The experience of pet loss

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how individuals experience the death of a pet. It focused on the type of relationship that is formed between owners and their pets and how the loss of the latter may or may not affect the former. Six participants took part in individual semi-structured interviews which were comprised of open-ended questions. The qualitative research approach known as Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis [IPA] was utilised to analyse the interview transcripts as it specifically focuses on attending to the participants’ subjective experiences of a particular phenomenon (Shinebourne, 2011). The three super-ordinate themes that emerged were ‘Family friend or friendly familiar?’, ‘Chronology and age: Pet loss on a timeline ’, and ‘Post-death: The emotional spectrum’. Findings indicated that not everyone experiences pet loss in the same way and, therefore, one cannot make assumptions of what a person who experienced pet loss is going through. For some of the participants, the loss meant a change in their lifestyle and routines. However, for some others, the loss was equal to losing a family member. There were also a couple of participants who remained unaffected by the loss. Interestingly, one does not necessarily have to have a good relationship with the pet in order to feel affected by its loss. The participants most affected by the death of their pet were the ones who regarded the pet as a family member, as well as the ones who had the pet from a young age. Future research could investigate the affect on different family members experiencing the loss of the same pet in order to compare the different types of relationships that the members had with the pet and how this affected them when there was loss.