How to deal with losing a beloved pet

Fifteen years seems like a long time until you are facing the end of it.

The most terrible thing for those of us who love animals is their short lifespan. And when the time comes, it is almost more than we can bear — even more so when we have been anticipating it.

Sometimes pets go downhill quickly after being diagnosed with a disease such as cancer, which develops rapidly or isn't caught until it's too late for treatment. Or old age finally catches up with them. That's brutal enough. But sometimes, I think, the anticipatory grief that accompanies a pet's terminal diagnosis is more insidious. The roller coaster of grief that we ride between diagnosis and their last day seems never-ending.

Anticipatory grief is defined as the realization that a being is mortal, whether a parent, sibling, child or pet. For us, the first pangs of anticipatory grief struck when our dog Harper was diagnosed with congestive heart failure when she was 9 years old. We'd seen a dog die from it before, and we didn't want to face it again. So we arranged for her to have lifesaving heart repair surgery.

That was more than five years ago, and since then we have lived with her in six-month increments — the timing between visits to the cardiologist to hear that yes, her heart was still doing fine.

That's what they tell you when your dog undergoes this particular procedure: "She'll live long enough to die from something else."

In 2020, Harper was diagnosed with tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma. The anticipatory grief came out of hibernation. But like a Timex watch, she kept on ticking. In May, five years after her heart surgery and 18 months after her cancer diagnosis, she got a good report from her cardiologist and her oncologist. We were elated.

In August, she lost her appetite. We tempted her with canned dog food, cat food, deli roast chicken, steak; nothing held her interest. We took her to the veterinary dentist, hoping she had an abscessed tooth. But the mass had returned, this time inside her mouth. A second opinion from a radiation oncologist delivered the news that nothing more could be done. I wept. Then I began to plan her last days.

That is when anticipatory grief can be helpful, says Dr. Sheilah Robertson, medical director of Lap of Love, a service that provides euthanasia for pets at home or the place of the owner's choice.

"During that time, owners can think about who they want present, where they want it to happen, what things the pet has not done that they want to do, like getting a professional photograph or going to the park."

Harper had done everything and been everywhere, so we revisited our favorite haunts: breakfast in Laguna Beach, a trip to a favorite park, one last nose work class, an evening with her favorite neighbors. We all raised a glass to her.

I had two weeks before I decided it was time to let her go. Robertson says that having even 24 hours' notice has been shown to help people face the inevitable. It's gentler than having to rush to an emergency room, make a decision in a hurry and have the procedure performed by a stranger in a place that's scary for the pet.

We did some fun things the day before and spent time together the next day before our afternoon appointment at the park.