We've had 3 kittens die in the past year - one that we picked up as a stray and just didn't make it, and my 3 year old daughter's cat, Kitty Cat had a litter of two that both passed. The first kitten of the litter died during birth and our cat put the second one in bed with us while we were sleeping. My husband accidentally rolled over on him and smothered him.

We are not religious. I personally base my spirituality mostly on Christianity, but not entirely, and my husband is entirely athiest. We have decided as a couple to teach our kids about various different religions and spiritualities when they are older - at least old enough to make an informed decision for themselves. That decision, while for the most part is the most comfortable thing I feel I can do for my daughters, also has hindered my ability to explain our little kitties not being around anymore. 

I approached both situations in as vague a way as possible, which I'm not entirely sure was the right decision, but it doesn't seem to have done any harm. Every now and again Gracie will go over to the closet where Kitty Cat birthed her kittens, and she'll ask about Baby Kitty (we didn't have time to name him.) I still try to avoid it as I don't think she'll understand and I don't want to scare her. I have no idea what we're going to do when Kitty Cat or our other cat Molly die - or worse, when a member of the family passes. If only athiests had a "place" like heaven we could say that these pets/family members/friends "went."

I'm sorry for your loss.

Our son was 2.5 when our 14-year-old dog died last May. We aren't religious, so we didn't really have a framework for explaining death to a toddler. It was very tough on all of us, and we kind of let our son find his way around the topic. When he asked us where Woody went, we said, "Woody's gone." "Woody's gone?" Yes, we said. Woody was broken and went to sleep and isn't going to wake up.

Today, seven months later, he still talks about "missing Woody" and how "Woody is broken." He doesn't say Woody is sleeping, but he knows he won't see him again. He doesn't seem especially broken-up about the dog's passing, but he does acknowledge the dog's absence, which is actually very comforting to both my husband and myself.

Leslie

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Research and Academia
My blogs: The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox

We lost our great dog (our son's babysitter) when my son was five.  We spoke a lot about heaven; do animals have souls.  My son reasoned that if an animal has the capacity for love (as dogs and cats seem to), then doesn't that indicate they have a soul?  And if they have a soul, wouldn't they go to heaven?  He then decided (and I'll never forget this) that our dog Eli was going to be God's dog now.

http://www.storyrhyme.com/jcsblog

Yikes. My daughter is two and already very attached to our dog Thor. The big guy is getting up there in years. He's eleven, oh wait I think he's twelve. Crap. So if we're lucky he'll live another three years. Hope so. In any case my daughter will be a bit older and I am dreading the day he goes up to doggie heaven cause I will have to explain it to a little kid. No fun. But at least she will have great memories of him. 

The Moxie Report. Giggles. Gaffes. Girl Talk. From television producer, writer and mom Tracy Evans. http://themoxiereport.blogspot.com

about pets in heaven:

http://flickr.com/photos/kipling_west/2243715954/in/set-72157600005141216/

Okay.  So I saw All Dogs Go to Heaven when I was a kid.  And cried.  I'm wondering if animals can go to heaven.  I hope they can.  That seems in line with the character of God from what I understand of Him from the bible and His work in my life and in others' lives.  It makes sense to me that animals would go to heaven.  I still remember when my very first dog, a dog that had always been part of my life and in many ways was my very best friend, when she died.  She was this beautiful and loyal German shepherd.  There was just "something about her.'  We had many dogs over the years, and now my parents have a great Jack Russell named Parker, who the two of them really have bonded with big time but I was not living at home when they got him (in college).  I didn't bond with him as much, but he is a great dog.  The only dog in my life that was significant to me personally (though I do love Parker, too) was Peach, the German shepherd.  So many of my early memories are connected with my constant companion.  If I had a hard day at school, I would come home and have a cry, and she would lick my face and watch me attentively.  She was ridiculously in tune with me and was close with me in a very unique manner, more person like than dog like.  And I needed that.  We came back one day and I was the first to find her body, dead from eating rat poison a neighbor had put out purposely to kill her (another story).  I still remember that moment, that awful feeling.  My heart was utterly broken.  But I thought even then (at about age six), "One day I'll see her again, in heaven."  Before my mom said a word, I knew it.  And I was just shellshocked, really.  I cried but couldn't talk about her.  I cried every day over that dog, who died before her time because of that neighbor being mean like that.  I still feel a twinge over it in my heart.  There was something extra special about Peach.

