The Reality of Finding Your Pet Dead

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

In all honesty, I’ve recently found my grief becoming more challenging and causing different thoughts and feelings. I’ve come to recognise that a huge reason why my grief is becoming so substantial – more so than I feel it has ever been with the loss of a pet – is because unlike my previous three pets (Dolly, Pixie, and Emmy), Gracie wasn’t euthanised. In fact, she didn’t even make it to the Vets because I found her dead in my sitting room just hours before her appointment. I feel – and so many important people in my life have validated this and actually, they’ve even suggested it themselves – that finding her like that was a trauma. Now, in creating Gracie’s Way, I’m discovering that I’m not alone in this experience and as sad and heart-breaking as that is, it’s also reassuring to know I’m not completely alone in this. So, I wanted to do this article to not only reassure those people that their thoughts and feelings etc are absolutely understandable but also, to provide their professionals and their loved ones with insight into what they may be experiencing and how to better help and support them more effectively…

The Reaction

So, my first thoughts and feelings on finding Gracie were pretty much a lot around shock and disbelief and I think a huge example of that is that the previous day, she had been sat hunched up (a position they go into with Gut Stasis because they’re in pain or discomfort in their tummy) in her hutch – which is always wide open and they rarely use it) for a few hours, and then she spent at least five hours behind the washing machine. When I realised, she wasn’t eating either, I called the Vets and – when I asked for an appointment that day – I had a Receptionist tell me she would be fine overnight!

So, when I got up early the next day, I checked under the bed because I could hear scuffling, but it turned out to be Luna (my eldest bunny who was incredibly bonded to Gracie) then I actually walked straight past the open door to the sitting room and looked in the hutch and behind the washing machine. When she wasn’t in either of those places, I started to go into the sitting room when all of a sudden, there she was in front of me on the floor almost in the doorway. I literally nearly stood on her because it was so unexpected that she would be there like that! I was in so much disbelief, and it felt so surreal and just honestly, unbelievable that something like this had happened to my little, two-year-old bunny!

The Practical Aftermath

·         Phone Calls

After that initial perhaps ten to twenty seconds of ‘oh my God!’ I remember grabbing my phone (I can’t recall whether it was in my hand or if I had to go and get it from the bedroom because some bits are hazy and unclear from the confusion and panic) and then I took a photo of her because I honestly had the most bizarre and unrealistic thought that ‘no one will believe me.’ Then I called my Mum and said, “Gracie’s dead!” and then the tears started to flow and she asked “what?” and I said, “she’s just lying here dead!” and I remember my Mum almost immediately started crying too as she said “oh, Aimee!” I remember her asking what she and my almost Stepdad should do because they were due to pick me up to take me to the Vets appointment and I said to come over.

·         Handling Her Body

Then I called the Vets emergency number and said that I thought my rabbit was dead and asked if there was anything I could – or should – do. I think that honestly, that was mostly from panic setting in and then some disbelief and the denial in not wanting to accept she was gone. The Veterinary Nurse said to check for a heartbeat and that was actually the first time I touched her, I reached out and felt her freezing cold body and as I tried to lift her paw to reach her chest, almost her entire body moved with it. I told the Vets and she said it was called ‘rigor mortis’ (you can read more about that, here, but it basically can happen within 1 – 6 hours after death which meant she must have passed in the early hours because I found her at about 8am) and that there was literally nothing I could do. And that was when the powerlessness and feelings of being utterly useless crept in and filled me with both immense sadness and then the rest of me felt almost completely numb.

As I ended that call, I watched Luna nudge Gracie’s body again and noticed Ruby was just sat in the corridor staring at Gracie, so I found a blanket and covered her with it. Once I did, Luna moved away and Ruby came in the room for breakfast. I also opened the sitting room window… Then I rang the Vets normal number to say that I needed to cancel the appointment because I’d found her, I watched as Luna came back over and sniffed and then nudged the blanket covering Gracie’s body with her nose as though desperate and pleading with her to wake up and just move.

That was honestly heart-breaking because when I first got Luna, I had the calico rescue cat – Emmy – and so she bonded to her initially. When Emmy was put to sleep and Luna became distressed and sad, the Vet said it’d be easier to bond her with a new bunny than another cat, so that’s where Gracie came in. She was Luna’s first rabbit-friend and the two of them were literally inseparable. I mean, they were so attached that that’s actually, genuinely why I got my cat, Ruby, because I felt they were always in another room together and I literally had no company now!

