Mourning Animals

Margo DeMello is an adjunct professor in the anthrozoology master’s program at Canisius College and the program director for Human-Animal Studies at the Animals and Society Institute.

“Our relationships with animals are haunted by death. It lingers in the liminal space of the soul in grief—in painful recognition when a beloved cat, rabbit, parrot, or dog passes; in the confused stricken anonymity of worldwide extinctions; and in the palpable suffering behind factory walls. In its lyrical marriage of personal experience and scholarship, Mourning Animals brings together the beauty, love, and exquisite poignancy of what it means to live with animal kin.”—G. A. Bradshaw, author of Elephants on the Edge and director of the Kerulos Center

• Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Discarded Property / Mary Shannon Johnstone Part 1. When Did We Start Caring about Animal Death? More than a Bag of Bones: A History of Animal Burials / Ivy D. Collier Mourning the Sacrifice: Behavior and Meaning behind Animal Burials / James Morris Horses, Mourning: Interspecies Embodiment, Belonging, and Bereavement in the Past and Present / Gala Argent The Issue of Animals’ Souls within the Anglican Debate in the Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries / Alma Massaro Hartsdale Pet Cemetery / Liza Wallis Margulies Part 2. Companion Animals: Those We Love All the World and a Little Bit More: Pet Cemetery Practices and Contemporary Relations between Humans and Their Companion Animals / Michał Piotr Pręgowski To All that Fly or Crawl: A Recent History of Mourning for Animals in Korea / Elmer Veldkamp Freeze-Drying Fido: The Uncanny Aesthetics of Modern Taxidermy / Christina M. Colvin Clutching at Straws: Dogs, Death, and Frozen Semen / Chrissie Wanner I Remember Everything: Children, Companion Animals, and a Relational Pedagogy of Remembrance / Joshua Russell On Cats and Contradictions: Mourning Animal Death in an English Community / Becky Tipper So Sorry for the Loss of Your Little Friend: Pets’ Grievability in Condolence Cards for Humans Mourning Animals / David Redmalm Claire: Last Days / Julia Schlosser Part 3. Memorials and the “Special” Treatment of the Dead Britain at War: Remembering and Forgetting the Animal Dead of the Second World War / Hilda Kean Now on Exhibit: Our Affection for, Remembrance of, and Tributes to Nonhuman Animals in Museums / Carolyn Merino Mullin Another Death / Emma Kisiel Part 4. Animals We Do Not Mourn In the Heart of Every Horse: Combating a History of Equine Exploitation and Slaughter through the Commemoration of an “Average” Thoroughbred Racehorse / Tamar V. S. McKee Creating Carnivores and Cannibals: Animal Feed and the Regulation of Grief / Keridiana Chez Mourning the Mundane: Memorializing Road-Killed Animals in North America / Linda Monahan The Unmourned / Linda Brant Part 5. Problems with Coping and Human Responsibility Beyond Coping: Active Mourning in the Animal Sheltering Community / Jessica Austin Mourning for Animals: A Companion Animal Veterinarian’s Perspective / Anne Fawcett You’re My Sanctuary: Grief, Vulnerability, and Unexpected Secondary Losses for Animal Advocates Mourning a Companion Animal / Nicole R. Pallotta Keeping Ghosts Close: Care and Grief at Sanctuaries / pattrice jones and Lori Gruen Grieving at a Distance / Teya Brooks Pribac Who Is It Acceptable to Grieve? / Jo-Anne McArthur Bibliography About the Contributors Index