 And now, with my husband, my husband has found "our dog."  Chloe is about a year and a half old.  She is a beautiful Aussie/German shepherd mix, and honestly she reminds me of the friendship and loyalty of Peach, in a way.  She is bright, sweet, and playful, very senstiive and caring, and there is almost an anthromorphic quality about her and something special.  I'm in awe.  I've been around lots of dogs in my life, and I've only been around three like this, Peach, Parker (but not with me), and Chloe.  And not just because they were ours.  And not just because I chose to bond with them or not to.  There is just something about these dogs.  Seriously.  

I think God does something special with that, in giving them life and matching up people with great animals.  We actually have a cat I feel that this happened with, too, Pixie.  We have two other cats also that we love, but there is something about Pixie.  I know it probably sounds really silly and goofy of me to be so on and on about this, but it's really been on my mind lately.  :)  

Hopefully everyone who is an animal lover can have the bond I've been blessed to have more than once.  My husband too remarks on this.  :)  He sees it with Chloe a lot, with her.  :)  We don't have children, but when we do we definitely want to have the animals get to be their pets.  :)  I really really hope all dogs and cats go to heaven.  I I know some people might think I'm ridiculous, but it's hard to picture heaven without them in my mind.  :)

We don't conform to any one religion either, but we've always been open with our children about all the different beliefs of heaven and the afterlife.

That being said, and I know this will sound corny, but when my boys were little The Lion King story and the whole "circle of life" concept was something they could wrap their young minds around when their grandfather passed away.

We still talk in the abstract of "heaven" with all the kids, and we've suffered more losses since then, both pet and person.  I think being open, honest and talking as much as needed until your children are comfortable, even if it is years later, and honoring the memories of those lost will do the most good.  As hard as it is, death is a part of life.

So far, our kids seem to have handled this ok, as expceted, and I can only hope that I'm giving them the tools they will need in the future to deal with loss.  It's never easy though.

Carrie at Stop Screaming I'm Driving

We have had three pets die this year. It's a really difficult subject. My kids are heart broken! Thanks for this great article!

Three years ago my husband's grandmother (who raised him) died. Our twins were just 6-years-old. We are religious so we talked a lot about Heaven and how happy Granny (the name Granny preferred) is now that's she's with grandpa. We also talked about many of the good times we had with Granny throughout the years as well as drew pictures about those times.

In December our 11-year-old cat died. Jasper had been part of our lives for the kids' entire lives. It was very sad. Again we talked about Heaven. And how Jasper gets to see Granny in Heaven. I also got the books Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant and For Every Cat An Angel by Christine Davis (there are dog versions of these books as well). These books not only helped comfort my kids, but I really enjoyed them too.

Death with kids is tricky. Especially if it is a significant, close loss because it goes on for a lot longer. It's been five years since we lost my infant son and we are still talking about it and explaining it to our kids.  It's been an ongoing process.  Sometimes they are very sad about it, sometimes it's curiosity about death, sometimes I can tell they bring it up for attention, sometimes they are very logical and analytic about it and at others they just cry. 

 I try to take each question as it comes and make it clear that talking about it when they want or need to is really important and absolutely ok because Matthew continues to be a part of our family. (I did my best handle the conversation about how they wanted to dig him up to play with him again as they were 4 and 8, but that was a toughie.)

Death is a difficult subject to talk about without confusing or scaring kids. I posted about this very thing for Type-A Mom at the end of November (http://tinyurl.com/5f8ceh).

This may sound strange, but I'm incredibly nervous about that conversation with my son when our dog dies. Britt is 13 and she's the only pet my son has ever known. Like you, Britt was my first "baby" and she was also my late husband's dog, so I'm going to be a wreck when she dies.

Thanks for the post, it's always helpful to hear other people's experiences with tough topics.

Sherry

Here's a story I wrote a little while ago about a family losing their dog and the new puppy (taken from our own experience).

http://www.storyrhyme.com/stories/originals/charlie_and_ruby/index.html

http://www.storyrhyme.com/jcsblog

My daughter died about 3 months ago, leaving behind three younger siblings. So I've been doing a lot of reading and talking with other bereaved parents on how to talk about death with children (and with adults -- as the comments above demonstrate, none of us are very comfortable with it). I found an excellent book that I highly recommend to every parent, whether you have dealt with death already or not. It's best to be prepared ahead of time.

