DSPCA creates Ireland’s first pet memorial garden

Many pet lovers are made to feel guilty over mourning an animal. They are told that pets, unlike humans, are ultimately replaceable and it is wrong to expend the very human emotion of grief on an animal.

The Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA), with its new memorial garden, aims to provide a place for them to mourn and remember their animals. It is hoping, too, to open up a conversation about the grief pet owners often feel. The loss of a pet often meets the definition of unacknowledged, or disenfranchised, grief.

Situated at its complex in the Dublin Mountains, the garden used to be part of a golf course. It is designed by Tim Rourke, a garden landscaper, around a natural stream. Its central feature is a rainbow bridge – the symbol of a pet heaven where animals go after they die. A wooden pergola provides a place of contemplation.

At its entrance is a poem by Antoinette Fennell who has rescued dogs from the centre. “There is a bridge at rainbow’s end, a billion strands together bend, each heartstring once linked, friend to friend, no human hearts remain to bend.”

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Among those who attended its launch last Friday was Irish Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington with her French-cross dog Gus and the broadcaster Rick O’Shea. Both have adopted dogs from the DSPCA.

Dr Angela Hickey, who is also a qualified psychologist, said when she started out as a vet there was “no real understanding of the loss that was created when a pet dies”.

There is a greater understanding now and the garden gives “huge validation” to that grief. “The very location of this place with its beautiful, creative rainbow bridge is the salve to help us through the pain of the loss,” she said.

“Pets give us so many gifts through the lifetime. It does open us up spiritually. As we work through our grief, there is a great softening of the heart that can happen.”

Pet lovers will be able to sponsor trees, benches and tie pet tags to the rainbow bridge for a fee. The garden will also act as a fundraiser for the DSPCA. Already a number of people have purchased memorials. “In memory of our special friend Roisin and her beloved dog Lady Petal,” was one. A stone was dedicated to a dog called Bruce, “your favourite chair is empty now where you used to snooze and sleep”.

DSPCA chief executive Pat Watt said the garden was not a pet cemetery but a place of contemplation for those who had lost a pet and were mourning the loss.

“It is a grief that is not recognised. We are hoping by doing this that we are starting a conversation about it. We had a beautiful collie Bonnie and it took a long time to get over that grief,” he said. “The spirits of animals live on long after they die.”

The DSPCA Pet Memorial Garden is located at its Mount Venus Road, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin facility and is open to the public Tuesday to Sunday, 12 midday to 4pm.