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Phenomena in Pet Bereavement

Over the years of supporting many people through pet loss I have certainly come across stories where guardians have sensed, heard, or seen their beloved companion animal after they had died. Sometimes, they might see the cat or dog out of the corner of their eye, or even feel the familiar thud of their pet jumping onto their bed at night.

An elderly friend of mine for more years than I can remember often heard the cat flap opening and closing following the loss of her much-loved and long-lived cat, Petra. And I remember a relative saying that following the death of her dear old white mongrel, Ted, she’d sometimes see something white out of the corner of her eye.

This gentleman shared his experience of seeing images of his beloved cat for many years following his pet’s transition:

Our cat, Sidney, reached 17 years of age. He had lived a good life as a much-loved member of our family. After he was euthanized, which was carried out by the vet at our home, I sat with his body for about an hour and a half or maybe two hours. There was much grief felt at his passing. Later, we conducted a little ceremony, where his body was buried in the back garden.

After his passing, I frequently saw in my peripheral vision an image of Sidney sat on the floor. It happened in any room in the house, and as soon as I looked directly towards the image, it disappeared. I believe that a physical being, once departed, leaves behind a print of their life in the fabric of the place where they lived, which, like a ghost, can be seen. To this day, some 16 years later, I occasionally still see these images of Sidney.

Another guardian describes what she saw following the death of her cat:

After one of our beloved cats died, I kept on catching glimpses of a black shape on the floor and thought that it was her, but on looking at the spot, there was nothing there. This happened over a period of time after her passing. This particular cat had been mostly black with a bit of white.

A good friend, Eleanor, who has cared for and bred German shepherd dogs for over 30 years, told me of her experiences during two of her pet bereavements. She explains:

I was living on Dartmoor at the time. Shogun was my first German shepherd dog, and he came to me as his fourth home, his previous life having been difficult. He arrived with many health problems, which over time I tried to sort out. However, eventually it came to a point where the poor dog was suffering and I had to make the painful decision to have him put to sleep. Thankfully, I had by then taken on another two beautiful German shepherds, so I still had canine company.

A few days after Shogun’s death, looking through the kitchen window I noticed one of the dogs sitting outside, looking as though he wanted to come in. For a brief moment I assumed it was one of my two canines, but then I realized that they were both already in the house. The dog I could see through the window looked just like Shogun.

Shortly after that, on another occasion, I was walking by a river with my two dogs, who were roaming around enjoying some freedom. Suddenly, I realized that I was in fact seeing three dogs running around together having a wonderful time. Again, the third dog looked just like Shogun, but a Shogun who was fit and able to run with the rest of the pack. It felt magical, especially as he hadn’t been able to run like that for some time before his death.

Years later, I had another similar experience. I lived in an old railway cottage in Northamptonshire, which again I shared with three beautiful German shepherd dogs. A kindly neighbour helped me out by looking after them at times, which invariably included walking them.

The oldest dog, Jesse, had become very frail at just over 16 years—an amazing age for a large breed. When she started having epileptic fits, the vet explained that she had reached the end of her life because her kidneys were shutting down and toxins were loading into her brain and body. Clearly, it was time to say goodbye to this dear old canine friend, so I arranged for Jesse to be put to sleep at home in the cottage.

A few days after Jesse’s passing, I was driving home through the twisting country roads and turned a corner to see my neighbour walking my dogs; I saw that he was walking three dogs. But, of course, since Jesse’s death I only had two. Amazingly, they all looked completely normal, and each dog looked in good health, including the third dog, the image of Jesse.

Each such encounter felt pretty awesome and gave me a sort of chill down my spine, but in a good way. It also left me with a great sense of settlement and the ongoing surety of life, together with the feeling that we really only understand the great cycles of life and death in a very minimal way.

As I continued to ask people about this kind of phenomenon, more and more stories have been kindly shared, such as this one about a feline companion called Tom:

My lovely black cat, Tom, who turned out to be a female, passed away at the ripe old age of 21 years. Tom had had a lucky escape as a young cat, when she was hit by a car. She dragged herself to a neighbour’s house and just cried and cried until they finally came out to see what the noise was. A trip to the vet, medication, and a leg in plaster was all they could do, but they told us it was unlikely she would survive . . . well, they got that wrong!

