Jan. 12—Craig Grossi knew he couldn’t replace Fred, the tiny white dog who helped him “live again” after his combat experiences in Afghanistan.
So after Fred died in November 2023, Grossi figured he wouldn’t get a dog right away, not while he was still grieving for Fred. Then a few months later, he met Bingo, an energetic Cairn terrier who needed a new home. He and his wife took in Bingo last March.
“Like a lot of people, I thought it might be disrespectful to the dog you just lost. But I feel now like there’s no better way to honor that animal than to open your heart again, and give another animal a loving home,” said Grossi, 41, an author and public speaker who lives on the Midcoast. “It doesn’t make you forget the other dog. I think about Fred so much when I’m with Bingo.”
Grossi wrote two books about his bond with Fred, which turned Fred into a social media star, and the pair made appearances at schools and libraries for years. Grossi’s experience with loss and grief illustrates the kinds of issues many people deal with when they lose a furry family member, and how attitudes about mourning pets have changed in the last generation or two. Many businesses have sprung up in recent years to help people deal with saying goodbye to a beloved pet — from end-of-life photographers to pet death doulas. Grieving a pet is a lot like grieving any loss, experts say, and there are things people can do and be aware of to help in their time of pain.
“I tell people, if it’s life-changing love, then it’s life-changing loss,” said Jessica Kwerel, a Washington, D.C., psychotherapist who specializes in helping people cope with pet loss. “We form really intense attachments with our pets. They’re witnesses to everything in our lives and it’s about unconditional love, which we might not get in other relationships.”
THINGS YOU CAN DO
Kwerel says there are a few key points she stresses to people dealing with pet loss. These include reminding yourself grief is not a problem to be solved, but something to be acknowledged, felt and shared. It’s also important not to rush the process. Don’t get rid of your pet’s toys unless you’re ready, and don’t get another pet if you’re not ready. There’s no timeline for getting over the loss of the pet, Kwerel says — there’s only “before loss and after loss.” It helps to seek out support from people who can relate to what you’re going through. Maybe for dog owners that’s other folks you meet daily on walks. Or you could seek out pet loss support groups, of which they are many online and in Maine.
Experts say it’s also emotionally powerful to stay connected to your pet by honoring their memory. For Grossi, that means continuing to talk to people on social media and in person about what Fred did for him and meant to him. For others, it can involve sharing stories about the pet.
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Many people also find solace in fostering an animal or volunteering at a local shelter, said Lauri Haller, operations director at the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland in Westbrook. They know they’re helping another animal, which can also be emotionally satisfying, and they’re also helping the shelter, Haller said.
“That can be a really great bridge in their grieving process, from the loss to the point that they’re ready for another animal,” Haller said. “They don’t have to commit, but they can have the support and love of an animal for whatever period of time they need it.”
Haller said that some businesses and organizations are offering bereavement days off for employees who’ve lost pets, as part of a wider societal acceptance of how important pets are in people’s lives. The staff at the Animal Refuge League deals with loss more than most people, so a counselor is sometimes brought in to conduct group sessions and help people deal with having loved — and lost — animals they were caring for and giving love to on a daily basis.
“You can’t love halfway,” Haller said.
People who walk their dogs near the Animal Refuge League get to walk over a literal rainbow bridge — a bridge painted in rainbow colors — that’s on a Portland Trails path. The bridge was painted last year by Josh Blanchard, of Westbrook, after he lost his dog, Fenway.
Painting a bridge or creating some kind of memorial to a pet can be a helpful way of acknowledging a pet’s death, and something people who work with animals are seeing more of these days, said Matt Blanchard, marketing and communications coordinator at the Animal Refuge League.
“I think that talking about mental health in general has become much more accepted, and to be able to talk about (the loss of a pet) publicly and acknowledge it to your friends and family, what you’re going through is a lot easier,” Blanchard said.
There are also practical things people can do before a pet passes away that might make grieving easier, said Suzanne Madore, a certified end-of-life doula from Saco. A doula’s work can include providing emotional support and guidance for people, helping them find different kinds of pet health care, plan memorial services, and research burial regulations, among other things. Madore suggests thinking about a pet’s long-term future, good and bad, as soon as it enters your life. This includes coming up with a plan to assess your pet’s quality of life as they get older or sick, and a plan for who would take care of your pet if something happened to you.
FRED’S STORY
Fred, Grossi’s dog, died of cancer on Nov. 22, 2023, at the age of 14. In life, Fred survived war-torn Afghanistan, then helped Grossi deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder, a battlefield head injury and alcohol abuse. Grossi credits Fred with “saving” him by getting him to open up to others and ask for help. Fred also was the subject of two books by Grossi, “Craig & Fred,” published in 2017, and “Second Chances” in 2021.
Grossi stumbled upon Fred in an Afghanistan combat zone in 2010, just after Grossi and his fellow Marines had held off a much larger Taliban force for a week. Grossi sensed something special in the dog, a “stubborn positivity” in the face of constant gunfire and bloodshed. While other wild dogs in the area snarled and growled at the soldiers, Fred wagged his tail and accepted treats of beef jerky and happily approached the Marines. When another soldier took a bullet to the helmet, sustaining a traumatic brain injury, Fred came to his bedside every hour or so to snuggle.
When it was time to leave Afghanistan, Grossi couldn’t bear to leave Fred behind, so he smuggled the dog aboard a military flight and took him home.
Grossi said he was not looking to get another dog after Fred’s passing. But about six months after Fred’s death, Grossi and his wife, Nora Parkington, were asked to temporarily care for Bingo. The Cairn terrier had been living with an Amish farm family nearby but was rambunctious and often got loose on the state highway.
Grossi said he knew pretty quickly that Bingo was his dog. And he doesn’t believe it was all his idea.
“I just looked at Nora and said ‘He’s ours,'” Grossi said. “It was like Fred sent him to us.”
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Hear Craig Grossi talk his life with Fred and Bingo, on Tuesday at Maine Voices Live, 7 p.m., One Longfellow Square in Portland. Get tickets here.
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