ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to define pet parents; understand how the individuals experience the loss of a pet; and provide guidance to the clinician with a foundation for supporting grieving pet parents in practice. Far from images of trendy “pet parents” conjured by advertisements and marketing campaigns, invested pet parents are highly devoted individuals who emphasize welfare and quality of life for their pets. An ethnographic study of childfree pet owners found that terms such as “mom,” “dad,” and “the girls/boys” are frequently used to convey relationships between pets and owners in these homes. In 1984, A. Harris stated that “nonconventional human-animal bonds” put pet owners at risk for mental health concerns, particularly when euthanasia was imminent. Pets exist in a liminal space — not quite human, yet no longer “just an animal”. The presence of pets has been found to have mitigating influences on the loss felt during the bereavement of a child in the home.
