• APLB Pet Loss Support Hotline: the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement runs a 24/7 chat and support line specifically for pet grief.
• Our grief hotline: every VVTS euthanasia package includes access to a 24/7 pet-loss grief support hotline. We share the number with you at your appointment.
• If grief is layered with thoughts of self-harm: please call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline). Pet loss is sometimes the last loss on top of many, and human crisis services will take you seriously.

Grief from losing a pet often shows up as:

• Crying at unexpected moments — a song, a spot on the couch, the sound of another dog's tags
• Guilt about timing — *should we have done it sooner? should we have waited?*
• Finding their things around the house days or weeks later
• Missing the daily ritual — the morning walk, the dinner bowl, the reason to come straight home
• Feeling like no one around you quite understands how much this hurts

These aren't signs that something is wrong with you. They're signs that you loved your pet.

• The Loss of a Pet by Wallace Sife, PhD. The most-recommended general book in the pet-grief space. Written by a psychologist who also founded APLB.
• Good Grief: Healing Through the Shadow of Loss by Deborah Morris Coryell. Not specific to pets, but many families find its framework helpful.
• Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet by Gary Kowalski. A shorter, more contemplative read.

We're still building this list. If you know of a pet-loss support group, grief counselor, or community service in the Chippewa Valley that's helped you, please tell us and we'll add it here.

In the meantime, your regular human grief resources — Sacred Heart Hospital's bereavement services, local counselors who list grief as a specialty, church or community support groups — will generally take pet loss seriously too. Don't be shy about asking.

It is common for one person in a household to want to talk about the pet constantly and another to not want to talk at all. Both are real grief. Neither is wrong. If that difference becomes painful, a few sessions with a counselor who handles loss can help translate between you.