·         The Cremation Decision

After establishing she’d been dead a number of hours, I realised that I still needed to take her to the Vets to have her cremated, so I called them again and asked if the appointment was still free to bring her in for that and they said ‘yes.’ In all honesty, I spent pretty much zero time considering what I wanted to do with her body, but I think that’s not so much about being in a state of panic or denial or anything like that. I think it was more about just honestly immediately knowing what I wanted to do and I think cremation almost felt natural because I had my three previous pets cremated after they were each put to sleep. And I really like the feeling that they’re sort of still in the home in that little display that I have for them with the artificial flowers, little cuddly rabbits, photos, and paw prints. So I was actually so confident and certain with this that it almost didn’t feel like a choice – it just felt right.

 Then my Mum and almost Stepdad arrived and they came straight in and we hugged in the corridor and all three of us cried. My almost Stepdad was saying “I’m so sorry Aimee” and his sympathy and support made me cry even more and to be honest, in that moment I still, somehow, managed to feel a bit lucky – lucky that I had these two amazing parents in my life. My Mum wanted to look at her and then we got a box from a recent delivery, and I asked my Mum to put her in whilst wrapped in the blanket. I honestly felt properly nauseous just at the thought of touching her again. I couldn’t. Because I felt like seeing her dead like that was enough, I didn’t need to feel that she was dead too.

·         The Financial Implications

As we drove to the Vets, I realised I was going to end up sat in the waiting room with whilst waiting for the Vet to call us in so I called them and asked if there was a room I could go straight into and their response was the sweetest thing: “we’ve got a room all set up for her.” Their kindness literally gave me actual goosebumps and made my eyes well with tears again. And they were true to their word, someone came straight to me at the desk and, after noticing that their electric candle on the desk was lit up where there’s a little sign that says someone is losing their best-friend and to be quiet, I went into a little exam room where there were blankets on the side and a heart-breaking booklet of the different urns you could choose from. And I think that unlike deciding to cremate her, this was the part that I spent my time on in terms of considering the options and what felt right. My parents told me not to worry about the difference in cost for the urns and to choose what felt right – which was really an incredibly helpful attitude to be shown at that time.

Taking my time to make this bit of a decision really supports the fact that I would advise someone who finds their pet dead that wherever possible, take the time to make decisions – particularly those that, once done, there’s no going back because they’re definitely final and unchangeable. A message I’d also like to get across here in this part of the article would be for those who are somewhat on the outside of the situation of someone finding their pet dead – whether that be loved ones or professionals who are involved in some way – and it’s the importance of respect. Literally the last thing that a person who experiences a traumatic event like this in their life, is to have their decisions disregarded, dismissed, criticised, and disrespected in whatever way. It is their situation, their trauma, their pet, their life, and whatever they feel is right for whatever aspect of the entire trauma, should be supported and appreciated.

The Trauma Aspect of It

So, I searched online for ‘trauma symptoms’ and rather than focus on trauma as a sole event, it made it into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)… Now, I’m not sure I’d at all agree or declare that literally everyone who goes through a trauma will be or should be diagnosed with PTSD (for more information on the diagnosis and symptoms, there are two useful links; one on the NHS website, here and the second is on the Mind – a mental health charity – site, here). From these sites, I have picked out a couple of the most relevant and challenging symptoms that I feel I’ve struggled with the most from finding Gracie and have worded their subtitles according to what they are on both sites…

·         My Freeze Response But Also Fight, Flight, Flop, & Fawn

On the Mind website – under a page titled ‘Effects of Trauma’ (which you can read in its entirety here) actually listed five possible responses related to the phenomenon referenced in the subtitle of this bit: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Flop, and Fawn. Now, since the first two and perhaps the third are more heard of and are more commonly understood and therefore more likely to be correctly interpreted, I’ll leave those, but the other two… Mind defines the ‘Flop’ as: ‘doing what you’re told without being able to protest’ and ‘Fawn’ is defined by the charity as: ‘trying to please someone who harms you.’

Since I felt that the four Fight, Flight, Flop, and Fawn weren’t ones that I experienced in this instance of trauma, I chose to subtitle this part with the one which I feel I have struggled with the most. But I also didn’t want to seem as though I was dismissing the others in any way nor that I was in any way suggesting that they aren’t valid or understandable thoughts and feelings to experience in a trauma like this. So, I felt they were more than worthy of a mention in case anyone is struggling with those. If you are, please consider using the Help Directory for specific pet bereavement help and support contact information or the Help Directory on my blog, I’m NOT Disordered, for more general mental health help and support. I also wanted to mention another article over on the Mulberry Bush website which is a charity mostly centred around children with experience of abuse, neglect, and/or trauma but they have a piece titled: ‘Understanding Trauma Responses’ that includes their relevance to adults (as well as children) too: Understanding Trauma Responses - The Mulberry Bush.

