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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think at an event where lots of people have lost relatives to cancer you mourn the loss of your dog??

154 replies

girlsyearapart · 28/09/2009 05:53

Hi I did a 10k run yesterday for Cancer Research.
People are given a sign to put on their back to write who they are running in memory of.
Many heartbreaking messages about lost Mothers/Fathers/Children/Sisters etc. Lots of people had birth and death dates showing very short lives lost to cancer.
Anyway just about to start the race and look at woman on front of me who had a photo of her dog on her back with its name..
Well I'm a major dog lover but isn't this totally insensitive to others there who had lost relatives??
Only part of me thinking that I'm BU is that the woman was raising money which would go to actual people with cancer.
So what do you lot think?

OP posts:
chegirl · 29/09/2009 21:07

Thank you MissM. It is nice of you to say those things.

I am so sorry about your brother. How awful for you. How horrible, I am so sorry. x

chegirl · 29/09/2009 21:08

thingone hope its ok to wish you well and that I hope you are feeling fitter soon.

ThingOne · 29/09/2009 21:12

Thanks chegirl. I'm getting fitter by the day but have more surgery soon. Boo hoo

Original poster
girlsyearapart · 29/09/2009 21:18

Good luck ThingOne.
Glad have had a mixture of yes and nos on here as it means that the woman didn't (inadvertently I hope) upset as many people as I thought she would've..

OP posts:
MrsMerryHenry · 29/09/2009 21:22

Both my parents died of cancer. I also know several other people who have successfully fought it or are fighting it with varying degrees of success.

I've never been close to an animal so I would definitely be about that runner. I'd try to get into her head, but I'd find it difficult - I value people more than animals and for obvious reasons don't 'get' the bond thing between folks and their pets.

So if I absolutely had to cast a vote, I'd say YANBU.

Hobnobfanatic · 29/09/2009 21:36

YABU - a loss is a loss, and personal to the individual.

These events aren't about competitive mourning - about who has a greater grief than others! Does someone with a picture of a work colleague on their back be less deserving of sympathy than someone with a picture of their sister?

It's all relative.

The person clearly had a great deal of humanity to be doing the race in the first place, and it's a bit judgey to think that someone else's grief 'is not being good enough'!

Original poster
girlsyearapart · 29/09/2009 21:39

ugh another person who doesn't get what I mean. Give up now.

OP posts:
chegirl · 29/09/2009 21:41

Feck all to do with competitive mourning or a heirachy of mourning.

Frankly dont blame you for giving up girls

Ninks · 29/09/2009 22:00

I think it's deleted now, (can't find it anyway) but there was a blog about Jodie Marsh which wasn't very complementary, but very factual as it was based on her website.

It was a critique of her own blog, (probably also gone) and one of the major gripes / links / themes was that when she attended the funeral of her murdered young friend, her commentary was all about how she really related to the tragic event because her "beloved" dog had also recently died.

She went on and ON about how similar the two events were. It was fecking sickening, but the apparent piss-taking site really brought her to task for it and so they should.

That's Jodie, doing her, "Jodie the animal lover", bit to the detriment of her (supposed) humanity.

alwayslookingforanswers · 29/09/2009 22:09

for some people a dog is not only part of their family it is their family - it makes their live liveable - whether that's as a constant companion, or whether it's a guide dog.

WickedWench · 29/09/2009 22:25

My DS survived cancer, I've lost close relatives to cancer, and I wouldn't have been offended in the slightest. I would like to think I'd have said 'thank you'.

At least she got off her backside to raise money and if her beloved pet spurred her on to do it then he deserves his picture on her shirt.

Maybe she has no family or close friends. She loved him, he loved her, she misses him and wants to do something positive in his memory. What else matters?

chegirl · 29/09/2009 22:32

Ninks I cannot tell you how many of my bereaved friends have had a similar experience to positiveattitudeonly . People do say stuff like 'oh I know how you feel, my cat/dog/budgie died last week and it was awful'.

It is awful, but its is not the bloody same. Very few people's lives are shattered by the death of a pet. The majority are able to work and function normally. The dont tend to lose their friends and become isolated from family. They generally manage to pick up their lives at the same point as before the loss of their animal.

Sadly this is not the case for many bereaved parents. The loss of a child ripples throughout generations. This is not the case for the loss of a dog or cat.