I spent nights with her and refused to believe she would not make it. She hardly ate for days, but would take food from me. We formed a bond that lasted up to and beyond her life with us here on Earth. Parting was very hard, and a conscious effort had to be made each day not to focus on the loss of her but rather on all the lovely cuddles, purring, and antics, including getting stuck on top of a cupboard.

Then one morning while having breakfast and probably not actually thinking about her at the time, I looked out of our kitchen window and saw her sitting on top of her favourite gatepost. She was shiny and gleaming in the early morning sunshine. I held her gaze for a few seconds, but knew as soon as I blinked she would be gone, and she was. The feeling of elation inside me was immense; she had come to say she was fine, and also to say thank you for the love we had shared.

Tom made several more appearances, always in favourite spots in the garden. Our new cats would also see her sitting on the stairs in our house. At first, they were wary, but once we explained who it was, they would purr when they saw her, always on the same stair.

And here’s another fascinating story about a dog called Tippy:

Our beautiful, fun, but very nervous dog, Tippy, a tri-colour collie, had a bad start in life with a young family that tormented him. He came to us at 18 months old, and the road to acceptance of us and our way of life was long. He showed his disgust at being left alone for a few hours by eating through a telephone cable in the house—a line which had only recently been connected. He also ate an entire large box of chocolates that were left to thank my parents for popping in to see him on another occasion, when we had to leave him for a morning. He also ate the paper they were wrapped in to remove any trace of them ever having been there!

He gradually adjusted and became a well-mannered if still slightly nervous dog.

He passed away aged 16 and three quarters, and it broke our hearts.

Years and years later, I was in an audience where a man was talking about pets and the afterlife. He gradually went around the room identifying animal spirits that had stepped forward to be made known to their owners. There were cats, dogs, a horse, a snake, and even a cow. The man told each person the tiniest of details about the animals.

Just as he was finishing, he said, “Has anyone not had a visit?” I put my hand up. He stood for a moment and was about to say that not all pets want to step forward, when his legs shot forward like he had been pushed, and he looked up and said, “I have a collie dog here, tri-colour, white paws, and very eager to get to you. He wants you to know he is happy and had a happy life with you. He is very determined; he wasn‘t supposed to slip through like that by my legs. He was called Tippy because of his distinctive white paws.”

I felt so elated to get the confirmation from someone else that our pets do remain in contact with us. I was of course in no way surprised that he found a way to come through that wasn‘t quite allowed!

Sometimes, we may see unexplained behaviour in our pets following the death of a companion, as seen in this short report:

I saw the vet and nurse arrive promptly that afternoon, as arranged by my good friend who lives next door. By this time, I’d regained my own inner calm after the earlier shock of learning that Gracie, their elderly collie, had to be put to sleep. I knew what a wrench it would be for my friend and her family, and indeed, felt my own deep sadness at the impending loss of such a delightful canine soul.

From within my own four walls, I quietly prayed that Gracie’s last moments would be peaceful. The vet team left 15 minutes later, so I assumed all had gone well. At this point, my own dog became agitated, crying and unable to settle. This worried me, in case by some quirk of fate he also had become unwell, but I did wonder if his distress was due to an instinct of what had happened to Gracie.

Gracie had been his one remaining canine friend from his puppy-hood. Over the years, they’d companionably walked together, run around fields, and greeted one another politely whenever they met, either outside our front doors or out on walks. And on occasions, Gracie had come into our house, when our dog had put aside his usual territorial behaviour and acquiesced to her presence.

Wishing I could “speak dog” for real, I let him know that Gracie had “returned to the earth”, and after 10 minutes, he gradually settled down before curling up and going to sleep.

There are things in life we have not yet come to fully understand, and perhaps this kind of phenomenon is one of them. But generally those who have seen, felt, or heard their pet after its transition seem comforted by the possibility that they, or perhaps their energy, are still present in some unexplained but nevertheless welcome way.

If this is something you experience, you might want to simply acknowledge it and keep it as a wonder in your mind about those things we don’t yet fully comprehend.

Personally, I haven’t experienced such things, other than when my beloved parrot died. I felt a beautiful sense of freedom, as the bird I’d cared for over many years was finally set free. The following is the story of parrot Poppy and me.

