We haven't yet dealt with pet death, but I imagine we'd say something similar to what we said about human death; something along these lines: "The pet's body was too broken to be able to work anymore, so it just stopped working and died." Then we answer follow-up questions honestly, but without elaborating too much. We have tried to avoid the words "sick" or "sleep" in discussions of death because I'm afraid my son will start worrying about dying if he falls asleep or gets a cold, so I choose my words carefully but give honest answers to the questions.

The death of a beloved pet can be devastating on a young child's psyche. My youngest daughter, Deven, was so distraught after the passing of her hamster (Wanda) that I found her in the backyard speaking in strange tongues and throwing rocks at the neighbor's houses. She begged to the heavens for her Wanda back. All I could think was "this is a very sensitive moment and I probably shouldn't talk her through it so she gains a full understanding of death." To this day she refuses to take in another helpless animal in fear of another heart break.

That is so sad, Tim. She must have really loved her pet. I hope she one day changes her mind and allows herself to love another pet.

I'm afraid we told a white lie, if there is such a thing, to our granddaughter when she was very young. One of our house cats wandered into the forest behind our house and never returned. On her next visit, when our granddaughter asked where the cat was, we told her it had gone to live with someone else. We didn't tell her the someone was a coyote.

David, I think in this case, your little white lie was justified.

Decades after my father explained to a tearful me that Powder Puff had died honorably in a fight, he let it slip that in fact, that my big fluffy yellow tomcat had been shot by a poacher who was using a spotlight to hunt raccoons. I mourned all over again.

When I was 3, my golden retriever, Mary, was "stolen" by our West Branch neighbor and sold to animal experiments at UI...it was "discovered" at a point that was too late to save her. I didn't care how they explained it to me, the only thing that mattered was that my dog was taken away and I didn't know why or what had happened to her. Yes though, always avoid any allusion to sleeping when explaining death to children.
Last week, when we suddenly had to euthanize our black lab mix, it was very hard to explain to my 8 year old. We said that she had been in pain and had died at the veterinarian's office without explaining in detail that he wouldn't really understand yet anyway. Then we talked about how she had been in pain and wasn't in pain now, and that we were relieved that she wasn't hurting. We talked about good memories of being with her, about how much she had loved him his for his whole life, we talked about the wonderful life she had with us after we rescued her (she had been dumped in Hills by her previous owner near the Vet's office there). We miss her SO much. The other animals in my house are confused and distressed about her sudden absence. But my son and I can both really, honestly agree that it is better for her to no longer be in pain rather than have continued on in terrible pain to spend more time with us. We wanted the best for her - that part is not as sad or hard to choose.

I just explained to my son that animals are just like people, they have accidents, they grow old, or they get sick and die. Knowing your child's personality should help you in the direction of how you should explain death.