What do I tell my 2.7 yo?

[rbmilliner]

Sorry if this is the right place for this thread but really didn't know where would be best.
My lovely 15 year old cat has been diagnosed with an incurrible tumour. The vet says although he's on medication to make him comfortable it probably only weeks and he could go down hill very quickly so be prepared.
He's always been a docile old boy and has put up with being pulled around with my 2.8 y o DD and we've treated him as a member of the family and a result she's always assumed he is just like mummy and daddy.
So what do we tell a 2.7 year old about the cat dying and the fact that he's not going to be there anymore? I don't think a child of this age can understand the concept of death as an adult or even older child does. I'm not even sure she'll feel sad really but she will ask where Dave is and understand that he's not there anymore and want to know whats happened to him.

So what do we tell her in the kindest way? Should we tell her a lie? How much does a child of this age understand and how do we not scare her?

I don't have experience but i thought keeping pets was the best way to introduce children to the concept of death at an early enough age that they would accept it better later.
So assuming that's true don't tell a lie just say the cat would only live 10 to 20 years and then they aren't with us any more.
Of course you want to draw a line between the cat and parents so you can say people live to 90+ nowadays so parents are not even half way there.
Hopefully someone with experience will come along with a reply.

As a second thought you could also let them say bye, not sure you'd want to bury the cat in the garden but you could have a ceremony and get them to draw a picture and bury that.

My daughters cat died when she was about 2.5. I told her that the cat died and dad buried her in a grave in the garden. I told her the truth, that she went on the road without an adult and a car hit her. There were a few years, she was a little sad but fine after a hug. She still talks about the cat now, 6 months later, but without sadness. She also never goes near a road without an adult so...silver linings I suppose....

Tears. A few tears.

We bought goodbye Meg. And then I took DS to the garden centre to choose a little statue thing. We had a ceremony in the back garden to say goodbye. He always waves and says hello when he goes past now although he doesn't actually remember her when questioned 🙂. Lots of questions at the time about death and cancer which I think was a good intro.