Loving and Losing a Parrot

It was one of those strange moments in life when you find yourself compelled to do something that is totally impractical and a touch crazy.

I was at the counter in a pet shop saying, “I’ll take that African grey parrot, but can you accept pre-dated cheques as I don’t have the funds at the moment?”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I’d find the funds, either. It was the mid-1980s, and I’d only gone into the shop to buy some seed and millet for my cockatiels and budgies. My home was filled with a number of little waifs and strays—budgies who’d been found in a junk shop and such like.

I had not actually intended to buy the terrified grey parrot, which was desperately trying to back into a corner of its cage and was making the most awful growling noise, but I had to do something to get it out of there. (I found out later that this growl is particular to grey parrots and is a sign of deep distress or fear.) There was only one other parrot for sale, a more steady-looking Amazon parrot, and much more expensive—hopefully, too much for the three rather rough-looking young chaps who’d been eyeing up the grey. I could see that the poor grey needed a quiet home—somewhere to heal from the obvious trauma it had experienced so far in its life—and I was terrified that the lads would buy it.

The shopkeeper gratefully accepted my pre-dated cheques, crammed the poor bird into a box, and carried the heavy cage to load into my car. No doubt, she was glad to have made the sale and to get that noisy creature out of her shop. Meanwhile, I resolved to do whatever I could to guarantee a decent future for this dear creature, whether she stayed with me or went to a good bird sanctuary. Either way, I was in it for the long haul, as parrots can easily live for over 50 years.

The bird was a Timneh grey, a sub-species of the more well-known African grey. I named her Poppy because of her burgundy tail feathers, although I wasn’t sure she was female. Other than that she was a mixture of light and dark greys, with eyes that had apparently recently turned yellow, showing she was about 18 months old. She had just come out of quarantine, having been bred in Belgium and transported to the UK, although later on I would wonder whether she’d been caught in the wild. I would never know for sure.

I’d been told that I would need a pair of heavy leather or sheepskin gloves to avoid being bitten by her rather daunting beak. However, first sight of my thick gloves made Poppy throw herself to floor of the cage, growling in fear. So the gloves were put away forever; this bird needed to experience gentleness, kindness, compassion, and sensitivity from someone with a decent knowledge of the species and their needs.

The first couple of years together were challenging, but in time, Poppy became a confident and happy, albeit noisy, member of the family. She liked her freedom and would spend most of the time on top of her cage, as she felt safe higher up, from where she could fly around the room when she wanted or watch the neighbours out the window, mimicking the local birdlife and other daily sounds, such as the fax machine, lorry reversing warnings, and the piercing barking of two Jack Russell dogs who lived a couple of doors away. (Unfortunately she mimicked that racket for years and years!)

But it was lovely when she started to talk—a real treat, in fact—and sometimes, she’d respond to a question appropriately, such as when I asked, “Poppy, are you going in for your tea?” and she’d say, “Yes” and go into her cage to her food bowl! She learnt to nip me, then cry “Ow!” and say “Poppy” in an admonishing tone. She was a real character.

Unfortunately, she terrorized the other smaller birds, so I had to move her into a separate room to enable all avian family members to enjoy some freedom within the home. I discovered that she enjoyed sharing her space with small furry animals, and she struck up an endearing friendship with my pet dwarf rabbit, Hopkin, or as Poppy soon came to call him, “Little Bunny.”

Their room was set up so that they could both have their cage doors open and come and go as they liked safely. Sometimes, I’d find them on the chair together, with the rabbit on the seat cushion and Poppy on the arm of the chair, chewing one of her treats. It took me a while to work out why there were grooves in the rabbit’s leftover carrot when I cleaned them out at night. Eventually, I caught Poppy in the act—she was going into Hopkin’s cage, even while he was there, and helping herself to his carrot! I managed to capture this on camera one day.

In later years she happily shared “her” room with two guinea pigs, but she always called them “Little Bunny”, too.

