Managing Pet Owners’ Guilt and Grief in Veterinary Euthanasia Encounters

Abstract

Through examining the emotion-laden encounters between veterinarians and bereaved pet owners, this study focuses attention on a group of medical professionals who manage the emotions of their clients in light of opposing contextual goals. While negotiating possible outcomes for animal patients, veterinary emotion work is designed to assuage guilt and grief to facilitate timely and rational decisions. However, after clients make the difficult decision to euthanize their pet, veterinary emotion work is geared toward creating “safe” emotional space for grieving clients. This study illustrates that veterinarians have a growing commitment to comforting the owners of euthanized animals and to validating their feelings of grief, pain, and sorrow. On a broader, theoretical level, this study also applies and extends concepts developed in previous sociological analyses of emotion management and human–animal relationships.