Amber Thomas knows her beloved dog Ruby is in her final weeks of life and will need to be put down.
Vets have advised her that euthanasing Ruby, who has colon cancer, will be the most humane option for the 14-year-old schnoodle.
But Ruby’s death won’t just affect Ms Thomas — her other dog, two-year-old Dalmatian Aspen, will also be losing a companion.
So Ms Thomas is adamant that Aspen should be by Ruby’s side in her final moments, so he can start the grieving process too.
It’s something Ms Thomas has learned from experience.
When her previous canine companion of 12 years, Diesel, was put down a few years ago, Ruby wasn’t there to see him pass and struggled after his death.
“She just walked around the house, looking for him and crying for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said.
Ms Thomas says Aspen becomes distressed whenever she takes Ruby away from the house, even for a short period of time.
When she turned to social media to ask if there was a vet who would allow Aspen to watch Ruby’s final moments, she was inundated with support for the idea.
“Some people said their dog just sort of sniffed the other dog’s body and then walked away, but everyone said that they felt like their other dog could move on with the process and understood [what had happened] better,” she said.
“That’s their companion, their, best friend, their partner in crime … And I just feel like they need to know [otherwise surely] they will be feeling horrible.”
A common request
Emily Bride, a vet with the Gippsland Veterinary Practice in Sale, about two-and-a-half hours east of Melbourne, said it was not uncommon for people to ask for their pets to watch a companion being put down.
“We try to be quite flexible because it is a really personal situation and so we do try to be able to fit in with the family’s requests as much as possible,” she told ABC Victoria Statewide mornings.
Ms Bride said having another pet present was more common when a dog was being euthanased at home, but some people did bring both pets in to her practice.
However, she warned that could add additional stress to the situation.
“If the other dog is really anxious coming into the clinic and it’s a busy setting, it can sometimes be a little bit awkward to bring the other dog in,” Ms Bride said.
But, she said if two dogs were really close companions, they could set up a consult room so they could spend some quiet time together.
“Sometimes when they are really paired, we have made it work,” she said.
Dogs grieve too
Ms Bride said that although dogs felt deep grief, they had the ability to process that emotion faster than humans.
“Often, if you have got a pet that is deceased and their friend is there, they’ll often give them a little sniff and go, ‘OK, I know what’s happened’, and they don’t seem to take a long time to dwell on it,” she said.
Ms Bride said she had seen her own pets display complex emotions like grief and loss.
“There are so many signals that they are giving one another to communicate, and they read us in a way that we’re not very good at reading them necessarily,” she said.
Depends on the individual animal
Animal behaviourist Dr Kate Mornement said the pros and cons of a pet being present when their companion died really depended on the individual pet’s personality.
“I think it depends a lot on the individual animal as to whether that’s going to be of benefit to them or not,” she said.
While some dogs who were attached to their canine companion could find it helpful, others could feel traumatised, she warned.
Dr Mornement said there was also a danger that some dogs could develop a fear of vet clinics through negative associations.
“So observing their friend being euthanased may actually be an unpleasant experience for them, even though the intention is for us to help them understand,” she said.
Dr Mornement said she believed dogs were better placed to cope with witnessing euthanasia than other animals like cats, rabbits or birds, but many animals could experience grief.
“I know cases of cats and other animals who appear to experience grief when one of their friends passes away,” she said.
Dog research growing in popularity
Dr Mornement said in the past 15 years canine science, which looks at things like the behaviour, cognition, emotion and welfare of dogs, had grown significantly.
She said studies had shown that dogs experienced a vast array of emotions.
“Dogs are very similar to us and experience similar emotions to what we do,” she said.
She said that in her line of work she had seen dogs’ emotions like fear, stress and anxiety manifest into negative behaviours that were problematic for owners, such as separation anxiety.
“Their emotions are likely to be different because they are a different species, but we can tell from their behaviour they have emotions, but not to what extent as they can’t communicate to us verbally,” she said.
