In Canine Caviar Google Hangout #11 Canine Caviar, the manufacturers of holistic, organic pet food Canine Caviar, the only alkaline diet for pets in the United States, host Natasha Jackson, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist.
Doreen Wong: Hey everyone we are here with Canine Caviar Hangout 11, we are actually going to be talking about grief counseling or how to deal with the loss of a pet and with us is actually a lot of people, so why don’t we go ahead and introduce everyone. Jeff, we’ll start with you.
Jeff Baker: Jeff Baker, Research Scientist and CEO, Canine Caviar Pet Foods. Thank you everyone for joining us today.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: My name is Lynn Smith and I am a writer and a Labrador owner.
Bob Vella: Hi, I’m Bob Vella, National Sales Director for Canine Caviar Pet Foods.
Doreen Wong: I think we’re having a hard time hearing you, Dawn, but I think you were mentioning that we had some people commenting on the Facebook page asking Natasha, who is our guest, how to work through the process of pet loss. So Natasha, thank you for joining us.
Natasha Jackson: Thank you for having me, I’m Natasha Jackson, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist and I’ve been doing this work for about two years and I work with people on all types of losses, including pet loss.
Doreen Wong: Do you want to give out a website or Facebook page?
Natasha Jackson: My Facebook page is www.facebook.com/griefintohope and my website is www.griefintohope.com
Doreen Wong: Natasha, some of the questions that were posted on Facebook about dealing with the loss of a pet were two questions actually. One was how do our Furr parents deal with the loss of a pet, and it’s not really like losing a pet it’s like losing a family member in dealing with that grief, and sometimes it’s difficult because you sort of feel isolated as friends or family who mean well don’t quite understand because to them it’s “just a pet.” The second question that was asked was those who have other pets in the family and they’re noticing that those pets are experiencing grief or loss, so maybe you can answer those two questions for us.
Natasha Jackson: Grief as a whole is not a comfortable topic for anybody to talk about but especially for pets it’s honestly looked down upon which is really unfortunate because our pets are family, they’re our children, they’re our daughters or our sons, and the best way to deal with that is to have another pet owner or another friend, someone safe, that you can talk to and just really express the sadness or whatever is going on. And then being patient with yourself, because grief is normal and it’s individual, everyone is going to react differently to his or her loss. For the second question about dealing with the pets if there are more than one pets and there is a loss. I would suggest if there are pictures of the pet that’s already gone to maybe pull out pictures. It’s normal, it’s natural, pets in the wild go through grief, they experience their family members dying, and they are grieving. Maybe pull out a picture, talking to them, telling them we miss Benji, we miss him so much, just being patient with your pets and yourself. Just being there and more cuddle time.
Doreen Wong: I think a couple of suggestions you gave, one was to find a safe person you can grieve with together who will understand what you’re going through and then the second one is to include your other dogs or pets in the grieving process by bringing out a photo and sort of talking about the pet that had passed. Anyone else have a quick question?
Jeff Baker: One of the things that we are doing through our Cancer Research Foundation is actually providing support once we get a little more active and have people to call, one of our goals with the foundation is to have a so called hotline where people can call in and just talk to people about their feelings and their grieving process or what decisions they should make or just have a shoulder to cry on. At the moment we are really working on the foundation and we are really starting to gain momentum.
Doreen Wong: Dawn, do you want to mention we have an upcoming event?
Dawn Barraco: We do have an event coming up and Natasha is going to be heavily involved. It’s August 24 in Huntington Beach, California and it is, I can’t say any less than amazing the response that we’re getting on that. And Jeff can’t be any more correct when I can only see what her expertise is going to help us with and some of the people that are going to be around canine caviar and our event in the future.
Natasha Jackson: I look forward to helping the pet community and if anyone wants to give me a call if they are in a situation now where they need support, feel free to call me, my number is on the website.
Doreen Wong: Do you want to give your website again before we end the hangout?
Natasha Jackson: It’s www.griefintohope.com
Dawn Barraco: They can of course call our support line at 800-392-7898 and we do have an event page on Facebook so make sure that you’re part of our fan base and you’ll have plenty of information.
Doreen Wong: Thanks everyone for joining us on canine Caviar hangout #11.