 It's called "How Do We Tell the Children? A step-by-step guide for helping children two to teen cope when someone dies" by Dan Schaeffer, PhD & Christine Lyons. 

 In a nutshell, they recommend for young children to talk to them in very simple, biological terms. For example, when someone dies from being sick, you say, "Uncle ____ got very sick, so sick that his body couldn't get better. His heart stopped beating and he died." If someone is killed in an accident, it would go like this, "Our friend ____ was hurt really really badly. Most of time, our bodies can heal from hurts, but he was hurt too bad and his body stopped working and he died." These authors recommend never saying that someone fell asleep -- young kids will think they could die in their sleep too and might be terrified to go to sleep. 

They go through every scenario: old age, sick, accident, murder, suicide, and talk about how to handle it at each age, and it's helpful no matter what your beliefs are about what happens after death. I can't recommend it enough.

Find me at my blog

My son was 3 when my great grandmother died, 3.5 when our dog died and 5 when he realized the footprints in the picture frame on the wall were not his but that of his older brother who passed away (as an infant) before he was born. Since then, he has had a friend lose their father and recently an uncle died.

 We are a religious family. We do believe that when you die you go to Heaven.

Rita, you stated above "maybe the death talk isn't as big of a deal for a small child as it is for the adult doing the talking" I couldn't agree with you more. In each of these instances, my child and now subsequent children are totally fine with all of these deaths. They are not as saddened by them as I have been. I think it is much harder for us adults to discuss the death of anyone,the newer the death, the harder to discuss than it is for children.

 I do think God planned for our children to be this resilient. For they accept the death of their loved ones with the same acceptance as knowing that Jesus died for them.

They know that death is a prt of life, they rest assured in the knowledge that they will see their loved ones again, they take comfort in knowing they are all in Heaven together watching over them.

With that being said, I also think it is important to stress how it is ok to be sad over the death of a loved one, but to ultimately be happy that you have memories of that person/animal and how that loved one is no longer in pain! I think they take their cues from you, the more you are upset/distraught/nervous or pensive, the more they will be. The more you celebrate the life and love of the loved one, the more they will!

I am so sorry for your loss. I have lost beloved fur-family as well. It hurts.

At some point, someone somewhere wrote this legend about a Rainbow Bridge. It may be corny, but it gets to me anyway, and it is a lovely image for a child to have, in my opinion.

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.
The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

While I appreciate that there are opportunities to teach our children about death, its meaning, its consequences, it is important to understand that a child losing a pet is not the same as a child losing a parent/parental figure or a sibling.  I know that (fortunately) most children only have to deal with the loss of beloved family pets or perhaps much, much older members of their family that they may not be particularly close to (which can often be explained with the theory that we live here, grow old and then pass away), however, when a child loses a member of their immediate family, particularly a parent, that is an entirely different, far more serious situation that is much more complex - it can not be dismissed with anecdotes, or by simply ignoring it.  The child has lost someone who was responsible for nurturing them, teaching them, loving them wholly and unconditionally, for providing for them.  Their loss creates an enormous caveat that a "new" one (in the case of, say, a pet) can not fill.

When you have a child who has a recollection of the parent or sibling, the memories can be comforting, however that is not always the case, and we are left to fill in details of this *imaginary* parent, who they are, who they were, where they are, and why they're no longer here.  It IS as heartbreaking for the parent who has to walk this road with a child as it is for the child, especially while that parent is dealing with their own grief (you may have cried when your dog died, but I would imagine your entire life was not paralyzed by the loss, as with a child or spouse).  I was a spiritual person before my husband died, however, his death called to question all of my own personal beliefs, causing quite a conundrum when it came time to say something to my then toddler.  How do you teach your child about something which you yourself don't completely believe in?  However, in desperation, I've had to tell my youngest child, who was a year and a half when her father died and has virtually no memory of him, that her daddy was in heaven.  It was a short cut, a cop out, but she was just a baby and I couldn't figure out how to tie my own shoes at the time, let alone explain the theory of life and death (not to mention, at that moment my "theory" had been shot to heck).  

