Guilt and Relief After Saying Goodbye to Your Pet

When families picture the days after saying goodbye, they usually expect the sadness. What often catches them off guard are two other feelings: guilt and relief. Every week, someone tells us they wish they had done something differently. Others admit, almost in a whisper, that part of them feels relieved, and then feel terrible for saying it.

If either of those sounds familiar, you’re in good company. They’re some of the most common things we hear from families after an appointment, and some of the hardest to say out loud.

This article looks at where guilt comes from, why wishing you’d done things differently isn’t the same as getting it wrong, and why relief is a normal part of losing a pet you’ve been caring for. We’re a veterinary practice, not grief counselors, so we lean on research for what’s known about these feelings. What we can add is what we’ve seen in the more than 5,000 families we’ve helped through this.

We’ll start with guilt, because it’s usually the first to show up.

With euthanasia, you’re making a choice, and that choice results in the death of your pet. That makes you sad, and your brain tries to find a way to connect the two. The decision is right there, so that’s where the sadness lands.

That’s why guilt can show up even when you know you made the right decision. One owner in a recent study described “the guilt I have for making that decision, even though I know it was the right thing to do”¹. People who make medical decisions at the end of a family member’s life often describe the same guilt².

The guilt also doesn’t mean euthanasia was the wrong choice. When researchers have compared euthanasia with other kinds of death, owners who chose euthanasia tended to feel less guilt than owners whose pet died some other way^3,​4.

So if guilt is weighing on you, it may help to see it for what it usually is: the weight of a hard decision made for someone you love, rather than proof that you did anything wrong.

It can also help to remember what you were actually choosing. The question of if had already been decided. Their age, their illness, the gift of life itself meant that even if you had done nothing, they were still going to leave. What you chose was how.

In our experience, guilt tends to attach itself to one of a few thoughts. These are the ones we hear most.

This is the one we hear most, by far. Every week, someone tells us they wish they had done it sooner. In all the families we’ve helped, it’s very rare for anyone to tell us they did it too soon, and research has found the same thing⁴.

Waiting usually comes from love. It’s human to want more time with your pet, and that pull toward more time is part of how love keeps us from acting too soon. Our article on why the euthanasia decision feels impossible talks about this in more detail. Looking back, the last hard days can seem obvious. At the time, they were mixed in with good moments, and you were doing your best to read them.

Many families replay the months before the diagnosis: the walks that got a little shorter, the cat who skipped a meal or two. Cats and dogs are very good at hiding pain and illness, and many problems show few clear signs until they’re well along. Our article on recognizing pain in cats and dogs covers some of the subtle signs, and even attentive owners miss them.

Others wonder about a vet visit they put off, or a treatment they didn’t try or couldn’t afford. Those decisions were made with the time, money and information you had then. We’ll come back to that, because it matters.

Sometimes the guilt is about the appointment itself. Some people step out before the very end, and later wish they had stayed. We ask every family to stay at least until their pet is sedated, so that their pet’s final moments are surrounded by love in a familiar home. If you stepped out after that, your pet had already fallen asleep with you beside them, and they weren’t alone after you left.

Others worry that they upset their pet by crying. Almost every family we visit cries, and tears are a natural part of saying goodbye.

Sometimes the appointment simply didn’t go the way a family pictured. If something about your pet’s goodbye is weighing on you, please ask us about it. We’d much rather talk it through with you than have you carry it alone.

Some families can’t stop thinking about the way their pet looked at them at the end. Others ask us outright whether their pet is mad at them for making this decision. When you’re heartbroken, it’s natural to see your own feelings in your pet’s face. You’re sad, so you see sadness, or even blame, looking back at you.

When families ask us this, we start by asking what their pet was like. If you came home after a hard day, what would they do? For so many of us, our pets were the ultimate source of comfort, the first one at the door to greet us with reassurance and love. Knowing that, it’s really hard to believe they would be judging you for this decision.

We believe it’s quite the opposite. If they could sit you down and have a conversation with you, we think they would thank you for all of the love, the memories and the time you had together, and for the gift of a peaceful death. You made this choice because you loved them and didn’t want them to suffer. So if you’re afraid they’re upset with you, think about who they were while they were here. We talk about this in a short video, “Is my pet mad at me for electing euthanasia?”, in our video library.

Underneath almost all of these is the same wish: that you had done something differently.

It’s OK to wish you had done things differently. That doesn’t mean you did them wrong. You did the best you could with the information you had at the time, and holding yourself to any other standard is unfair.

Grief researchers draw the same line. In a study of people who had lost a spouse, wishing they could go back and do things differently didn’t make their grief harder. Blaming themselves for the death did⁵.

