How do you tell a 3 year old...

[melancholymum]

their dog has been put to sleep?

Had to have my beautiful, without doubt best dog in the world put to sleep today. He was a 14 year old Wolfhound cross who had suddenly deteriorated over the spave of a couple of weeks due to kidney disease. My little boy waited in the car with mum whilst I took him to see the vet, I wasn't really aware I would be leaving the vet without him All the way home I cried buckets and ds kept asking where he was. I explained that he was staying at the vet because he was very poorly.

I obviously can't keep this little white lie up so what would be the best thing to tell him - any words of wisdom?

Oh how awful. Are you religious at all? I think I would be saying that God had taken him to a better place, where he could run and play and not feel poorly. Explain that he can't come back and that it's OK to cry and be sad and miss him.
(The god stuff could easily be left out if not suitable)
Sorry you're going through this, it is heartbreaking to lose a much loved pet.

I was going to say what abbierhodes said. {{hugs}} Can you have a little memorial thing for him? Say a 'proper' goodbye? We always had this for our guinea pigs etc., with mum sprinkling the Holy Water

I'm not particularly religious, dh is, I suggested to him that we should say he had gone to doggy heaven in the sky and that we won't see him again in the house but that we will be able to always remember him and look at him in pictures. However, dh is worried that as ds knew our dog was poorly that if we were ever to get poorly or go to the doc then he might think he would never see us again. Oh I don't know, it's so hard - I just don't know what he will understand without scaring him. DH has suggested we tell him he has gone for a really long sleep. I know ds though, he won't accept that as an answer and will want to know why, where, how, why why why!

I find my 3.6yo is starting to ask about dying now so at 3 he may start to grasp it soon. I just say people (or dogs) get old or ill and their bodies stop working, they get tired and need to rest. We don't see them any more but we remember them and don't worry because they are happy, though we can be sad and miss them. (I'm not religious either but to reassure a child I would if necessary say they were in a happy place.) I was dreading it as I'm a huge worrier and fear death and disaster a lot and I didn't want to have to talk to DS about it, but he's so matter-of-fact and curious it has actually felt OK, and quite natural, to discuss it.

So sorry for you losing your dog.

We had to have our dog PTS last year. He was only 4 so we couldn't say he was old. DS who was 6 was actually there and didnt want to go out of the room but did when the other DC's went out. However it was obvious he didnt really understand the term put to sleep as a bit later he started crying when we said that Zeb was dead. But he did then understand that he wasn't coming back and what it meant.

I would explain that your dog was old and was really ill and in pain and none could make him better and he died. If you explain using the term sleep I think this might worry him. It is hard as they don't really understand death at 3.

Have a search in the library - my daughter loved a book she found about a dog who died and went to doggy heaven! It might help

What worked for us was:
Do you remember that [Pet name] was poorly? We took him to the animal doctor today who said that [Pet name] was hurting so much that he wasn't happy any more, and that we couldn't fix it. The kind thing to do was to stop his hurting by giving him some medicine to put him to sleep and stop his breathing so that he could die and stop suffering. That means he won't be living with us any more.

At some point you move onto explaining that you will always remember and love [pet], and that people are treated differently from animals, we don't just give them medicine to go to sleep if they are unhappy(!)

Child may still be unhappy and sad, but that's ok, you both get to talk about how sad it is. Death is a part of life, children can usually handle it.