More than nine out of ten parents want more guidance on how to help kids cope with pet loss.
That’s according to a groundbreaking new survey for the RSPCA – which found that many parents and carers feel unprepared for the questions and emotions that follow the death of a beloved family pet.
Now, as part of its ‘Not Just a Pet’ campaign, the RSPCA has launched an updated toolkit – including tips on how to prepare a child for pet loss, supporting children through grief, and helping families remember their pets after they have gone.
The efforts of the charity to remove societal stigma around pet grief have been welcomed by Dr Erin Hope Thompson, a leading clinical psychologist, who says that while losing a pet can be incredibly difficult, supporting young children to grieve can be a healthy and important experience.
She said: “Pets offer something very special – unconditional love and companionship. So when children have had a close relationship with a pet, giving them clear opportunities to say goodbye is vital. Otherwise, from their perspective, their best friend has simply disappeared.
“One thing I think many parents assume is that if their child is really upset, it means they’ve done something wrong – but that isn’t true at all. It simply means they’re grieving, and grief is hard.
“When we have to say goodbye to pets, families have an opportunity to model healthy grieving. We can show children how to look after themselves when they’re sad, how to talk about grief, and how we carry those we love forward with us.”
But an overwhelming majority of people do not believe pet grief is taken seriously enough by society, according to the new survey.
Just 5.5% of respondents believed pet grief is taken as seriously as it should be, which is even lower than last year (6.9%).
Meanwhile, growing numbers of people feel there is a stigma associated with pet grief – with 70.5% admitting to feeling this way, up from 57.8% of respondents in 2025.
Dr Erin Hope is the Founder and CEO of The Loss Foundation – a UK charity that offers bereavement support, including to children – which believes more needs to be done to address the impact pet loss has on families.
She added: “Pet grief isn’t recognised anywhere near as much as it should be, and that’s a sad reality. We need to stop asking who died and start asking, ‘How significant is this loss for this person?’”
“And in supporting people, one thing we’ve seen consistently at The Loss Foundation is that specificity matters. The more specific support becomes, the more effective it often is.
“We have quite a lot of children’s bereavement resources at The Loss Foundation, but I haven’t known of many pet-specific tools. That’s why this work from the RSPCA – and their toolkit – is so invaluable for parents, carers, families, and the kids who are going through grief and deserve to be heard.”
Included in the RSPCA’s new resources is a video featuring The O’Brien family – who lost their cat Betsi last year, who had been part of their household for more than a decade and a half.
Chris O’Brien said: “She was with us for 15 years, and she saw everything – my girlfriend and I learning to live together – getting engaged, getting married, having children. There had been a lot of change; but she was the constant in our life – she kept us really grounded.”
Father-of-two Chris explains that finding Betsi – who was on treatment for kidney problems in her later life – fading fast gave him a “split decision” parenting conundrum there is “no manual for”.
