Making end-of-life decisions for a pet or coping with the loss of an animal is a difficult process. A social worker in the veterinary field says more are needed to help pet owners through their loss. Mike Foley reports.
Joelle Nielsen coordinates the Honoring the Bond program at Ohio State University’s Veterinary Medical Center. One of only about 30 such programs around the country, Honoring the Bond provides a full time social worker to support pet owners faced with the loss of an animal.
“When you go to a human hospital, there is an expectation that you will have the ability to see a social worker and a chaplain if you want,” Nielsen said. “That is not the expectation in veterinary medicine, and my hope is that it becomes that. I would love the standard to be that in every specialty veterinary medical center there would be at least one social worker.”
Nielsen also runs the Hospital-Based Veterinary Social Work Group, which supports and collaborates with the small number of social workers currently employed by veterinary medical centers. The group hopes to be a model and facilitator for the veterinary field to expand support services to more pet owners. Nielsen offers the following suggestions: avoid trying to compare the grieving experience to someone else’s, recognize that grief is normal but has no timetable, find an outlet for emotions such as memorializing the pet by making a scrapbook or memory box, and be open to talking about it with a support group or therapist who specializes in pet loss.
More information about Honoring the Bond can be found here.
Additional help for coping with the loss of an animal from the Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center can be found here.