Part of what makes self-blame so convincing is hindsight. Once you know how things turned out, the signs seem like they should have been obvious all along. Psychologists call this hindsight bias⁶. You’re judging your past self with information your past self didn’t have.

So try to give yourself the same understanding you would give a friend who had been through this. That kindness toward yourself seems to matter. In a study of grieving pet owners, those who were kinder to themselves were less likely to have their grief tip into depression⁷.

Guilt isn’t the only feeling that surprises families, though. Many also feel something they’re even more reluctant to admit.

It’s OK to feel relief after your pet is gone. That doesn’t mean you loved them any less. Caring for a senior or seriously ill pet can be a very difficult thing, and caregiver burnout is real.

When families tell us about relief, it’s usually about three things. The care routine is over: the medications on a schedule, the alarms through the night, carrying them outside, cleaning up accidents. Their pet isn’t suffering anymore. And the constant worry has stopped. There was just a lot of worry, whether that meant watching every breath, dreading coming home, or wondering if today was the day.

That load is real. Owners caring for a seriously ill dog or cat report more stress, anxiety and depression than owners of healthy pets^8,​9, so it makes sense to feel some of that weight lift when it ends.

Relief after losing a pet hasn’t been studied much, but when researchers have asked, many owners say they felt it⁴. It’s a familiar feeling for people who have cared for a family member at the end of life, too. Nearly three in four family caregivers of people with dementia said the death came as a relief¹⁰. Feeling it says more about how much you were carrying than about how much you loved them.

Relief is often where the guilt comes back in.

A few days after the appointment, you might sleep through the night for the first time in months, or run an errand without hurrying home. Then the thought arrives: “How can I be happy when I just went through this?”

That’s one of the most common ways relief and guilt get tangled together. The relief feels like a betrayal, so it gets pushed down, and guilt takes its place.

Part of what makes this so hard is the idea that you’re only allowed to feel one way.

Families often get stuck believing they can only feel one thing. We regularly tell people that you can be sad that your pet is gone and relieved that the caregiving is over. Both things can be true at the same time.

Research on caregiving points the same way. In a survey of people caring for an aging dog, the hard feelings and the rewarding ones rose together, rather than one canceling out the other¹¹. Sadness and relief can sit side by side in the same way.

Moments of lightness don’t take anything away from your grief, and they may even help. In a study of people who had lost a spouse, those who smiled more while talking about their spouse went on to have less grief over the next two years¹². Laughing at the memory of your dog stealing a sandwich off the counter, or your cat claiming the warm laundry, is part of remembering them.

For many people, the guilt softens as these feelings settle. For some it doesn’t, and that’s worth paying attention to.

Guilt doesn’t always fade with time the way sadness tends to³, and when it lingers, it can make grief harder to carry¹³.

If guilt is still weighing on you weeks or months later, or it’s making it hard to get through your days, please talk to someone. A counselor or therapist can help, and so can the free pet loss support lines run by veterinary schools and veterinary associations.

Pet loss support lines:

• Tufts Pet Loss Support Helpline – (508) 839-7966, Monday through Thursday, 6 to 9 pm Eastern. You can leave a voicemail anytime, and they’ll call you back.
• Cornell Pet Loss Support Hotline – (607) 218-7457, answered by trained veterinary student volunteers. Hours vary through the year.
• Chicago VMA Pet-Loss Helpline – (630) 325-1600. Leave a message and a volunteer will call you back.

If you’re in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, please call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.

You’ll find more support, including books for adults and children, on our pet loss grief resources page.

If your grief is lasting longer than you expected, our article on grief after losing a pet talks about why there’s no timeline.

And you can always talk to us.

You can call or text us anytime, whether it’s the next day or months later.

If questions about your pet’s appointment keep circling, like whether they felt anything, whether you waited too long, or why something happened the way it did, please ask us, or ask the veterinarian who was there. A few minutes with someone who was in the room can settle a question your mind keeps coming back to.

Most of what we do for grieving families is simple. We listen, and we remind them that what they’re feeling is normal. You can call or text us just to talk, even if we weren’t the ones who helped with your pet’s goodbye.

Guilt and relief are two of the most common feelings we see after a goodbye, and two of the least talked about. Neither one means you did something wrong, and neither one means you loved your pet any less.

You did the best you could with the information you had at the time. Let yourself miss them, let yourself feel the relief, and try to give yourself the same kindness you gave them at the end.

→ Anticipatory Grief: Grieving a Pet Who’s Still Here
Why grief often starts long before goodbye, the signs to recognize in yourself, and what research says can help.

→ Why the Euthanasia Decision Feels Impossible (And That’s OK)
Why we struggle with this decision and giving yourself permission to choose.

→ Aftercare Options Explained
Understanding cremation, burial, memorial options, and making decisions that honor your pet.

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