When she gets older I will have a more in depth conversation with her about it.  It will be necessary, I will not have the liberty of avoiding or otherwise pushing off the conversation, or making something up, leaving her to figure it out later.  It's been two years and her father is creeping into her stream of consciousness (naturally), and thusly, into our conversation.  In the not too far future, she's going to have a lot of very serious questions, and I'd better be ready with some very serious answers...

I do not wish, in any way, to discount anyone's loss, however, I just want to point out that although you may open up a dialogue about death because snowball the cat passed away (a good opportunity, I'll admit), it may seem like starting from square one in the even that the child suffers the loss of a sibling or parent (nothing they, or you, have learned before will prepare you for it)... 

-Stefyc

My Blog: ChangingLanes - http://stephaniecooper.wordpress.com

"It's never too late to be who you might have been"

I absolutely agree there's no way you can compare losing a pet to losing a parent or sibling.  I'm so sorry for your loss.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Rita Arens is a contributing editor for BlogHer -- Mommy & Family.

I grew up being taught that animals are "members of our family." My parents are Christians and there was never any question about whether or not animals have souls or if they would be allowed into heaven. I never even heard anyone claim anything to the contrary until I was in my mid thirties. In my forties it became apparent that more and more people were becoming confused about this issue from a theological stand point. So I got out my Bible and researched it, (consulting Rabbis to verify original Hebrew text), and wrote a book on my findings. It took 3 1/2 years of hard work and I'm proud of it. If you're interested in the book, the title is Cold Paws, Warm Heart but I'd also like to respond to some of the other ladies here.

Rita, not being "that upset" about having to put your 18 year old cat to sleep would have been much stranger. JC, tell your son animals do have souls. Check out Job 12:10. (Job was a prophet that had direct conversations with God, so he knew what he was talking about.) Stefyc, no all loss is not the same. We all know ahead of time that our pets have shorter lifespans than we do. If something happened to my daughter or my husband it would certainly cause even more pain than losing my cat of 20 years a couple years back. Breaking your pelvis probably hurts less than getting burned badly in a fire. But pain is pain and grief is grief. To some people their pet is the only "child" they have and to some it is the only friend they have. To some they are fixtures in the household and beloved family members. They can't grieve "too much." When my daughter was 10 years old, one of our family dogs had to be put to sleep. My daughter loved that dog (it slept in her room) and she wept for months. Later we lost 6 geriatric pets in one year and if I didn't know our separation was temporary my grief would have been devestating. As it was, it was bad enough. I make no apologies for loving that deeply and am glad my daughter has been able to experience love that deep as well. She's 16 now and a better person for it.

In the movie Marley and Me, and in the book, there is a very poignant scene and some wonderful lessons as the Grogan children say their good-byes to Marley. From the book:

"Seeing them grieving - their first up-close experience with death - deeply affected me. Yes, it was only a dog, and dogs come and go in the course of a human life, sometimes simply because they become an inconvenience. It was only a dog, and yet every time I tried to talk about Marley to them, tears welled in my eyes. I told them it was okay to cray, and that owning a dog always ended with this sadness because dogs don't live as long as people do....Colleen was upset that she didn't have a chance to say a real good-bye to him;she thought he would be coming home. I told her I had said good-bye for all of us. Conor, our budding author, showed me something he had made for Marley, to go in the grave with him. It was a drawing of a big red heart beneath which he had written: "To Marley, I hope you know how much I loved you all of my life. You were always there when I needed you. Through life or death, I will always love you. Your brother, Conor." Then Colleen drew a picture of a girl with a big yellow dog and beneath it, with spelling help from her brother, she wrote, "P.S. - I will never forget you." 

The children put these notes, sealed in a plastic bag, in the grave with Marley. I believe this illustrates one of the most important things one can do, at any age, to acknowledge the loss of a pet. I have found it is healing to create some sort of tangible memorial, which could be a poem, a drawing, a photo, a letter to the pet, planting a flowering bush, or a donation to the animal shelter. This year, I bought an Easter lily at church, in memory of one of my dogs who died in February. It was hard to see her name printed in the bulletin, but I focused on the beautiful lilies lining the altar and was thankful for our many years together. 

Laurel E. Hunt, celebrating the love of dogs at www.laurelhuntbooks.com