Pet loss counseling in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: find healing through purposeful remembrance.

The death of a beloved pet can be one of the most painful losses you’ll ever experience. When a companion animal dies, the grief can feel overwhelming, and often misunderstood and minimized by others.

Grief can be extra complicated when we face a living loss; for example: divorce and breakups, rehoming, and runaway pets.

Sometimes we can experience grief before the loss happens, called anticipatory grief, which can make it difficult to enjoy remaining time with our pets.

Pet Loss Is Real Grief

Pets are family. Your routines, identity, and emotional world may have revolved around them. Particularly since the pandemic, many of us are spending more time with our pets than ever before. When they pass, or you anticipate their passing, it’s common to experience:

Deep sadness or longing
Guilt or second-guessing decisions
Anger, numbness, or confusion
Feeling isolated or dismissed by others
Difficulty moving forward

There is no “right” way to grieve, and healing doesn’t mean forgetting.

How Pet Loss Counseling Can Help

In therapy, we may focus on:

Making space for your grief without judgment
Processing complicated or unresolved emotions
Honoring the bond you shared with your pet
Understanding how grief shows up in your daily life
Finding ways to move forward while still holding love

Pet loss counseling offers support when words fall short and the pain feels heavy.

Why I Do Pet Loss Work

I have loved animals since I was a little kid and have said goodbye to many pets throughout my life. Nothing has been as tough as saying goodbye to my greyhound, Finn. He passed away in the summer of 2021 after a catastrophic injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He was a very special boy, and I continue to do this work to honor him and support others in similar situations.

Even before Finn passed away, I had been leading pet loss groups and meeting one-on-one with pet loss clients at PennVet. I’ve learned that there is healing in talking about a beloved pet, learning ways to cope with the different ways grief manifests itself, and figuring out how to move forward. We never truly “get over” a loss, but we can see our intense and difficult emotions lessen over time as we process and work on healing.