Search Results for: Grief Support

If you’ve ever watched someone say a final goodbye to a loved one, you’ll know how heartbreaking that is. The emotions often reserved for airports and hospital rooms are strikingly similar to those witnessed every day by the OHS admissions team. After all, pets are our family. Saying goodbye to a beloved pet is like saying goodbye to a piece of ourselves.

As confusing and stressful as it can be for a pet to enter a shelter, we know it can be just as hard for their person. This is just one of the heartbreaking situations we see every day: Owners who come to the OHS over and over, desperately searching for their lost pet. Owners struggling to find a way to keep a beloved family pet, who may not be aware of the resources available to them. Those who need help to accept a decision that saying goodbye is the best option for their pet. And then there are those who we must contact, to tell them that their pet has been found, deceased.

While we have many compassionate staff and volunteers dedicating their time to care for and comfort the animals at the OHS, we know that helping more animals means helping their people, too. The past years have seen the OHS step up to fill the need: dropping surrender fees to remove barriers from what is already a heartbreaking situation; launching a pet food bank to help keep pets with their owners; and continuing our popular pet loss support groups, recognizing the grief we experience when we lose a creature who has been so important in our lives. But the need continues to grow with greater urgency than ever. The time to do more is now.

Today, I’m proud to announce our next step in supporting our community’s animals and their owners: the introduction of a veterinary social worker to our team.

Social workers have played a critical role in the research and understanding of the human-animal bond for decades, but the move to incorporate social workers into shelter settings is relatively new (and absolute genius).

At the OHS, our veterinary social worker, or “VSW”, will help the OHS focus on where it can best apply its resources to support the human-animal bond and prevent pet relinquishment – from developing an OHS emergency pet housing program to creating a network of resources for frantic pet owners. Where relinquishment cannot be avoided, the VSW will be a resource for our teams and the clients they are serving, to help make the most difficult situations just a bit more bearable.

Just as importantly, our VSW provides a support to all our staff, who so fiercely and tirelessly work to help every animal, but who all too often risk the compassion fatigue that accompanies this work. A VSW can help us to design programs to ensure we’re protecting our teams, and helping them to remain resilient, so they can continue to be here to meet the need.

This is the start of a new tomorrow – and a better one, for the animals and our community.

Sharon Miko
President & CEO

I think we vastly under appreciate the impact of the loss of a pet. Too often, we tell people, through our words or actions, that they should just get over it (They can’t get over it!) or to get a new pet (They don’t want a new pet, they want that pet!) or in some other way diminish the person’s feelings of loss and grief.

Too often this leads to the person who has lost a pet to suffer in silence because they feel silly or embarrassed by what they are feeling. That’s not OK. The grief is real and we need to treat it as real. If we care, we have to feel and express that losing a pet counts as something worthy of grief.

Men, I think experience this more acutely, as we do with any problem that can be positively affected by sharing feelings. Few men will admit‎ it, but many probably shared more feelings with that old dog they do with their partner.

Don’t let anyone tell you to put it in the past. You don’t have to say, “I loved that cat.” You love that cat. Period. Your time together may have been in the past but your feelings are right here in the present.

Because this is such a profound issue, as a part of our five-year strategic plan, the OHS has partnered with the Pet Loss Support Group to double the local resources for those grieving the loss of a beloved pet. A second group will be launched Mondays once a month beginning on September 26, right here at the OHS.

The group is free and light refreshments will be available. If you are experiencing the unresolved loss of a pet, please join us.

Bruce Roney
Executive Director

Are you coping with the loss of a pet? Saying goodbye is never easy. Many people suffer when they lose a pet and find it hard to move forward alone in the grieving process. The Ottawa Humane Society offers on-going grief support to the community through Pet Loss Support Groups.

Group meetings are held virtually, and participants must be over the age of 16.

All pet loss support groups are facilitated by experienced volunteer facilitators. Participants engage in discussion and share stories. Facilitators work alongside participants to provide compassionate support for anyone dealing with the loss of a pet.

This program is designed to provide a compassionate space for individuals grieving the loss of their pet.  OHS Pet Loss Support Group facilitators cannot provide one-one-one counselling or mental health support. Individuals who are experiencing ongoing mental health distress requiring treatment (for example, complicated grief, unresolved multiple losses, and/or traumas) are encouraged to reach out to mental health professionals directly to seek individual help.  Please see the below list for community mental health resources.

For more information about Group expectations, please look at our Group Guidelines.

Click the button below to see all upcoming sessions facilitated by Donna D.

Register for Upcoming Sessions

Click the button below to see all upcoming sessions facilitated by Ian H.

Register for Upcoming Sessions

You must register for this virtual meeting to ensure that you receive the Zoom link in advance of the session.

For more information, email outreach@ottawahumane.ca or call 613-725-3166, ext. 235.

This program is available to the public free of charge, donations to the OHS are welcome. 

Donate

Additional Resources:

OVC Pet Trust – Online Support Guides

Helping Yourself in Times of Grief

Distress Center of Ottawa Region

(613) 238-3311

Access MHA – Mental Health Access Tool

1-833-527-8207

Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre – Community Mental Health

(613) 722-6521 ext. 6503

Hopital Montfort – Mental Health Program

(613) 746-4621 ext. 3961 / Crisis: (613) 748-4908

Dealing with the Loss of a Pet | Ottawa Public Library Book List

Dealing with the Loss of a Pet – Books for Kids | Ottawa Public Library Book List