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Life at Home Senior Pets

The Guilt in Goodbye

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes The last year of my cat’s life was a nightmare rollercoaster. Sebastian was battling cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. He lost his appetite, and I became obsessed with feeding him. I tried every brand of food, cooked for him, and checked his food bowl a dozen times daily to monitor how much he was eating. Finally, […]

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Cats Dogs Life at Home Other

Mindfulness Tools Help With Grief

Article

Cat and Christmas lights

Reading Time: 4 minutes Losing beloved cats, whether death is sudden or gradual, is a big deal. Even though I’ve been through at least 15 of these passings, my human mind can’t wrap my head around my companion’s absence. How can a being who means so much be gone? How can that bond be suddenly severed? How can we […]

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Cats Dogs Life at Home Other Senior Pets

Love and Loss: Helping Children Grieve When a Pet Dies

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes My 10-year-old daughter Reagan has experienced a lot of pet loss in the past year. Our 12-year-old black Pug, Willy, died suddenly and unexpectedly while my husband and I were out of the country, leaving Reagan and my mother Teresa to face his loss together. Then my parents’ 16-year-old canine cocktail Quixote passed away. At […]

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Dogs Life at Home

A Death in the Family: Facing Loss With Your Dog

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes When the worst thing you can think of happens, when there’s a death in the family, some of the most important help you and your dog can get is from each other.  Not surprisingly, it might be the dog’s issues that alert you to the depth of your own, because you might be too frantic, […]

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Cats Fears & Anxieties Life at Home

When Cats Grieve: How to Help

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes Grief is the price we pay for love. When one of our cats dies, we have lost a beloved family member, and we feel it deeply. We may lose sleep, lose our appetite, spend more time alone, or spend more time seeking comfort from others. Our routines feel off, because they included the cat who […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Life at Home Veterinary Care

How to Cope When You Hear the “C” Word

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s a sad fact that roughly six million dogs and a similar number of cats are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States, according to the Animal Cancer Foundation. No animal lover wants to hear the dreaded “C” word, but many of us have or will. Colorado resident Britton Slagle knows the pain […]

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Cats Life at Home

Is This New Cat “The One”?

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes When we lose a beloved cat, sometimes our inclination is to “find” him or her again. This desire may be driven by personal spiritual beliefs (reincarnation, or some kind of belief that our cat’s soul will want to find us again), or this desire might more simply be based on a belief that somewhere out […]