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Lost Companions: Reflections on the Death of Pets

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Lost Companions: Reflections on the Death of Pets

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Overview

A heartfelt exploration of human grief after the loss of a pet by the New York Times bestselling author of Dogs Never Lie About Love.

Over 84 million Americans—almost 3/4 of the US population—own a pet, and our society is still learning how to recognize and dignify that relationship with proper mourning rituals. We have only recently allowed the conversation of how to grieve for our non-human family members to come front and center.

Lost Companions fills a specific, important demand, a massive need in the market for an accessible, meaningful book on pet loss. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson takes a very personal, heartfelt approach to this difficult subject, allowing readers to explore their own responses and reactions, suggesting ways through and out of grief, as well as meaningful ways to memorialize our best friends.

Lost Companions is full of moving, thought-provoking and poignant stories about dogs, cats, horses, birds, wombats and other animals that beautifully illustrate the strong bond humans form with them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250202239
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/23/2020
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,138,008
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is among the most popular and admired writers on the emotional life of animals in the world. His books have sold over 2 million copies worldwide. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Dogs Never Lie About Love and When Elephants Weep, among many others, and lives with his family in Bondi Beach, Australia.

Hometown:

Auckland, New Zealand

Date of Birth:

March 28, 1941

Place of Birth:

Chicago, Illinois

Education:

B.A., Harvard, 1964; Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1978, Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard, 1970

Acknowledgments ix

Preface: My Encounter with the Angel of Death xiii

Introduction: Grieving for an Animal Is What Makes Us Human Animals 1

1 Are You and Your Dog One? 13

2 Their Only Fault: Dying Before We Are Ready 29

3 All Things Bright and Beautiful Must Have an End: Dying Dogs 45

4 Cats Know More About Death Than We Suspect 67

5 The Time of Death 81

6 Grieving the Wild Friend 97

7 Heartbreak: Children and the Death of Pets 143

8 Should We Eat Our Friends? 157

9 Dogs in the Rest of the World 167

10 Rage Against the Dying of the Light: The Psychology of Grieving for an Animal 181

11 I Will Not Get Another Dog or Cat, or Will I? 193

12 Healing Rituals That Memorialize Lost Animals 207

Conclusion: The Never-ending Grief of Saying Good-bye 237

Postscript 245

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

03/30/2020
Masson (The Secret World of Farm Animals) discusses people’s close relationships with their pets through the lens of mortality in this moving and intimate study. Now 79, he reflects on a lifetime of pets, including his current one, yellow Labrador Benjy, who at 13 is already a year beyond the breed’s average life expectancy, a realization Masson finds “unbearable.” He also elicits stories from friends, which are moving and occasionally heartbreaking, dealing with cats and dogs, as well as less traditional pets, including turkeys and wombats. “Grief is grief,” Masson writes, and though he’s decidedly “not a great fan of psychology,” he covers the stages of grief. Masson also tracks how humans’ relationships with animals have changed over time (a “coevolution,” he terms it) and suggests that dogs have “developed something unique in their ability to intuit our emotional states and to show empathy.” Anyone who’s found it difficult to deal with the fact that pets’ “lives are so much shorter” than humans’ will appreciate this compassionate work. (June)

Publishers Weekly

★ 05/01/2020
From Masson (What Animals Can Teach Us About the Origin of Good & Evil; Dogs Never Lie About Love) comes a heartfelt book about grieving for one's nonhuman family members. He affirms the need to mourn our pets as well as ways to help them in their final moments by offering stories that allow readers to explore their own responses and reactions to death and find ways to memorialize loved animals. After all, as the author says, "Grieving for an animal is what makes us human animals." VERDICT Highly recommended for all animal lovers who inevitably must deal with the death of their pets. [See Prepub Alert, 12/9/20.]

Library Journal

2020-03-29
The acclaimed author of numerous books about the emotional lives of animals now turns to the experience of losing a pet.
“I believe it is a deep and ancient longing, to bond with a member of a different species,” writes Masson near the beginning of this heart-rending foray into the challenge of “facing the death of…the animal you have come to love like any other member of the family.” Nothing brings home the depth of that relationship like death, upon which we “are confronted with mortality in general, writ large in these animals who have become family, but in some sense even more than family—maybe part of ourselves.” The author investigates the psychology of this loss through testimonies from their human companions as well as conversations with friends and veterinarians. Masson’s tone is sympathetic, for he is a firm believer in the sentience of animals and the dignity with which they should be treated in life and death. He argues that animals have a sense of impending death and that death could be as relevant to them as it is to us. Dogs, in particular, bring an unalloyed state of pure happiness when they are in our presence, an elemental love free of all the baggage that accompanies human relationships. In many ways, that is why their loss is so heartbreaking. Occasionally, Masson’s associations go too far—“losing [a pet] is very much like losing a child”—but readers can skip parts that seem over the edge. The author has many wise things to impart about a child’s grief—e.g., “it is important to recognize the genuineness of the emotions of the child, to honor them by taking them seriously.”
A touching, sensitive journey that will, like Masson’s previous books, find a wide audience.

Kirkus Reviews

"Losing a pet or other animal friend can be incredibly traumatic. This touching book is all about the bonds between humans and other species, and why we grieve their loss as much as we do." —Frans de Waal, New York Times bestselling author of Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves

"A thoughtful examination of a heartbreaking thing that happens to many of us, the death of a beloved pet, Lost Companions is a beautiful book about a largely ignored subject, and will help many people."—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Lives of Dogs

"When animals enter our lives and hearts, a difficult inevitability arises. None of us live forever, and because we often outlive our beloved pets, we will miss them terribly someday. It’s not a subject we like to talk about. Fortunately, Lost Companions does the talking for us, helping to prepare us, helping us to realize that grief is the flip side of all the delights they have given us and that we will always have." —Carl Safina, New York Times bestselling author of Beyond Words and Becoming Wild

"Highly recommended for all animal lovers who inevitably must deal with the death of their pets." —Library Journal (starred review)

"[A] moving and intimate study...Anyone who’s found it difficult to deal with the fact that pets’ 'lives are so much shorter' than humans’ will appreciate this compassionate work." —Publishers Weekly

"A touching, sensitive journey that will, like Masson’s previous books, find a wide audience." —Kirkus Reviews

“The work of an accomplished, learned, and great-hearted man, Lost Companions offers a balm to all who face the sorrow of parting with a beloved animal. Like other classics by Jeffrey Masson, it is filled with helpful wisdom, original insight, and the beautiful, charming style of a masterful writer.” —Matthew Scully, author of Dominion and former presidential speechwriter

"Many of us are devoted to the pets as well as the wild creatures that share the world with us. Their deaths can be wrenching, yet the culture we live in often trivializes our grief. With empathy and tenderness, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson writes of the innate dignity of other animals and the strength and beauty of our mutual bond — illuminating our right to love them, and mourn their leaving, as deeply as we want." —Lydia Millet, author of A Children's Bible

"This is not only an important book, it's a beautiful book —and absolutely essential reading for anyone who's ever loved and lost an animal companion. No other writer can shine a light into the very heart of the human-animal bond like Jeffrey Masson." —Gwen Cooper, New York Times bestselling author of Homer's Odyssey

From the Publisher

Lost Companions: Reflections on the Death of Pets

Lost Companions: Reflections on the Death of Pets

Hardcover

Hardcover

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Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

Customer Reviews

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

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Customer Reviews