lucyfish, a little girl's fishy friend. "Pet owners often feel the loss of their companion animals very deeply," Wolfelt writes. "Many will say it was one of the most profound [losses] in their lives because ... the relationship they had with their pet was one of the most profound in their lives."