Pet loss and the new resident.

Seventy-year-old Emma glared at the nursing home's resident Labrador retriever.

"Wouldn't you like to pet her, Emma?" the nurse's aide asked.

"No, I would not!" Emma growled and shuffled off to her room.

The aide stared after her thinking, "She sure is having a hard time adjusting."

Emma is having a hard time adjusting to the nursing home. What the staff and other residents don't know is that part of the reason is Emma's pet loss grief. Emma lost her best friend and confidant, Jackie the cat, when she moved into the nursing home.

The importance of the senior citizen's pet cannot be stressed enough. Pets provide constancy, companionship, comfort, and safety, write Dr. Alan Beck and Dr. Aaron Katcher, noted experts on pet/people relationships. For senior citizens, pets may be their only comfort in life. Dr. Leo Bustad, president of the Delta Society, reiterates the point: "For old people, too often in the family and especially outside the family, attention and love are not common commodities. Companion animals may be a significant part and, in some case(s), the only source of warmth, affection, love, and devotion for the elderly."

Because many senior citizens instinctively recognize that, they have pets and, as first-time nursing home residents they face the loss of their beloved animals.