Hellobee Boards

@BabyBoecksMom: My son was 2 years old when one of our cats died of cancer, and we just told him that she got sick and died. He took it surprisingly well! We acted like it was just part of life, and that's how he took it too.

I'm so sorry to hear about your dog!

We had to do this recently. Our 12-year-old pet rabbit got very sick. I brought him to the vet and did not return home with him. I looked up online how to explain the death of a pet to a toddler, and the consensus seemed to be to use the correct words (i.e. "death" instead of "passed away" or "went to sleep") and to be very clear about the permanence. Little kids don't tend to understand the permanence of death, and they will think the pet will return again in a few days, magically healed. Even though we've explained what death means to our daughter, she still sometimes acts like our bunny will just walk back into the house some day and eat the rest of his raisin treats that are still in the pantry.

I'm sorry about your pup. The death of a pet is so sad

Oh Cody So sorry that it turned out that way. Wall me ANYTIME if you want to talk/text, etc

These are the resources we usually give to owners:

http://csu-cvmbs.colostate.edu/Documents/argus-2011-01-grief-children.pdf

http://csu-cvmbs.colostate.edu/vth/diagnostic-and-support/argus/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/plhl/grief/

I'm interested in this - we put our cat to sleep before we moved and just didn't tell the kids anything. Our kids paid no attention to the cat at all - she was old and cranky and didn't play so they just stayed out of her way. However, Dd has started talking about her and how she is still in our old state (we moved cross country). I don't know what to tell her - I usually just change the conversation.