Heck, I’ve known people who get a new dog when their old one is going downhill. It’s kind of cool if it’s a puppy, because the old dog can teach the new one all the things it does to [del]piss you off[/del] show you it loves you before it passes on.
This is a poor argument. If the shelter euthanizes X animals per month, does it make a difference if April or July is the month with X-1 euthanizations?
I knew, last fall, that my 19-year-old kitty, Little Bear, was developing some serious health problems. He had stopped grooming himself, which is a very bad sign. So I adopted a 15-month-old female, still a kitten in many ways. And she immediately started grooming him, in his sleep. He wouldn’t stand for it when he was awake. Sadly, Little Bear passed away in March, just after his 20th birthday. So the little one was all alone and seeming a little lost. So two weeks ago I went to the shelter and came home with a beautiful 7-year-old solid black kitty with the most beautiful blue-green eyes. Today I saw them in bed, grooming each other for the first time.
That is so awesome.
I am sorry of the loss of your dog but I agree with others that everyone grieves differently and at different speeds.
For your parents they have had to deal with her absence everyday which could have made it easier in some ways to get over it quicker and want to have a new dog around.
I don’t agree with the deadline so much but you never know what wonderful pet can show up. I hope they find one that suits them both.
I headed to the pound to get dear Tulip 2 weeks after putting my beloved Maddie down. After nearly two years I can almost walk over to her grave without crying, and Tulip knows not to sit there.
It was immediately obvious to me that I have a gene that requires a dog to be, much as I knew there was a dog somewhere that needed to have me. I found it much easier to grieve for Maddie, Canine Technician II, after the position of Canine Tech III had been filled and I could spend my time yelling at the T-monster for trampling the flower beds and stealing all my beer.
Hang on let me ask…
She didn’t say anything but there was a lot of tail wagging, which I’m taking as a YES (it did make a difference).
And make that X-(1a), where a is the number of people who adopt sooner rather than later. That could be quite a large number.
Winner!
I had Phoebe the tabby for 21 years. When I had to have her put to sleep, I was completely heartbroken, and convinced that I would never have another cat because I just couldn’t go through it again. One month later, to the day, I was standing in the local shelter adopting two 6-week old kittens- sisters who were found huddled in a doghouse, and, according to the shelter, slated for euthanasia the following weekend (I’ll bet they tell everyone that!).
They did not, and could not, replace Phoebe. They have their own places in my heart, and my love for them and joy in their kitty antics don’t take away any of the love or happy memories that I have of Phoebe. As so many others have said, eveyone deals with loss differently, and getting another pet in no way diminishes the love one has for the departed pet.
I respectfully disagree. Of course, it’s a highly personal decision and everybody has their individual way of dealing with grief. But in one case, I adopted a new friend two and a half weeks after my previous dog passed away. And in another, I adopted one the same day. In both cases, the time was right for me and not meant out of disrespect to the memory of the dogs that passed on. And each time it was the right dog at the right time, as these dogs bonded to me without hesitation, and I to them. I was the world to them, and that’s a good feeling to regain.
As Scarlett67 said, when you have a dog that you’ve gotten in a daily routine with, it’s hard to give that up. People deal with loss in their own ways. When you get a new dog to be your companion, it’s more often a tribute to the good lives you’ve given to other dogs and the good life they’ve given you in return. You don’t disown the dog that passed on and having a new pet can help ease the grief and fill the emptiness left by the loss of the last one.
I’m not advocating that everybody who loses a dog should rush out to find a successor. People should take as long as they need, no matter how long it eventually takes them, even if they never find another pet. But for some of us, it’s never too soon.