Rituals for Pet Loss
A Virtual Workshop for Healing Through Pet Loss
This workshop creates a community of understanding where pet loss experiences can be shared, normalized, and honoured ~ a crucial element in healing.
Sunday, August 10th | 10am – 12pm PT
The Role of Ritual in our Healing Journey
Through inspiring real-life stories, practical ritual templates, and compassionate guidance, you’ll leave this workshop with concrete ideas for honoring your pet and caring for yourself through the grief journey.
Why is this needed?
A workshop on rituals for pet loss is needed because many people experience profound grief when a beloved pet dies, yet society often underestimates or overlooks this type of loss.
Pet loss is a form of disenfranchised grief—grief that isn’t always acknowledged or supported. This workshop will help validate your feelings and creates a space where your grief will feel seen and heard. Rituals offer a structured way to process grief. They help people express emotions, mark the significance of the loss, and begin healing.
Who is this for?
This supportive virtual gathering is designed for pet owners anticipating the difficult end-of-life journey with an aging or ill companion animal, as well as those who have recently experienced the loss of a beloved pet.
It’s also appropriate for people still processing grief from a previous pet loss, and anyone who wants to understand how rituals can help process grief and honour the human-animal bond. We welcome other veterinary professionals seeking to better support clients through pet loss.
What to expect?
In this intimate 2-hour workshop, you will be guided by a humanist celebrant and a veterinarian with expertise in compassionate euthanasia.
Together, we will explore three phases surrounding the death of a pet: Before Loss, exploring rituals to honour your pet’s life while they are still with you, During Transition, creating a sacred, peaceful environment for euthanasia or natural passing, and After Death, sharing meaningful ways to commemorate your pet’s life and legacy.
Your Hosts
This workshop is co-created by humanist celebrant & end-of-life doula Megan Sheldon and xx Dr. Jenn Roedig. Together, we have have thoughtfully designed this workshop gathering to introduce you to the world of ritual and ceremony and help you integrate these rituals into your pet loss journey.
Megan Sheldon
Megan is a Cultural Mythologist, Humanist Celebrant and End-of-Life Doula who designs rituals and ceremonies surrounding the invisible moments of change. She is also grieving the loss of her dog Kona in November 2024.
Dr. Jenn Roedig
Dr. Jenn is a veterinarian, pet aging and end of life coach, and pet loss bereavement specialist who's passionate about supporting and guiding people through aging and end of life with their pets.
What You'll Experience
Through inspiring real-life stories, practical ritual templates, and compassionate guidance, you’ll leave this workshop with concrete ideas for honoring your pet and caring for yourself through the grief journey.
Ritual & Grief
We begin with an opening ritual then share how this work has taken shape over the years. We will offer an introduction to ritual and ceremony design, with stories to bring these teachings to life. We will create space for small group sharing and large group connection. While the workshop will be recorded, we ask that you try to join live with video turned on.
Investment
To make our teachings accessible, we’re offering a sliding scale approach for our 2-hour workshop on May 31st. Select the best option for you in the application form (and see FAQs for more information):
- $40 Supported by Community
- $50 Standard Tuition
- $60 Supporting Community
Apply to Join Us
FAQs
Our workshop combines evidence-based grief support practices with the transformative power of ritual to help you:
- Feel empowered rather than helpless in the face of pet loss
- Create personalized rituals that reflect your unique relationship with your pet
- Connect with others who understand the depth of pet loss grief
- Transform pain into meaningful commemoration
- Discover ways to keep your pet’s memory alive in your daily life
To get a sense of who Megan and Jenn are, you can watch our previously offered gathering in 2024. We were joined by Pet Loss Doula Lauren Seeley as well.
You can also read Megan’s pet loss ceremony story about her dog Kona.
The workshop takes place on Sunday, Aug 10th from 10am – 12pm PT (1pm – 3pm ET). We will offer a mix of teaching, sharing and connecting as a community. There will be a portion of the workshop dedicated to slide-based learning, exploring the basic concepts of ritual design, synthesizing these learnings as a community, and developing rituals based on the questions and requests from the group. While the workshop is recorded, we strongly encourage you to join live if possible.
In order to make this workshop more accessible, we’re offering a sliding scale model where you can pick the tuition price point that feels best to you. Here are some guidelines to consider:
Supported by Community $40: You would like to request some support because you are facing financial instability or have faced systemic oppression or injustices.
Standard Tuition $50: You can pay the regular amount requested and are in a financially stable place, but cannot support someone else at this time.
Supporting Community $60: You are in stronger financial position and would like to support someone else with a subsidized request.
We want to offer those living in Canada the option to pay the same rate but in Canadian dollars. If you would like to request this, please include it in your application form.
Payments are non-refundable as you will have access to the recorded workshop if you miss it live. Prices are in USD but can be paid in CAD by Canadian residents if paid via email transfer. Please email megan@beceremonial.com to arrange Canadian payment.
