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Articles > Pet LossAllowing Your Dog To View The Body Of Canine Companion When the time comes to put your senior dog to sleep, should your other dog see the euthanasia or sniff the dead body afterward to help him understand what’s occurred and better cope with the loss? The answer depends on who you ask. Last year when Urda Ferency’s female Great Dane was being euthanized, her other dog, Lucy, was present. “Lucy never mourned her, missed her or went searching through the house for her, like all my other dogs have done when one passed,” recalls the Long Beach, Calif., resident. “She adjusted amazingly well because she knew what had happened.” Maureen Bland of Weare, New Hampshire, had a similar experience. “If people gain closure from viewing the body, why should animals be any different?” she says. But Daniel Estep, PhD, of Animal Behavior Associates in Littleton, Colorado, isn’t convinced. “There is no (scientific) evidence that having other pets present will help prevent or modulate any grief the others may experience,” he says. Estep’s previous three dogs were euthanzied at home. Each time, he says the other dog didn’t show much of an interest in what was going on or in the body. The surviving dog’s reaction to a departed companion depends on their relationship, explains Nicholas Dodman, DVM, and animal behaviorist at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in North Grafton, Massachusetts. If the two dogs were closely bonded, he says it’s possible that when one dies the other may fall into a funk. He’s not sure, though, if that depression can be alleviated by simply allowing the surviving dog to investigate the corpse. Nevertheless, Dodman says he’d personally try it. “If (the surviving dog) paid an interest in the body I would assume that there was some mental process going on -- that he was absorbing something about his deceased colleague,” he says. “And I would hope that I didn’t make the situation worse by showing him.” ~ Staff, SeniorDogs.com If you would like to include this article on your site please include the following information with the article:
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