Planning a dog memorial
October 13, 2024 6:38 AM Subscribe
My sweet boy died peacefully at home in his favorite spot on October 11 and I’m going to have a Zoom memorial for him next week with his favorite people. What else would you add?
Hank (pet tax) lived with acute b-cell lymphoma for almost a year, three times longer than the oncologists expected.
(Previously:
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3)
What I have planned: I will write something to memorialize him. I’m going to create a short video of some of my favorite pictures and videos of him over the years. And I’ve asked all attendees to share a favorite memory of him.
What else?
Hank (pet tax) lived with acute b-cell lymphoma for almost a year, three times longer than the oncologists expected.
(Previously:
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3)
What I have planned: I will write something to memorialize him. I’m going to create a short video of some of my favorite pictures and videos of him over the years. And I’ve asked all attendees to share a favorite memory of him.
What else?
Best answer: Could you include a pet charity group donation to memorialize him? If so it might be nice to ask attendees to donate and have a friend (or you) share more about the organization. Timing wise I might put this at the end of the service as a bridge to thinking about the permanence of his memory and the ways in which you can continue to honor that.
If you and he also had strong connections to his vet team, sharing thanks to those people even if they are not joining could be nice.
When we had pet loss we also planted a tree in our yard. The tree isn’t an official resting place but it is a spot that has personal significance. The tree planting was also a meaningful event for us as we moved forward. Future personal plans to honor his memory and your time together could also be a part of service/sharing.
posted by countrymod at 7:56 AM on October 13 [2 favorites]
If you and he also had strong connections to his vet team, sharing thanks to those people even if they are not joining could be nice.
When we had pet loss we also planted a tree in our yard. The tree isn’t an official resting place but it is a spot that has personal significance. The tree planting was also a meaningful event for us as we moved forward. Future personal plans to honor his memory and your time together could also be a part of service/sharing.
posted by countrymod at 7:56 AM on October 13 [2 favorites]
So sorry for your loss. Hank was lucky to have your love and care right to the end.
It sounds like you have great plans for the memorial. I came to echo the suggestion of donations to a pet charity in his name.
posted by rpfields at 10:52 AM on October 13 [1 favorite]
It sounds like you have great plans for the memorial. I came to echo the suggestion of donations to a pet charity in his name.
posted by rpfields at 10:52 AM on October 13 [1 favorite]
Oh, he’s so lovely. What a kind face Hank had.
I really just wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss. My beautiful girl died from cancer last year, after 3 months of treatment that seemed to be working (until it wasn’t). It’s so incredibly traumatising.
Dogs are angels on earth. I’m sure your memorial will be beautiful.
posted by Salamander at 7:24 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
I really just wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss. My beautiful girl died from cancer last year, after 3 months of treatment that seemed to be working (until it wasn’t). It’s so incredibly traumatising.
Dogs are angels on earth. I’m sure your memorial will be beautiful.
posted by Salamander at 7:24 PM on October 13 [2 favorites]
I'm really, really sorry. He looks like a very happy boy! Thank you for taking such good care of him. You must be in a lot of pain, please give yourself a lot of space to grieve and rest. If you need to let yourself believe he's just in the next room sometimes, that's okay.
When I lost my old dog, I centered the memorial around a wooden box with her picture on it. You can order those from the online custom photo places. The grain of the wood makes the picture look alive, somehow, and my box is very special to me. It's about the size of a shoebox or slightly larger, with 12 compartments inside (I think people typically put tea in those). In the different compartments, I keep my friend's most meaningful items: puppy collar, favourite ball, her rabbit, her tags, pet passport, etc. Obviously, she had way more stuff, but the things in her box are so special, I don't even want other dogs to play with them.
During the memorial, we wrote her favourite things/places/people on many little pieces of paper to then put in the box. That was healing. When I look through the box now, I like thinking about good times she had, friendships she made, places she loved. Since you're meeting online, you could just work in a shared Google doc and print that out (or have someone make a little book of notes from it later).
