RE: [pyrnet] Grieving Pyr (Sorry: this a LONG email)

Higher functioning herd AND pack animals live their lives in part through companionship, familiarity, routine, and social order. I am convinced this goes well beyond the simple confusion of absence especially when it is a pack of only 2. I am sorry to hear about your Newf. They hold a soft spot for me.

When the decision was made to end Sadie’s suffering our other non working dog Duncan went through an intense round of loss. Everything about him changed in his relationship to us, to the cats he lives with, and in his general demeanor. It was a permanent change and though subtle to outsiders is most definitely there, with a neediness for leadership from us that became evident immediately.

It’s been almost exactly 2 years, and oddly enough Duncan has gone ‘off his new norm’ twice now and until this october did not realize that it is happening plus or minus a week from the anniversary of Sadie’s death.

I have no sage words of advice though it seems that maintaining consistency of at least some of the basic routines and expectations that included the other members of the pack [you and your husband] would help keep a foundation of behaviors and attitudes. I’m not a dog expert or a pyr expert by any stretch, and do not mean to sound hard-hearted, but would not allow too many rules of behaviors to change too much. There is comfort to familiar things and if interactions not previously allowed are now allowed I could envision longer term problems.

By the simplest example, water provided for Duncan, Sadie and the cats was by dictate communal. After Sadie’s death Duncan ‘staked out’ the water bowl as his own. It would have been a simple thing to provide another water source for the cats, but it was the point of not allowing something that simple to change.

Watching animals go through a grieving process is heart wrenching to the extreme with higher functioning animals, they like us do change, but do eventually get back to a reasonable facsimile of normal sooner or later.

With our llamas, the loss of a baby or a herd member can upset the dam or the entire herd for months, as they attempt to fill in the void. The same I assume is true of any pack group. The smaller the pack or herd the more impactful the loss.

Again I am sorry about your newf.

Gary Kaufman,Olympia WA

www.roadsendllamas.com

http://roadsendllamas.blogspot.com/

Putting Power and Presence in YOUR Pasture

I try to act normal around him so as not to feed into his...mood.