<p>My DS is off at his first year in college–one more week of classes and then his first ever college exams. We actually <jokingly> had this discussion while he was home over Thanksgiving because one of our dogs is rather old. He said he didn’t really know if he’d want to know immediately or wait until he was home. Well our other dog was hit by a car this week. Pretty badly hurt and we decided to put him to sleep. Do I tell my DS now? (Too much of a distraction from the end of his semester?) Wait til he’s home? (Will he feel left out?) One thought I’ve had is to tell him this weekend, when he might have some down time to process it. I count on all you wise/experienced CC souls in situations like this. Your thoughts?</jokingly></p>
<p>When our S was in 5th grade, he went on a one month student exchange program to Guadalajara, Mexico. One of our two dogs, the Basenji, was pretty long in the tooth at 15 plus years. So we made sure he knew she might not be there when he returned because she had been ailing, although nothing life threatening.</p>
<p>As it turned out, we did have to make the dog owner’s saddest decision and put her down. We did not tell him until after he came home. We stopped at Home Depot on the way home from the airport. In the parking lot, we told him what happened. We all had tears, my DH and I for the second time. After tissues and composing ourselves, we went inside to purchase a plant to place in her honor in the back yard.</p>
<p>I think my rule of thumb would be to wait until you think it’s a good time for your son to hear the news – but to wait no more than 2-3 weeks. For this incident, that puts it at the end of his finals. I think he might feel ‘left out’ if you’d needed to discuss if/when to take that final step for his pet – but in this particular situation, traumatic injury, you probably wouldn’t have discussed it much anyway. </p>
<p>As far as the other dog, you’ll have more time to consider your course of action. You’ll have more opportunities to pick an opportune moment to notify or discuss it with your son.</p>
<p>I am so sorry to hear about your dog. Your question is a tough one. During my son’s freshman year of college he had a paternal grandparent who was terminally ill. My son was warned in advance that his grandfather would probably not live much longer. Our son told us to tell him about the death of his grandfather one week later, and that he wanted to hear the news from me since he did not want to hear the pain his father’s voice. We felt uncomfortable because it would mean missing the funeral. As it turned out his grandfather died just a couple of days prior to some college break, so our son was able to be with his family.</p>
<p>Sorry about the dog, and I agree there’s no easy way to do this. When this happened to us we tried waiting until Christmas break. Our D didn’t think our decision showed much sensitivity.</p>
<p>You know your son best, so I think you should go with your gut feeling on this. Some kids might be more upset that they weren’t informed right away, while others won’t want to break down at school.
If there were many weeks left in the semester I might advise going to the school and telling your S in person but since the semester is almost over I think I’d wait till I picked my S up.
I know how hard this is, we lost our beloved cat suddenly and very unexpectedly and it was very hard on my kids. This was also at the tail end of a semester and while my D’s were originally upset that we waited to tell them, they both told us later that they would not have been able to concentrate on finals if they were thinking of poor Lou-Lou.</p>
<p>Sorry about your dog and I do understand your situation. To let him know and let him deal with adversity on his own will build strength and maturity.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear about the unexpected loss of your pet. That’s hard for everyone. I agree with two posts above. Dealing with loss is a life experience to be learned sooner or later so trying to protect your child from this event may not be the best choice. However, you know your son best, so my ultimate advice is to go with your gut.</p>
<p>Good luck with whatever you decide.</p>
<p>This happened to us last year (S was a senior). It went as bad as it could. There was no hiding it (and we wouldn’t have), because S knew dog was failing, and we couldn’t make the decision w/o telling him and D. So we did, except it was reading week before finals, and S was already struggling (other issues, not worth going into). His semester grades were ultimately not good, and he dropped out a month into the next semester. (after three very good years).</p>
<p>Of course, it wasn’t because of the dog’s loss itself, but I’m pretty sure that was the proverbial straw. Would I do it differently? No, because he would have been very angry at us for not being honest with him, and I think ultimately the academic issue would be the same, but we would have wounded our relationship with him.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for your loss and having to go through this now; it’s never easy.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you who have already sent kind words. My sister’s reaction was “he’s kind of an adult and has the right to know”. I also believe that even though it’s his first semester, he has made good friends at school. I’m still torn, though, as to which would possibly be the bigger mistake–telling him now and interfering with his focus (he got the big “time to buckle down” talk when I left him at the airport after Thanksgiving) or waiting until he’s home and having him feel hurt/left out?</p>
<p>I’m actually off to collect the body this morning (our town is too small to have a veterinary surgeon, so he’s at a practice about 1.5 hours away) and we will bury him in our yard this afternoon after my other kids get home from school. Is it absolutely the wrong idea to call him before/during/after that?</p>
<p>I think I’m leaning toward sometime tomorrow, after he’s done with classes.</p>
