George Callander wants to help grieving animal owners come to terms with the death of their beloved pets. He tells Steve Pratt about raising the profile of pet bereavement counselling and starting a support group in the North-East.

GEORGE CALLANDER was a third year student nurse when his mother phoned to tell him their two poodles had died within a few days of each other. “I remember being so desolate that I let out a cry in the nurses’ home that echoed all round the corridor. People came out and said they thought I’d been electrocuted or cut myself to the bone,” he remembers.

“They said, ‘what’s wrong?’ and I said, ‘my dogs are dead’. That’s when I got, ‘is that all?’.

And I vowed I would never say, ‘is that all?’.”

Some might say he’s gone to the other extreme – he’s now a pet bereavement counsellor.

And, as an ordained minister, he also conducts animal funerals.

After moving from London to the North- East, he plans to establish a support group for bereaved animal owners and expand the British Association of Pet Bereavement Counsellors that he’s set up.

Working as a bereavement counsellor developed from his time as a nurse when he helped bereaved parents and relatives, as well as training doctors and nurses to help. That led him to set up his own bereavement service.

“I’m a devoted cat lover and have had pets most of my life, but am aware that people, when their pets die, don’t feel able to talk about it because they feel people will think they’re silly or simply don’t know who to talk to,” he says, sitting in the counselling room at his home in Ushaw Moor, near Durham.

“Five years ago, I branched out to work with bereaved pet owners. It gives people confidence to know they’re not alone and are talking to somebody who really understands what it’s like to have lost a pet.”

The association aims to be a focal point for counsellors specialising in pet bereavement, as well as vets and veterinary nurses. “What I’m trying to do is raise awareness of pet bereavement, to make owners understand there’s somewhere they can turn to and people who understand,” he says.

The support group in Durham will be a pilot project which, if successful, will be introduced across the country. He sees it as social gathering – conversation therapy he calls it – for pet owners who’ve lost animals recently or in the past. “I know people who still grieve for their dog 20 years after they had to have it put to sleep and have never been able to talk about it,” says Callander.

“People can come together and know that everyone there has been in a similar boat. Despite being a professional counsellor, I fully acknowledge that not everyone needs formal counselling. I want to establish something where people could come and chat about their animals, have a cup of coffee, get to know each other.

“I’d be there and if people wanted to talk things through on a fairly simple basis I’d be able to give them some support. If they wanted something more long term, I’d be able to point them that way also.”

He wants to raise the profile of pet bereavement, pointing out that with a growing number of pet crematoria – there are two in the area where he lives – the demand for support is growing. “As a minister, I’ve conducted a number of pet funerals – it’s a very important area,”

he says. “I freely acknowledge as a counsellor and as a minister, and as a nurse and a pet owner, how important pets are to us. You’ve got to appreciate that for some people, particularly the elderly, their cat, dog, budgie or whatever, is the only other living thing they have regular contact with. So, the sense of loss when that animal dies is overwhelming. It can be just as real and as powerful as if a spouse or family member died.”

HE recalls conducting a funeral for a family whose ageing Alsatian had to be put to sleep. “Only after he was gone did they realise there was a hole in their family they’d never be able to fill no matter what animal they had,” he explains. “So we buried him in the garden, it was a lovely ceremony and I should stress I don’t use the same form of service as for humans. There are some animal readings, prayers of thanksgiving for the animal’s life, the place they had in the family, and so on.

“In the Alsatian’s case, they wrapped him in his favourite duvet and buried him in the garden.

Each member of the family placed one of his favourite things in the grave. He had his feeding bowl, his rubber bone, his leash and they actually found it was a way of s y m b o l i c a l l y casting off their grief.”

He’s also buried a goldfish (“for a small child who was desolate and her father said would I do a little something”) and guinea pigs.

“I feel I should take my special expertise and reach out to these people.

I think they soon realise I really do understand and their grief is just as valid as if their Auntie Ada had died.”

He acknowledges that some people seem more upset by the death of an animal than a person. Working as an accident and emergency nurse, he became used to seeing horrific injuries. “People with legs hanging off and so forth, it was part of my job, but if I saw an injured dog in the street I would go to pieces.”

He’s often asked if he finds it miserable dealing with bereaved people all the time. “Human bereavement and pet bereavement are very difficult, very sad, very complex. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than when somebody says to me afterwards ‘I wouldn’t have got through this difficult time without you and all you’ve done’,” he says.

Anyone interested in joining the support group can call George on 0845-4672201 or email admin@eshwood.org