There will always be exceptions to this and some very lonely and vunerable people will find life impossible without their beloved animal. But they are in the tiny minority.

And this bloody notion of competitive mourning has wound me right up. IME (which unfortunately is now wide) people who have suffered a great loss (be that a child or partner or parent) tend to be far more understanding of other's grief not less. It is usually those who are on the fringes of a trauma that go in for the 'I am so much sadder than you' type shinanigans. Others dont have the fecking energy for crap like thats.

mummylin2495 · 29/09/2009 22:38

At the relay for life this year,where i was a volunteer ,at the opening of this years relay the survivors walked the first lap,walking with the humans was a dog which had survived cancer.

WickedWench · 29/09/2009 23:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

moondog · 29/09/2009 23:22

A dog on a tshirt and another walking a lap of honour??
Jesus Christ,I've heard it all.The empire crumbles and we implode because we are all too busy weeping over our mongrels.Only the British.

positiveattitudeonly · 30/09/2009 07:06

Thank you chegirl. You are so right!

verygreenlawn · 30/09/2009 07:27

I agree chegirl. And FWIW, I've had exactly the same experience - after my son died the woman opposite said she knew exactly how I felt because her beloved cat had just died.

diddl · 30/09/2009 07:46

Maybe she doesn´t know anyone who has died from cancer and thought a pic of her dog was better than nothing?

I´ll probably get flamed now, but I can´t help wondering why there are pics at all.

Why not just run-you know who you´re doing it for why tell everyone else?

Original poster
girlsyearapart · 30/09/2009 07:49

wicked - there was someone with 'Patrick Swayze rip' which I was a bit about!

OP posts:
BalloonSlayer · 30/09/2009 08:08

I think that unless you are a vegan, and feed your dog on vegan dog food* you cannot possibly believe that animals are as important as human beings.

And even if you are a vegan etc you must be aware that even in this country - which is the laughing stock of many others for its love of animal welfare (not that I think that's a bad thing!) - animals are not widely considered to be as important as human beings.

Therefore an intelligent person should be aware that a picture of their dog on their back at an event like this is likely to be perceived as, as Thingone said: "insensitive and self-indulgent."

People do realise that cancer drugs are tested on animals to check they are safe for humans, don't they?

  • in which case I'd argue you were denying your dog its true, carniverous, canine nature and therefore did not have its best interests at heart.
FimbleHobbs · 30/09/2009 08:18

YANBU. My brothers and I grew up without a mum due to cancer. Our family dog also died of cancer - I love dogs but losing a dog is not the same. Its a trillion miles apart.

And it wasn't even raising money for the dog anyway. Might as well write 'Stop global warming' on your sign - sure its very important but its not what the day is about. I would just assume she was lacking in social skills though.

Sorry to all those on the thread who've lost loved ones.

babybarrister · 30/09/2009 08:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hobnobfanatic · 30/09/2009 09:56

God, I feel so sorry for that woman! I bet she wishes she'd never bothered raising money to save human lives if this is the nastiness she gets in return. She was doing a lovely thing and it is very mean-spirited to say her loss wasn't worthy.

People are denying notions of competitive mourning here, while then going on to prove my point!

The loss of a dog isn't comparable to the loss of a child. The loss of a celebrity (Jade Goody) isn't comparable to the loss of a friend. The loss of a work colleague isn't comparable to the loss of a parent. And one person's loss of a parent may be quite different to another's, by the way.

What I'm saying is that all loss is personal and individual. No one has the right to point a finger and compare different people's experiences and condemn them as being insignificant. This woman wasn't saying that her loss was worse than anyone else's. She was simply running for her dog. So what?

ceres · 30/09/2009 09:58

lots of people here are saying you can't compare the loss of a pet to the loss of a human. that may be the case for you but how do you know it is the case for everyone else?

how do you know that this woman had any relatives? there are people out there who do not have contact, for one reason or another, with any family members. there are people out there who have been horrifically abused by human beings to the extent that they cannot trust humans. there are people out there who have been far, far more affected by the loss of a pet than a parent.

everyone is different, everyone has different experiences of life. nobody has the right to dictate how, or how much, others grieve or who they grieve for. you cannot make rules about people's feelings.

Hobnobfanatic · 30/09/2009 10:00

Hear hear, Ceres. People are so judgemental!