I found the following in my mother's files a couple of years after she
died.  It helped a lot at the time and I think whether our loss is human
or animal the hurt is the same.  Martha
 
"A message that brought the greatest comfort in my dark hours is called
"The Ship".  But though it has been quoted frequently, I should like to
repeat it.  It says:
 
"I am standing on the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails
to the morning breeze and starts for the blue lagoon.
 
She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until,
at length, she is only a ribbon of white cloud where the sea and the sky
come to mingle with each other.
 
Then someone at my side says, "There -- she is gone".  Gone where??  Gone
from my sight -- that is all.
 
Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when
someone at my side says "There -- she is gone" there are other voices --
glad to take up the shout 'There -- She comes.'"
 
Mary Pickford, "My Rendezvous With Life" pp. 36-37
[Posted in FML issue 2669]