She learnt to accept my husband. He always felt that he was tolerated rather than loved, but nevertheless he became very fond of Poppy and helped with the cleaning and feeding that goes with parrot care. She took to life in our new home in Devon well and began to amuse our new neighbours in the street—although she confused the elderly lady next door, who thought we were banging nails in the wall to put up pictures at odd times of the day and night. It was, in fact, Poppy tapping on the wall!

Over our 25 years together we became firm friends, and she’d love to be held or put her head down for me to gently scratch her. She was often to be found on my shoulder, and she’d nudge her head into my mug of tea to have a few sips, or bite holes in my jumper—I lost a lot of tops that way.

Parrots are very intelligent beings, and we had to stay one step ahead in finding safe chew toys to keep her and her beak busy. Even so, holes would appear in the plaster of the wall by the window sill where she’d been perching, or chunks would be taken out of the rubber seal of the doubleglazed windows. If she didn’t like something we’d soon know, as it was sent flying across the room—such refreshing honesty!

I’d always thought that Poppy and I would become old ladies together, and in case I died before her, I’d made provisions for her care. So it was with deep shock that I discovered her to be suddenly unwell one day. Thankfully we promptly found a vet who could do a home visit so as not to stress her. It turned out that she had a chest infection, so our daily routine became trying to get her to take antibiotics in the fruit juice she liked to sip.

Sadly, just as we thought she was getting better, she went downhill and had to be hospitalized. We went to see her in the vet hospital, where she was receiving excellent care. They told us how much she perked up when we went in, but it soon became clear that the kindest thing was to allow her to be put to sleep, which of course we agreed to do.

Over our years together, I’d longed to let Poppy go free, but, of course I never could, because she would surely die out in the wild. It helped with the deep sadness at losing such a wonderful companion to know that at last my dear Poppy could go free. Now she’d fly off to wherever birds go at the end of their time, leaving behind sweet memories of a most wonderful human-avian relationship. Of course, losing a pet after so many years together was immensely sad, and she is still missed today, but I feel honoured and enriched at having shared 25 years with the beautiful, funny, and confident little person Poppy became.

Raja: Part Two

To conclude this chapter on phenomena, we’ll take up the final part of Hildreth Grace’s poignant story about Raja, her beloved cat (which started in Chapter 12):

We buried Raja at the edge of a forest behind the house, with a favourite cat toy to wish him joy in his next cat life. And this is the thing: I believe in reincarnation. The only tangible proof that I have is the seasons—winter becomes spring and so on. I simply feel that it makes sense. Nature is very efficient and doesn’t waste anything.

So I made a deal with Raja before he left. I told him that if he wanted to live with us again in his next life, that we would welcome him. I reminded him of his loud meow when he was a kitten, and told him that is how I’d know it was him. I told him about our friend, Nicoal, down the road who fosters kittens for the Humane Society, and that was one way he could find his way back to us if he needed to.

I never felt moved to visit Raja’s grave until about three and a half months later. I was out working on the horse fence one evening, when I was suddenly compelled to go over to his grave. As I was walking towards it, a brief feeling of glee overcame me and with the translation, “He’s in a kitten body.”

Once there, I sent him love and strength, wherever he was, feeling that heart connection still alive as my hands pulsed with healing energy. I reminded him about the guidelines for finding us if he wanted to.

That night I got an email from Nicoal, who had just brought home two black, long-haired kittens! So, next day, off we go to meet possible Raja. This was completely new territory for me.

When I walked in and saw the two kittens (a brother and a sister) in their kitten tree, I said, “He’s the one on the left!” He looked at me and let out a meow! We spent the rest of the visit giving him tests, and he simply wanted to be with me the entire time, even attaching himself to my neck the way I used to carry Raja, draped over my shoulder. Two more visits and three weeks later, and now called Pluto Arjuna Raju (Juna), we brought him home to join his family. He passed every test, and I could not risk going back on my word.

We can never know for sure if this is the reincarnation of Raja. My heart believes it to be so, and there is plenty of evidence to support it. Whatever the case, one thing remains infallible: these furry beings who share their lives with us humans carry the keys to unlocking, healing, and infinitely expanding our hearts.

I hope this story may bring comfort and easement to others whose heart threads have been stretched into the unknown. May we do all that we can to grow the value, respect, and care now needed by every species across the globe, and return the favour with hearts of abundant gladness and gratitude.