I think that my ‘Freeze’ response was actually so normal, reasonable, and – in my opinion, at least – understandable that although I struggled with it; I wasn’t unsafe as a result of either, nor did I feel that I needed support or advice specifically for them.

‘Freeze’ for me, was literally about just pausing and being absolutely so shocked that I couldn’t believe what was happening. I mean, it had been so unexpected that I’d almost stood on her little body because I hadn’t thought she would just be lying there on the floor almost in the doorway! So that massively took me aback to the point of literally just making my entire body – and it honestly felt like my mind too! – freeze.

I managed to find an article (which you could read here: How to Overcome the Freeze Response - NICABM) on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioural Medicine (NICABM) and in it, it has a subtitle ‘What Are The Key Signs of The Freeze Response?’ and I’d say that in finding Gracie, I had the shallow and rapid breath and 100% the minimal verbal cues because I felt totally drained of all the words in my vocabulary.

There was also a subtitle that read ‘What NOT To Do When a Person Is Stuck in Freeze’ and that came below a subtitle on how to help a client in a session, so the advice was in relation to that sort of scenario – being a client in a therapy session or some sort of mental health appointment. It stated as a tip on what not to do: Make it clear that going into freeze is NOT a negative thing! Remind your client that bodily responses to trauma are involuntary and a matter of survival – they don’t reflect a person’s strength, or lack thereof.’ I found this really reassuring and validating – even not having someone say that to me in a ‘session!’ Just hearing that professionals are advised on this? Well, that’s enough. And that’s why I linked the article; in case it helps others in some sort of similar way too.

·         Self-Blame, Guilt, & ‘What If?’

I had a lot of self-blame thoughts after finding my little Gracie that morning…

‘I should have fought for a same-day Vet appointment.’

‘If I’d checked on her sooner, she’d still be alive.’

‘I could have prevented this.’

‘I failed her.’

In an article (which you can read here) over on Dogs of Valhalla (which is primarily around pet bereavement for dogs specifically), that’s titled ‘Overcoming Self-Blame in the Face of Pet Loss,’ it states ‘amidst the grief and heartache, one of the most common and challenging emotions to deal with is guilt.’ Then it also – almost more importantly – stated ‘it’s essential to understand that guilt is a natural response to loss, but it’s crucial to recognize that it can be irrational and unproductive.’ That last adjective: ‘unproductive’ actually felt like a really effective and accurate description of self-blame in pet bereavement – but specifically in finding the pet dead.

On AI – specifically Chat GPT – it stated that ‘your brain is trying to make sense of something sudden and painful.’ I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that the internet – or at least, the number of sites and articles I found – were all incredibly understanding and supportive of trauma and specifically trauma through pet bereavement too. And a coping mechanism I discovered – sadly, I can’t recall exactly where I found this one because I literally looked at some many pieces and websites in putting this entire article together – as you may have noticed already! Anyway, it was about challenging these thoughts…

So, any of my thoughts around not noticing the gravity of her illness or fighting for Gracie when the Veterinary Receptionist stated that “she’ll be fine to just be seen tomorrow,” can be challenged with thoughts and the knowledge around rabbits hiding illness and injury… This is explained in a Vets at Home article too: Spotting Illness in Rabbits: When to Call the Vet — Vet at Home but it’s mostly about being related to them being naturally animals of prey and so, to survive, they’ve come to consider that any sign of illness or injury is a sign of weakness and vulnerability. This can mean that by the time a rabbit seems poorly and seems to have clear symptoms of being unwell, they may have been struggling or in pain for some time. This is why, a lot of rabbit illnesses can seem to progress incredibly quickly – something which Blue Cross informs you of and makes people aware of too, especially in this particular article: Basic Rabbit Healthcare | Blue Cross.

I also have the challenge thought against my self-blame thoughts and guilt around the issues with the Vet appointment, of the fact that just getting her to the Vet sooner doesn’t mean she’d have been saved. And this is actually also greatly linked to that previous point about rabbits not showing illness and injury soon.

Also, hindsight is an unfair thought and feeling… It’s actually, often linked to disenfranchised grief – such as in this Psychology Today article: The Unique Pain of Grieving for a Pet | Psychology Today United Kingdom where it details how it can lead to ‘empathy failure.’ And, regarding that type of Grief, Gracie’s Way actually has an Instagram post titled ‘Your Guide to Disenfranchised Grief’ which you can view here. But I think the message in that Psychology Today article was around the recognition that because of this phenomenon or mindset, so many people experience self-blame and guilt because there’s no one supporting you and telling you otherwise and providing you with alternative thoughts and different, effective coping mechanisms.

