Research in Human-Animal Interaction
M. Geraldine Gage, Ralph Holcomb
Family Relations, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 103-105
A survey mailed to 1,650 mid-life couples resulted in a subsample of 242 couples whose pet had died during the 3 years prior to the survey. Among the subsample who reported pet loss, about half of wives and more than a quarter of husbands reported they were "quite" or "extremely" disturbed by the death of a family pet. For husbands, pet loss was rated about as stressful as the loss of a close friendship, for wives about as stressful as losing touch with their married children. There was consensus on the rating of the stressfulness of pet loss by fewer than half of the couples.