Grieving is not just restricted to humans, our pets, animals, birds feel grief as well. when i had to say goodbye to my girl Sheltie, Jassie of over 13 years, she was my only one, grief was so hard. When i made the decision to add little family members, i chose to get two, A Sheltie, Tory at 14 months, along with another Sheltie, Tia at 10 weeks, family complete again. Great family, until Tory became very ill, that terrible cancer word, after failed treatments, goodbye to him at only 9 years. Tia and Shaalee showed very strong signs of grief, i cried and cried, along with them. a hard life lesson learned. Tia at 13 and a half, that cancer again, all failed efforts, another very hard goodbye....again. Left to grieve, Shaalee once again, and Micki. Seemed like my bond with my two left became even stronger, and them with me as well. Added to my family after time, Noah, a Sheltie. I'm not looking to the future for any grief, making every day with them count. They GRIEVE just like us.
They do seem to be aware of death. When one of my gerbils died, the other actually buried it....covering it with sawdust!
I have a similar story to you Micki. I had three pooches five years ago Chloe a Golden Retriever, Pepsi a Sheltie and Bubbles my Havanese. I lost Chloe (12y) and Pepsi (13) within 6 months of each other to the dreaded big C. Bubbles grew up with my two beautiful larger dogs. One of the fondest memories I have is Bubbles riding on Chloe's tail. It had us in stitches. All three were so close.. the older two mothered Bubbles. After their departure I witnessed certain signs of grief from Bubbles.. depression and listfulness. It took much TLC from us to bring Bubbles back to his normal happy self. Now that we have a new dog Bonnie I fear she too will grieve when my beloved old Bubbles passes.
We had a German Shepard Doberman cross. Vicious dog,kill any critter that entered our property,bit two people. Best dog I ever had. Protected our two daughters,put up with hair pulling,eye poking and riding. Hated snake and woodchucks with a passion, never saw such blood lust in an animal before or after. We also had a cat raised with him. Cat died. Rufus (Dog) pulled the cat bowl out of the closet and laid with his head across it for weeks, just whining inconsolably This dog was bi polar as could be. Outside the house he was a beast inside a pussy. Had another cat gave birth to a litter. Rufus took each kitten as it came out carried it to a nest of his choosing,licked it clean. Those kittens were his babies.
Thank you so much Craig !!!! Don't think enough credit is given to our loyal, loving companions, no matter if they're dogs, cats, birds, hamsters or any kind of pet....we, ourselves, should take lessons and mentoring from our little loved ones, one only knows that there are heartless and feelingless people using up space in our world, and they think they're normal.....i will sadly say that i for one have been around people such as this, even more sadly to say, i spent 28 years with one, makes me angry, makes me sad. Please all, give credit to our loyal wonders in our lives. Having a bit of a melt down, i get very emotional about things like this.
Credit time again for our family members, we think we have it all together, let's make room for learning from them. Awesome share.