·         Flashbacks & Intrusive Memories

This is probably the traumatic aspect that I’m experiencing both the most often and which is the most difficult to cope with, accept, and adjust my life around having it. In all honesty, I didn’t even associate the word ‘trauma’ to what happened until I was telling my Mum about some of the things I was struggling with and how bad I was struggling, and she said, “well you will, it’s like you’ve been through a little trauma.” I’ll get to challenging and talking about the ‘little’ bit later!

I kind of liked the description of ‘intrusive memories’ – particularly the ‘intrusive’ part – that I found in an article on Animo Sano Psychiatry which is basically about specialist care and personalised help in mental health but their article is perfectly – because it literally has all the relevant words – titled: ‘The Role of Memory in Trauma: Intrusive Thoughts, Flashbacks, and Techniques to Manage’ (and I’m going to talk it through but you can read the whole thing for yourself here).

The first bit I found important was that it explains there’s a different to ‘intrusive thoughts’ and ‘flashbacks.’ I found this helpful because prior to this, I’d only ever heard of intrusive thoughts in terms of self-harm, suicide, and hallucinations. And I kind of figured out what they meant in respect of trauma, but I didn’t understand their difference. The differences are mostly around the fact that intrusive thoughts tend to be snippets of memories, whereas flashbacks are usually more immersive experiences, where you can actually temporarily fully lose your awareness of the present.

I’d definitely more than accept and recognise that I’ve had both types; the flashbacks and intrusive thoughts/memories. The flashbacks are yes, a completely immersive experience or reminder of the entirety of finding Gracie, and I actually feel that the further away it gets since the instance, it honestly becomes even more vivid rather than less and less accurate or fuzzy and less-detailed in some way. No, it’s as though finding Gracie happened yesterday every time, I have a flashback! Whereas with intrusive memories, I’m still incredibly aware when experiencing them that they have happened in the past because they fill me with the thoughts ‘should I still be struggling?’ and ‘am I overreacting?’ But there are three pieces of Instagram content over on the Gracie’s Way Instagram which could inform and be relevant to this, just click on each to see it:

1.       Validating Statements in Pet Bereavement

2.       10 Reasons Why Pet Bereavement Is Different

3.       Five Reasons Why Pet Loss Resurfaces

Techniques in the Animo Sano Psychiatry article that are recommended to ‘manage’ both intrusive thoughts and flashback – despite their differences – are around some basic grounding exercises, safe-place visualisation, breathing exercises and cognitive distraction which is, in the article, described as being activities such as puzzles or some sort of counting task etc. Now, if you are unsure about the grounding – there’s a specific article for it on PTSD UK: Grounding Techniques for PTSD & C-PTSD – PTSD UK – safe-place visualisation – there’s a specific article on Get Self Help: SafePlace.pdf – and breathing techniques – there’s a specific article for it on the Mind website: Self-care for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | Mind.

·         Sleep Problems

Now, I was actually in two minds as to whether this particular experience of mine in response to losing Gracie was relevant to the Intrusive Thoughts section or this part – it’s my unsettlement in my home and feeling constantly on-edge. I decided that this, however, has affected my sleep to such a degree that I felt it made it more appropriate to add to this bit and this is because the two largest methods of this happening are:

1.       If I hear a strange noise in my sleep that wakes me up, I immediately think it was one of my pets dying. In all honesty, this is hard to admit because I absolutely recognise how understandable it would actually be to have someone not appreciate this thought for what it is and to quickly dismiss it as dramatic and over-the-top.

2.       I regularly – probably at least twice per night – have dreams of a pet dying. And recently, it stopped even being exclusive to my pets! A few nights ago, I dreamt that my almost-Step Dad was walking his dog; Meg (who I adore!) down my garden path and she just collapsed. In the dream I shouted, ‘oh God!’ but I had actually shouted it in real-life too because I woke myself up and then I just lay there crying for around half an hour until I fell asleep again.

Tips I discovered through research – mostly through AI again (Chat GPT) which I found helpful were reducing triggers before bed e.g. not looking at photos or videos or social media content that mentioned or showed Gracie (even alive and happy), and I started going to bed two hours earlier than I really needed to or should have so that I felt less pressure to fall asleep and wasn’t thinking ‘I’ve got to be up soon!’

Finally…

This is fully one of those situations where you don’t want – and absolutely hate even the thought of – anyone else experiencing it, but at the same time; it can be helpful to hear of others similar experiences because it makes you feel less alone. There’s also the opportunity for that person to give you advice if they’ve discovered anything useful, helpful, or supportive that you’re yet to have thought of or been advised to do. So, if you’re talking to others who have similar traumas of finding their pet dead, please be mindful to view it in productive and safe way.