Did You Know YourPet Can Die From Grief

I have read about dealing with the loss of a beloved pet, but I have never read how to help a pet deal with the loss of a beloved owner or a divored couple or even if the owner of the pet becomes depressed. What could I have done to help Puddy? Are there ways to help a pet cope with loss?

One of the behaviors that accompanies depression in all social animals is lack of appetite. When we can ask the patient, as we can in people, they tell us that they have lost all interest in food or that they are "just not hungry." Human patients will maintain that this is true even though their body is metabolizing its stores of fat to meet the maintenance needs of daily activity and life.

Why does this happen? In some measure, at least, it's probably because of a brain chemical called serotonin, whose decrease has been implicated in depression and which also helps create a sense of appetite. So when someone is depressed-or just very sad-he may stop eating and shun food even though he is burning up fat and protein stores for energy.

Many people do not believe that cats-or dogs or horses-can become depressed. But I believe they must be able to experience depression since they have similar brain structure and chemistry in the regions believed to be most affected. There are two broad types of depression recognized in human psychiatry: the type associated with an event or a situation (e.g., the loss of a job, a death, a divorce) and the type that occurs "endogenously" or spontaneously. It's the latter that is often tragic if medical or psychiatric care is not provided.

Most people have no trouble recognizing the first type of depression-that associated with an event-when it occurs with their pet. Our problem is in recognizing the second kind-the endogenous one. As humans, we are fairly self-centered. That, combined with our impaired sense of smell and low skill level in recognizing nonverbal signaling (compared with cats and dogs ), makes us tend to seek help for our pets only when their behavioral problems are also problems for us.

Puddy clearly suffered from the type of depression associated with events. She responded to your father's changing state with reciprocal changes of her own: withdrawal, depression, and lack of appetite. There may be a complication here. Siamese and many other oriental-breed cats are thin anyway and very fussy eaters that are prone to periodic bouts of anorexia if they are stressed.

There is now evidence that some forms of human anorexia have to do with genetic differences in the serotonin type most associated with regulating eating. This means that not all human anorexia is about body image and perception. It is possible, then, that some breeds of dogs and cats, like the Siamese, are more susceptible or sensitive to environmental stresses that affect their appetite. If this is true, early or preemptive intervention is critical.

Don't Wait Too Long If poor appetite or anorexia in cats has just begun, one of the most common treatments is the one you noted, stimulation with anabolic steroids. Drugs like diazepam (Valium) also stimulate appetite. However, once the cat is locked into the downward spiral that Puddy was, especially if the cat has a past history of these events, these treatments are not adequate. Sometimes, hospitalizing the cat and meeting his metabolic needs with either intravenous feeding or feeding through a surgically implanted feeding tube, plus treating the cat with antianxiety or antidepressant medication, can pull him back from the edge. The key to treating such cats is to intervene as early as possible. In Puddy's case, it may have helped to begin treatment with behavioral and appetite-stimulating medication as soon as your father became sick enough that Puddy's behavior and appetite changed.

I encourage people whose pets are extremely close to other pets or family members to repeatedly evaluate the pets' behaviors. If the pet withdraws as one member in the partnership becomes ill or fails, you need to intervene and treat the depression if it doesn't resolve itself within a week or two-and before there are physical problems, like a significant weight loss. I ask people to weigh their animals daily and get a feel for skinfold thickness and the amount of subcutaneous fat. With very furry animals, you can think that they are a lot heavier than they are. If the animal experiences a 10 percent or greater weight loss, seek help. Remember, 10 percent for a 6-pound cat is only about one-half pound. These little guys are more fragile than we realize.

As part of the grieving process, I also recommend that pets be allowed to see the person or the other pet after they have died. Particularly for anxious animals, it is critical that they don't think people just randomly go away and don't come back. They can understand permanence, and if it's another pet that's involved, no dog or cat needs to think that sometimes pets are taken to the vet and just don't come back. Death is much easier to deal with than uncertainty.

One of the first things that veterinarians learn early and hard is that no matter how superb your efforts or how smart you are, sometimes nothing works.