Ms Goodfred, 79, who began counseling pet owners in 2005, attributed the spike to the pandemic, which she said had made people “more aware of grief and the tendency to express it”.
At Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, which has operated in Manhattan since 1910, a free pet loss support group has been available to clients since 1983. Susan Cohen, 79, a veterinary social worker who came up with the idea for the group, said that it started with about five people attending each one-on-one session. By the time he stopped working at the center in 2011, that number had doubled.
Demand for such gatherings has led the center to expand its offerings: There are now several grief groups that meet on video calls a few times a month. One is for people whose pets have died in the last three months, while another is for owners who are still grieving pets that have died in the last year. Judith Harbour, 40, a veterinary social worker at the center who leads grief groups, recently started a third for owners of dogs with serious health problems. Each group has 20 participants from around the country and some have waiting lists.
Attendees come from a variety of backgrounds, Ms. Harbor said, and range in age from 18 to 85. Grieving pets aren’t just cats and dogs — turtles, cockatiels, parrots, lizards, horses and rabbits were also raised in sessions, she said.
Ms Harbour, whose job also involves counseling individual clients and vets at the center on a daily basis, said many of those attending the group said they felt unable to fully express their grief for a dying pet with people around them. Some have been judged for grieving their pets, she said, while others have felt rejected by loved ones who have told them to get another pet and move on.
She said the pain of a pet’s death often goes unrecognized by a person’s community and society as a whole: “When you go through something like this, you really feel invisible and you’re kind of alone.”
