Introduction To understand the nature of families and the death of a pet, the relationship between the degree of attachment and the intensity of grief when the pet dies will be studied. “We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would have it no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.” The above quote from Townsend’s book, Separate Lifetimes, represents not only the ownership of a pet, but the experience of pet bereavement which all pet owners eventually must cope with. Pet ownership is a complex, uniquely formed relationship which is not easily answered by research. With a survey by Horn and Meer (1984) verifying that for many people, loving a pet is a powerful experience, but not identifying the exact reasons for this response, one can appreciate that there is not one specific reason that a person owns a pet. Having a pet is a unique experience to each owner. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, USA Today journalists Parker and Manning (2005) reported that pets had been a main feature of the stories of destruction that had been recounted. Distraught owners left their pets behind, while some refused to evacuate their homes without their cherished pets. According to Parker and Manning (2005) the animal rescue campaign had spread across New Orleans and