How do I explain to my 2.9 DS that our cat will be PTS?

[SalsaP]

So last week I had the heartbreaking news that one of my 2 cats has an aggressive and incurable tongue cancer. She is likely to have to be put to sleep in the coming months. My DS is 2.9 and I have no idea how to explain to him that she will be leaving us soon. Has anyone any suggestions or experience of this please?

[EverythingCounts]

My cat declined when my DS was a similar age. To be honest I said nothing about it in the run up to the day of PTS, but I made sure DS stroked the cat and made a fuss of him on the day when it couldn't be put off any longer. We told him later on after nursery that our cat had been very old and tired and just couldn't go on living any longer and it had been his time to die, and that this was what happened when animals and people became very, very old. He accepted this pretty well. We said we would always remember our cat and love him still but he wouldn't be with us any more. I think I said he would be with his cat mummy and daddy...

[EverythingCounts]

I've just noticed that this is in 'Pets' - the specific animal boards tend to get more traffic so I would either do a search in 'The litter tray' where there are other threads on this dilemma, or repost your question there and you will very likely get more responses.

[MoonlightandRoses]

Sorry to hear about your cat. .

We had to go through this in Feb with one of our cats, and just this week with my horse. Basically we told small child that their time was up, they'd had a great life and were loved, but that they were ready to say good-bye. You will get the inevitable "but why Mama?" questions, but repeating the original explanation seems to work without being too upsetting. (Or not too upsetting for the small child at any rate, unlike the explaining adult.)

I steered clear of using 'old' as a friend's children got very upset as they thought their grandparents, parents etc., demise was immanent as a result.

[idril]

Sorry to hear about your cat :-(.

My two were 7 and 6 when our cat was PTS. He had liver cancer. We knew there was something wrong with him for a while from blood tests but the time between the final diagnosis and death was just a few days.

I just told them that he was very poorly. They asked if he might die and I said yes, he probably would die quite soon.

He deteriorated really quickly in the end and although I had hoped that he could be PTS at home, I actually ended up taking him to the vet hospital in the middle of night because I couldn't bear to leave him until the vet could come out to him and it also meant that I could just tell the children that he had died.

I've still not told them that he was PTS. I think they would find it very hard to deal with.

I wouldn't tell them. Just say she died. I think it's too hard a concept for children to understand.

[EauRouge]

Really sorry about your cat :( We lost one of ours in April. My DDs are a little older than your DS, the youngest was 3.2yo at the time and the eldest 5.6. They knew that the cat was ill because they came with me to the initial vet appointment. We told them that he wasn't going to get better rather than saying he was ill, because we didn't want them to be afraid of getting ill, and that he was going to die soon. The vet was going to give him an injection to help him die without any pain because it was kinder than letting him suffer. They seemed OK with this but I'm not sure how much DD2 understood.

They both wanted to be there when the cat was PTS and they were upset obviously, but I have no regrets about letting them see it. There were a lot of questions though, so be prepared for all sorts of things that you wouldn't expect them to ask about.

We also got this which is a lovely story. After our cat was PTS at home, we buried him in the garden and went out to the garden centre so that the DDs could each choose a plant and a little statue to put on his grave. I think this really helped them in saying goodbye.

[SalsaP]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful ideas. They have been very helpful. My lovely cat is only 11years old so not old at all. It's really very sad.

[Bakersbum]

Sorry about your cat. Ds was 3.5 when we had to have ours pts. I said he was too poorly for here so was going to live in heaven on the clouds where he wouldn't be poorly anymore.

He accepted that And still waves at the clouds, although he did ask for a while if we could go and see him on a rocket.