I lost a dog suddenly around a year ago. Came home to find her laid out in the back corner of the yard.

Like your cat, she showed no signs before, and luckily I wasn't around to see her death firsthand.

But, it was hard loss. Definitely close to losing a child, I would imagine. My wife and I just broke down and had a good cry the first night. We went through a quiet mourning period of a week or two, but afterwards we did like everyone else was suggesting: told stories, got out pictures, worked on scrap books (well, I helped the wife with that). And, we went to the pound and saved a mutt blue healer mix. That definitely helped.

Since then we've gone on to actually donating fairly heavily to the SPCA, and spending more time and taking more pictures of our "kids", the puppies.


-Jason