Pet Services → Grief

→ For Questions Call: 704-660-9663

• Grief Counseling: Personalized counseling available with: Ingrid Pruitt. LMFT, CRS- office 704-892-1337

Dealing With Your Grief

Ingrid Pruitt is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and certified Relationship Specialist (CRS) with over 17 years experience working with individuals, couples, and families. She specializes in areas of transition and life crisis. she uses a Solution-Focused approach to assist her clients in developing a positive strategy for significant change in their lives and relationships.

Ingrid earned her B.S. from Radford University, Radford, Virginia in 1982 and her master's degree (M. Ed.) from Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina with a concentration in counseling and development in 1991. She is licensed in the state of North Carolina as a Marriage and Family therapist and has been in private practice in the Mooresville/Lake Norman, NC area for over 14 years.

The Rainbow Bridge
Just this side of heaven is a place called the Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal passes that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water, and sunshine; and our friends are warm and comfortable.
All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.
They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks in to the distance. His bright eyes are intent; his eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.
Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together...
~Author Unknown

We found the following information at www.pet-loss.net/index.shtml and found it to be incredibly informative and well written. We hope that it is able to help you with the many difficult decisions and feelings involved with the loss of a pet.

Ten Tips on Coping with Pet Loss
by Moira Anderson Allen, M.Ed.

I think I could turn and live with the animals,
they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their conditions,
they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
they do not make me sick discussing their self-importance,
not one is dissatisfied,
not one is demented with the mania of owning things.
No one kneels to another,
nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.
Not one is disrespectful or unhappy over the whole earth.
~Walt Whitman