<p>I am sorry about your dog. I think since you know your son best and there is no right or wrong here, go with your gut. However, one thing that might persuade me to say to wait is that when you were discussing this over the break in a hypothetical way about your other dog, your son was ambivalent as to whether he would want to know immediately or wait. So, he already gave you a clue that he would not feel terrible if you waited and so you likely could wait two weeks and tell him after exams since he never indicated that he would definitely want to know right away. I don’t think he will be mad, in other words. Also, unlike the death of a relative (even though the death of a pet is very upsetting), there is no funeral to attend right away (and I would not hold off in telling that kind of news). I do think kids need to deal with this even if at inconvenient times but we do like to shield them. In your case, I could go either way. With a relative, I would not wait. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I have had to deal with this this semester with the unexpected death of my mother and having to call my kids up, first that she was in the hospital and then they arranged to rush in and then the day they were gonna rush in, I had to call them that she unexpectedly wasn’t going to make it and they had to come two times, that day, and again for the funeral, which was very difficult given their intense schedules (one of my kids also had just begun a grad program that is insanely intense 24/7). Making that call was one of the worst things I have had to do.</p>
<p>Since you have other children who will be involved in the burial, I think you have to tell him. Otherwise, one of his siblings will, possibly inadvertently, and then it’ll be worse. (You don’t want to have to swear them to silence too.) If they have Facebook pages, they may get messages on it which he’ll then see and wonder about. </p>
<p>It needs to come from you, and there now seem to be way too many people who know and avenues by which he can find out.</p>
<p>In your case, I’d tell him tonight and let him grieve with you and his siblings.</p>
<p>Now that I saw the post that the other siblings who are at home will know, I think it is only fair that your son at college knows too and that some know when he doesn’t. Also, it is unfair to swear them to secrecy and it may inadvertantly come out and he should hear it from you. Chedva has a good point about facebook too.</p>
<p>(I had cross posted with the OP)</p>
<p>I think it will be okay either way. I would have had the same thoughts as you… to possibly wait especially since he mentioned to you that he wasn’t sure he’d want to know before he got home.</p>
<p>So, I think it’s fine if you wait.</p>
<p>It’s also probably going to be fine if you tell him now - with the idea of doing it on a weekend a nice one, when he’ll have a bit of down time.</p>
<p>Here’s a different, but parallel experience. DS was at his “Katrina school” for fall semester in 2005 when Tulane announced that the aftermath of Katrina was going to include eliminating his major. Devastating news. This was on Day One of his first week of college final exams. I hoped he didn’t know and planned to tell him after exams. He found out right way through friends (what was I thinking that he wouldn’t?). It was certainly upsetting and distracting, but he handled it. So your son probably will too.</p>
<p>Sorry for your loss. Sending our dogs to Pet Heaven is always a sad time, with bittersweet memories.</p>
<p>We had to put our dog to sleep last December – about five days before daughter came home for winter break. It could not wait those five days as he was too ill and it would have been inhumane. I told her he was quite ill. When the decision was made I called her (during finals) and she got on the phone with he dog and cried her good-byes and then cried with her brothers on the phone. She asked us to call her when we left the vet so she could be with us on the phone. Then she found a friend who was an animal lover and they cried together. I think it helped us to be on he same grieving timeline as a family together in terms of the grief – especially so close to the holidays. I wanted them to be able to grieve and to be feeling a little bit better in time for the holidays. And I didn’t want her to walk into the house after finals and 12 hours of travel to discover the dog was gone.</p>
<p>I would tell him right away. This is stressing you all, there are no easy ways around it.
Life is the way it is, sheltering him may backfire.</p>
<p>I would say that you have to decide which would be better for your son. That’s really the only consideration (which isn’t true when it is a relative that has passed away). You know his personality the best–how likely is he to be distracted by news of this kind?</p>
<p>Tell him now. It’s a very sad thing, but life happens, even in college. Better to tell him now so he can start to grieve along with the rest of the family.</p>
<p>And absolutely don’t wait until classes are over! Think about it–at least when he still has classes, there’s still some structure that lets him be sad without shutting down. He’ll be around people and have things to take his mind off of it. Once classes are done and finals are in full swing, things are much more dependent on his concentration, which will be harder to maintain if he’s just gotten the bad news, and it takes much more of a concerted effort to get regular human contact during finals, since hanging out isn’t always conducive for studying.</p>
<p>My family’s dog died very suddenly a few weeks ago–he’d been sick, but the latest word from the vet was that it was totally treatable and he’d likely be with us for years to come. And then he died. Had my mom known I had two papers and two midterms in the next two days, she probably would have been tempted not to tell me right away, but she really has no idea what my workload looks like. So she called, and I sobbed for a while, and then I got back to work. It’s what you do. Worse things will happen at worse times than this, and you won’t always be able to control when he gets the news.</p>
<p>You also may need to steel yourself for the possibility that he’ll say, “Oh. That’s too bad.” And then change the subject.</p>
<p>I agree with Chedva and Kelowna. As hard as it is to tell your son now, isn’t it better to grieve together at the same time as a family? Also, my own children communicate with each other and with their cousins on a daily basis via Facebook. If your son inadvertently learned the news in such a casual way, it might be hurtful.</p>