Seeing your child grieve over the loss of a pet is heartbraking

Graci and Randi with their hamsters in 2013

Every other week my two girls have to clean their hamster's cages. I usually have to remind my girls to clean the cages. This week -after a reminder- the girls brought their cages out of their bedrooms and got the supplies ready to clean. 

But, when my 11 year-old daughter, Randi, went to take her hamster out of the cage, it was lifeless. My husband and I heard a scream and then tears just started flowing down her face. Little Chester was dead.  It was heartbreaking to see my daughter so sad. She had her hamster for more than 3 years, which is longer than it was expected to live. Still she wasn't ready for her pet to die.

Graci, who is 10, was also upset Randi's hamster died. Graci tried to make Randi feel better and offered her hamster to her and said she would still clean the cage. It didn't make Randi feel any better, but it was so sweet to see the interaction of the two as one grieved for her pet and the other because she felt bad that her sister was hurting.

Graci and I hurried and cleaned the cages. I got Randi's hamster cage cleaned and out of sight. We didn't want Randi to keep thinking about it. We had a funeral for little Chester and buried him in the back yard. Randi was still grief stricken. The passing of Chester brought back memories of other pets that had passed away.

Before the two girls were born, my husband and I had a black Labrador. He was the girls first pet and he passed away from cancer when the girls were 5 and 6 years old.  It was devastating to the family especially to Randi and Graci. They cried for weeks and still cry every now and then. It was hard because we didn't know he was sick. The cancer came so fast and he was gone within a week.

Our dog wasn't the first pet to die. The girls both had Beta fish. The fish was the first pet the girls had ever had die, so as you can imagine it was quite traumatic seeing the fish on top of the water floating. I think the girls were around 3 or 4 when that happened. Sometimes I wish I would have seen it floating before they did, so I could have just changed out the fish and avoided the sadness, but I know they have to deal with death and I can't make it better all the time.   

Recently both of my daughter's have been asking to get a bunny. When the hamster died, my first reaction was to get Randi the bunny so she wouldn't be sad. My husband said a bunny right now isn't a good idea because she needs to grieve and not think that if something dies or something happens you can replace it easily with something else. 

I  agree. We can't just replace something with something else right away. When our dog died we waited a few months before getting another dog. I know dogs are different than hamsters, but dealing with the loss of any kind of pet is hard for kids.

I hate seeing my daughter sad, but time seems to heal the pain. In the case of the hamster, Randi didn't expect her hamster to live much longer than it did.

As a parent, I don't want to see my child go through any pain and suffering, but I also know it's inevitable. I could just not let my kids have any pets and we wouldn't have to worry about a pet dying, but than they would  miss out on the joy a pet can bring to them.

And I know my kids couldn't imagine their life without their pets, even though they've had to say goodbye to a few of them. It's all part of the circle of life.

Pets can teach kids life lessons

Graci and Randi show their
dwarf hamsters

A dog, a bird, two fish and two dwarf hamsters is what we now have in our household as far as pets are concerned. I never would have imagined I would have so many little creatures in my house. I wasn’t one to have pets growing up except for a dog. Today the pets actually outnumber my kids three to one.

Our first pet in our house was a dog that my husband and I got when we first got married. He was our “kid” before having our two girls.

The other pets started arriving as our girls could talk, probably at the age two or three.  Our oldest daughter, Randi started out with a beta fish as her first pet. It’s a good thing because they are pretty easy to take care of. The only real issue with fish is cleaning their water every month. Other than that, you feed them a few pellets of fish food a day and they are fine.  You do have to be careful the little ones don’t overfeed the fish.

The first time the fish died. It was traumatic for our girls. I think Randi cried for whole day. We actually had a ceremony and flushed the fish down the toilet. The next fish that died wasn’t a big deal. We were expecting it to be, but our girls didn’t think twice about it.

We did have hermit crabs somewhere along the line. I think we got those when the girls were about 4 and 5 years old. The hermit crabs weren’t hard to take care of, but their cages would really smell. One of the hermit crabs was pretty good at getting out of his cage. One night we heard a big thump and the hermit crab was out of his cage and in another room. It was funny. We nick-named him Hercules. The hermit crabs lasted about a year and they ended up going to a cousin after she babysat for them while we were on vacation.

When the girls were 5 and 6, the dog they had know since birth passed away unexpectedly. It was hard on the whole family, especially our girls. We decided after a few months to get a new dog. We thought it would help them with their grief. It did help.

A bird was something my oldest daughter Randi wanted for awhile. My brother-in-law raised Cockatiels and told us that would be a good bird for Randi. He gave us a cage and information about the bird. Randi got him for doing well on one of her report cards when she was 7. Randi loves the bird, but it is not the easiest animal to take care of. Not only do you have to feed the bird, but the cage needs to be cleaned each week. The bird is pretty messy and his seeds and feathers fall around the cage. Right now, I wouldn’t say it’s the best pet for kids her age.

Just recently we got our latest addition to the household. Both girls have wanted a hamster for a few years. My husband and I didn’t really want more animals, but we told them if they could convince us about why they wanted the hamsters, we would think about it. We told them to do a report. In the report they needed to tell us the origin of the dwarf hamsters, the cost to purchase it including the cage, what the hamsters eat and how they would take care of them.

We thought the report would take a few days for them to do and would keep them busy for awhile. Well, about 3 hours later, they had a full report with all the information including photos in a notebook. They both took turns presenting different parts of the information to us. We were so impressed we couldn’t say no to their request.  The following day we were at the pet store getting the dwarf hamsters. Just our luck that day the hamsters were on a one day sale for half off. We couldn’t beat that.

My husband and I try to use the pets to help our kids learn responsibility. They have to feed their animals and clean their cages. It’s not always easy for them to do alone. I am usually helping them with the cleaning of the cages.

The pets are fun to have and our girls do love them. I think we are at our limit of pets though. I don’t have time to clean any more cages. Overall the pets in our house have been pretty good. I’ve found them to be a wonderful way to teach kids responsibility and life’s lessons.