Afterwards, I think we lit a candle and quietly remembered her for a minute. There were lots of hugs (think of how you can feel comforted physically, if you're doing this over Zoom. A weighted blanket? Slippers, cocoa, and a warm bath afterwards? Another pet? You'll probably be wiped out afterwards, so maybe queue up some soothing television and think about what to do for dinner).
To finish off, we sang her favourite song together: "Happy Birthday To You", because she loved family gatherings and that song always made her wag her tail. If Hank doesn't have a special song, you could pick one about dogs in general, or perhaps one about (pet) loss to sing or listen to.
Something I didn't do for the memorial, but have done twice a year ever since: I buy a soft toy she would have loved. I pick the softest one, the one most dogs would immediately destroy, because those were her favourite. I then leave the toy in a donation box for the local shelter. My hope is that these toys go to gentle older dogs because the shelter staff presumably knows that the young and wild ones are more destructive.
I also buy presents for the remaining family dogs. I asked myself what my old girl would want me to do in her memory, and I think she'd really like knowing that her friends are getting new toys in celebration of her life. Maybe Hank had some sort of "cause" he cared about? I know there's people who set up baskets of balls by a dog park in memory of their friend's passion, or make a point of taking a shelter dog for a walk to their former dog's favourite places.
I hope you get through this difficult time as well as can be expected. Hugs.
posted by toucan at 12:26 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
When I lost my old dog, I centered the memorial around a wooden box with her picture on it. You can order those from the online custom photo places. The grain of the wood makes the picture look alive, somehow, and my box is very special to me. It's about the size of a shoebox or slightly larger, with 12 compartments inside (I think people typically put tea in those). In the different compartments, I keep my friend's most meaningful items: puppy collar, favourite ball, her rabbit, her tags, pet passport, etc. Obviously, she had way more stuff, but the things in her box are so special, I don't even want other dogs to play with them.
During the memorial, we wrote her favourite things/places/people on many little pieces of paper to then put in the box. That was healing. When I look through the box now, I like thinking about good times she had, friendships she made, places she loved. Since you're meeting online, you could just work in a shared Google doc and print that out (or have someone make a little book of notes from it later).
Afterwards, I think we lit a candle and quietly remembered her for a minute. There were lots of hugs (think of how you can feel comforted physically, if you're doing this over Zoom. A weighted blanket? Slippers, cocoa, and a warm bath afterwards? Another pet? You'll probably be wiped out afterwards, so maybe queue up some soothing television and think about what to do for dinner).
To finish off, we sang her favourite song together: "Happy Birthday To You", because she loved family gatherings and that song always made her wag her tail. If Hank doesn't have a special song, you could pick one about dogs in general, or perhaps one about (pet) loss to sing or listen to.
Something I didn't do for the memorial, but have done twice a year ever since: I buy a soft toy she would have loved. I pick the softest one, the one most dogs would immediately destroy, because those were her favourite. I then leave the toy in a donation box for the local shelter. My hope is that these toys go to gentle older dogs because the shelter staff presumably knows that the young and wild ones are more destructive.
I also buy presents for the remaining family dogs. I asked myself what my old girl would want me to do in her memory, and I think she'd really like knowing that her friends are getting new toys in celebration of her life. Maybe Hank had some sort of "cause" he cared about? I know there's people who set up baskets of balls by a dog park in memory of their friend's passion, or make a point of taking a shelter dog for a walk to their former dog's favourite places.
I hope you get through this difficult time as well as can be expected. Hugs.
posted by toucan at 12:26 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
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Perhaps you could ask everyone to bring a drink of some kind, or create a cocktail/mocktail with links to his favourite foods/special memories, and send everyone the recipe? Or you could all eat some of his favourite snacks together. Sharing a group toast to his memory might be a nice moment.
Depending on the tech/creative abilities of your friends, I wonder if you could also get everyone to join an online collaborative drawing site like FlockMod or something similar and ask everyone to write or draw something in his memory, then you could save the final image and get it printed onto mugs or a tea towel or pillow or something as a physical memorial.
posted by fight or flight at 6:51 AM on October 13 [1 favorite]