Cat passed away; will the other get lonely?

 This is a question asked on social media which I'm going to answer here. I think the vast majority of cat owners would answer the question in the same way. When two cats live together and they are friendly with each other a bond is created (obviously). If one of those cat passes away the other cat will feel the effects of that. It depends of course on the depth of the bond and for how long they have been friends.

Cat friends. The loss of one may well cause grief in the other. Image: MikeB.

My strong indication, having researched the matter, is that domestic cats can grieve for the loss of their human caregiver or another cat. The subject of domestic cat emotions is work in progress but it's almost logical to presume that a cat will feel the effects of the loss of a friend.

Domestic cats do have emotions. The question is how complex are they? Grieving, or a form of grieving, can be experienced by a domestic cat I believe. We don't know for sure how cats feel in the grieving process.

I suspect that it is not the same as human grieving but similar. I sense that domestic cats get over the loss of a friend quicker than humans do. After all, domestic cats are much better at living in the present.

They live predominantly instinctively. They don't become nostalgic as humans do. They don't look to the future and question whether things will be better or worse. Those are my assessments. Living in the present is good for both humans and cats in terms of mental health.

Dr. Bruce Fogle, in his excellent book Complete Cat Care believes that domestic cats can feel grief. He says that he has no difficulty in describing the emotion that they domestic cat feels on the severing of an attachment as grief.

He says that "A cat's feeling of grief can be a combination of loss, frustration, worry, and bewilderment. Whatever the specific failings, a grieving cat can become withdrawn, or it may instead become over attached."

Like me, he says: "This may not be the same as grief in human terms, but it is still grief at a loss." Jackson Galaxy, the American cat behaviourist, would concur with this assessment, I am sure.

Is it shameful for a man to cry when his cat dies or is euthanized?

I have decided that the question in the title is based upon stereotyping men. At the end of the day it is a silly question because if a man has a close bond with the family cat he is likely to cry when the time comes to euthanise his cat or the cat has been killed in an accident or died of a serious disease. It is entirely natural to grieve the passing of a domestic cat companion who will be treated as a member of the family in a home where there is good caregiving.

Sodium pentobarbital. Does it cause pain in cats when euthanized? Image: Google Images.

About the image above, I have this to say: I am asking the question whether euthanising a cat with sodium pentobarbital is genuinely painless. When this drug is delivered to humans in 84% of cases their lungs fill up with a frothy liquid which causes pain and distress indeed panic because it is like waterboarding torture. How do cats feel when this drug is delivered to them? And can the syringe be positioned accurately enough to avoid causing pain? Please click on this link for more on this topic.

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So the question in the title is really born out of stereotyping the male of the human species. We expect women to cry when their cat dies but we might not expect it from men which I think is silly. And the fact of the matter is that a man who is a good cat caregiver is going to be sensitive enough to feel a huge amount of grief on that dreaded day when he has to say goodbye to a companion who has been loyal to him for 15-20 years.

RELATED: Jackson Galaxy provides advice on when to euthanize your cat.

The last caring act of a good cat guardian is to be present when he or she is euthanised in the consulting room of a veterinary clinic. It is a dreaded moment. There might have been a six month or more build up to that moment. There will be tension. There will be great difficulty in deciding when to euthanize. Therefore there will be mental torment.

It is absolutely normal to cry under those circumstances. In fact men should let themselves go because crying is healthy under the circumstances. I would be surprised if a man didn't. Perhaps if they didn't it would indicate that the bond between them was less than ideal.

Sometimes you never get over the loss of a cat companion. I haven't. It's been 27 years since I lost my cat that I loved dearly. She was killed on the road and that is my fault. And I think of her often. I can't talk about her without the emotions come back and the tears flowing.

Karen Baker on the Quora.com website puts it very nicely. She said that before she married her husband she knew that he had a very close bond with his Maine Coon cat, Ty. And when he married him Ty gradually accepted her. She was thankful for that. And sadly when the moment came through old age to say farewell at that final trip to the vet, it hurt her husband tremendously.

He seems to have been quite a quiet person. I will let Karen explain what happened:

About a week later, my husband was sitting at the kitchen table, coffee cup ignored as he stared off into the backyard. And I knew. I just knew what he was thinking.

Very softly I spoke to him. “I miss him too.”

My husband turned to face me, wiping the tears from his face.

There is nothing shameful for mourning a family member, a best friend, a loyal companion.

As I said, I think she writes about that very nicely.