Signed off sick for pet grief

[MellowYellow552]

I'm a pet sitter. One of my furry clients was PTS last week, the day after I concluded my assignment. I'd looked after her for a few years and she had health issues but I noticed something wasn't right with her. Since then the family have been in deep pain. One of them has been signed off work because of reaction and the little boy has begun acting differently, whilst the mum is holding it all together. I lost my cat a few weeks ago and understand completely. People don't take this seriously enough ("it's just a bloody animal" kind of responses).

I'm going to start pet grief counselling training which I had thought of after losing my last cat but this has pushed me to it.

You can get another dog!

A lot of people who lose children ‘could have another child’ but would you say that? I think you’d be a disgusting human to even think it, but that’s me.

I know people are sad when pets die but this is what happens when you knowingly pour love onto something with a life expectancy of about 10 years. It’s not a tragedy and not a reason for time off work imo.

A woman who worked for my dad once asked my for compassionate leave when her dog died. He told her he could take it as sick leave and have it count on her sickness record, or as annual leave.

Otherwise where does it end? I’m devastated that my goldfish tied and I need two weeks paid off work. Ridiculous.

I lost my dog too recently. I was not prepared for the overwhelming grief. At all.

If someone had told me a year ago we would grieve this much I would not have believed it.

And I didn’t think cats could grieve, but my 17-year old cat screams and looks for our dog every day still. They were best friends.

My concern is that the thrust of the sentiment put forward by many is that they were as/more upset than when a human died. This indicates that the two are comparable and - while I do not wish to diminish individual experiences - the two are not comparable on a societal level and any indication to the contrary diminishes the impact of human loss

It is actually insulting to compare the relationship to a dog Vs a child. They are qualitatively different.

Grief is grief. It’s not something you can control.

I’m sure I’ll get shot down for this but managing a team I there is a bit too much entitlement about leave now. We are really flexible as an employer and I think people take advantage of that.

Someone in my team took a full week off when her cat passed away and just assumed this would be fine and not count as either sick leave or annual leave even though it means others in the team having an increased workload to cover for her during that time.

It’s a choice to have a pet and loss it part of that. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be compassionate but a pet dying is not the same as a human dying.

There should be a conversation about the impact (which will be individual), how much time is therefore likely to be needed and how that should be taken. I think a couple of days of paid special leave is reasonable then it should be taken as annual leave or unpaid.

On an individual level I agree, but on a societal level it's not the case

Are they? How?

I think part of this is the sense of guilt, even if we know it isn’t our fault. The animal relies on us and we make the decision about PTS

It is absolutely devastating. My teenage DD was already in a bad place post-lockdowns when we had to have our beloved elderly DCat PTS and it triggered her plummeting into depression which was dreadful. I thank heavens that we still had two DCats left. Pets are part of the family. They love and are loved. So reassured to hear some of the nicer stories on here of good work colleagues and bosses. What a blessing that is.

I agree with this tbh. I work in the local government and we are really held to account over what we can deliver and why things get delayed or cancelled.

I can’t imagine what it would look like on the local area Facebook page when people are posting “I didn’t get x, y and z services I needed” because of this. I have pets and children; I understand things happen out of the blue and we all have responsibilities and so on, but no local residents are going to want to pay for a week’s pet bereavement leave for someone. I do encourage my team members to hold over some annual leave for unforeseen things but it is quite hard to manage things appropriately

I'm still not over losing my dog 7 years later she was part of the family and it hurt as much as losing anyone else .

Depends upon how close you are to people who share similarities in DNA with, doesn't it? My mother would be far more bothered about her cat than me. Which is fine, he's the one who's had to live with her.

I think so too. It is such a horrible decision to make, even though you know it’s for the best.

You wouldn’t make a decision like that for humans, no matter how ill or how much they suffer from pain.

I lost my beloved cat five years ago, she and DD were my absolute world, we were both inconsolable, still miss her so much.

My dad died two years ago, and I felt absolutely nothing, no tears, no sadness, nothing, maybe because he let my emotionally abusive mother get away with all she did to destroy me.

We got a new cat nearly three years ago, and now he's our world. We'd be devastated if anything happened to him.

I'm already hoping that no little furry friends die during DD's GSCEs, which are 3 years away. Managing her will be much worse than losing the pet.

I think a load of things are getting conflated.

First off, grief is grief and no-one gets to dictate how it affects someone else.

Normally compassionate leave is dictated by company policy, with some management discretion. I have worked with a lot of organisations and rarely seen any that have more than a day or two compassionate leave (and I have never seen it formally for pets).

However, following bereavement it’s not unusual to be signed off sick due to the actual physical affects of grief. Those physical effects will vary from person to person, depending on how it has affected them, not depending on the nature of the bereavement.

Also, clearly if someone has supportive family relationships they are likely to be more impacted by the death of a relative than a pet. And vice versa, if someone does not have those close family relationships they are going to pour more of themselves into a relationship with a pet, and be more affected when it dies.

An Italian court ruled a few years back that a pet bereavement is grounds to have time off work.

Our dog died recently and I have been cut up about it. I am self employed so it’s my choice to take time off work, but 6 months later I’m still crying a lot. We were together 24/7. I miss her so much. I’ve grieved her loss more than I have some family members.

Pets are absolutely part of the family and the grief is real. And I hate the sentiment ‘Just get another one’ - absolutely not. It’s not a toy, it’s a loved being, they’re irreplaceable. I don’t want another for a very, very long time, if at all.

Absolutely agree, it's not a competition or a hierarchy, and those posters saying loss of a human is worse than a pet: it plainly isn't for everyone and no matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true!

I’ve just lost my cat - just on Saturday - and I’ve been knocked sideways by how badly it’s affected me. I think also because he was only 2 and was hit by a car, so it’s completely out of the blue. Someone above described their cat as their soul-cat and that’s it to a tee. He was the sweetest, most special cat I’ve ever had and I’ve had a lot of cats. I still have 3 others but he was incomparable. It is a huge loss to us. I had to post a thread on here because I am in so much pain.

I have gone back to work (it didn’t occur to me not to) because it’s a good distraction but I am sobbing most evenings in bed when I allow myself to think about him. But my work did say if I needed to, I could take time off. I am a senior manager, I wouldn’t feel it was appropriate for me to do that but I’d have no problem with someone in my team taking a day or so.

It’s good to recognise that we are human, with very human feelings, and sometimes we just can’t help how we feel. Comparisons of grief seem kind of pointless but it’s also not up to anyone else to judge someone’s feelings. A little bit of compassion and empathy goes a long way.

Sorry is this a joke thread? Compassionate leave for a cat?

Sorry I don't understand this

You're extremely coldhearted.

We have compassionate leave for pets passing away in our workplace.

Realistically you care about someone dying more in your household than outside of it, because you live with them.

What are you on about?