Experiences of Pet Death in Childhood Memories

Studying relationships with animals in childhood illustrates cultural conceptions of animals as well as those about children and childhood. Similarly, childhood experiences related to animal death demonstrate associated rituals, practices and conceptions. In this chapter, I scrutinize the memories of animal death in childhood, based on data comprising narratives collected in a nationwide writing collection on human–pet relations in Finland. The data used includes the authors’ memories of animal death in childhood. Theoretically, the study draws on recent studies about childhood and about human–animal relations, with a relational viewpoint that emphasizes emotions and embodiment.

The study suggests that there are special meanings involved in relations with animals in childhood, and these are epitomized in the experiences of animal death. The memories analyzed illustrate the position of animals as friends and family members already before pet keeping became a central part of home and family. Animal companions have been lost and killed, buried and mourned, and their death is frequently contextualized in the experiences of growing up. In the childhood memories analyzed in this study, the human–animal boundary does not appear clear-cut but instead, mourning the loss of an animal bears similarities to mourning the death of a human. However, grief for a dead animal has been culturally forbidden, which is seen in parents’ relative silence and the challenges faced in communicating the grief between parents and children.

Keywords: childhood, death, emotions, Finland, human–animal relations, memory, pets