Our Accidental Impacts team sometimes receives comments or requests from individuals who have accidentally harmed or killed a pet or another animal. This is a serious and heartbreaking trauma that can lead to posttraumatic stress or moral injury. If you are in this situation, we encourage you to peruse the website for helpful information.
The mission of Accidental Impacts is to support those who have unintentionally harmed or killed another person. We recognize, however, that you may be feeling very distressed, sad, and guilty.
At this time, we invite those dealing with harm to a pet or another animal to provide comments on this page. Accidental Impacts volunteers will not respond to these comments (although we will remove anything inappropriate), but you can respond to each other. Please limit your comments about pets to this page.
We hope this is helpful, and we look forward to the time when we can expand our mission to more fully address this issue.
It has been 8 months since I killed my beautiful, loving dog by leaving her in my car in front of my house on a hot day. I am not over it at all. In fact, this week, new waves of grief and remorse, anger and traumatic memories have been rushing over me. For a while I had them under control, but not so lately. I have been through the excuses in my head a thousand times, (I very rarely took her in the car, she was such a good girl, always so quiet, so she did not make a… Read more »
It looks like you saying to yourself you did the best you could. You didn’t intentionally harm your pet. She knows how much you loved her. The act that resulted in her death is a few seconds but the love she knew from you is forever. The good and the love she got from you is greater than that one act. I don’t know any other way to understand it, it’s really hard and I too have guilt for my errors. But I know that my dog knew I loved her, and for the time she was on this earth… Read more »
It has now been 6 months since I killed my K9, who was also my working partner. It was accidental, but that did not take away how much she suffered nor how hard it has been for me to get over it. It is ultimately our responsibility to keep our pets safe, and though I thought I had ensured her safety, I was wrong. I am grief-stricken, mortified, and so angry at myself. It is my worst nightmare come true. I am at the bottom of a hole and a part of me does not believe that I deserve to… Read more »
Haley: I am touched and moved by your sharing of your story. Thank you. It helps me understand my own feelings, having killed my own beloved dog. The anguish and grief and trauma all washing over me and make it impossible to just mourn. I so feel for you. I am in the same sad fog. At times I am able to shut it out and get some joy out of life again. But then I question whether I deserve that joy, and all the feelings come rushing in. Please know that you are not alone. That there are folks… Read more »
One early Saturday morning, I had awoken early, to light our woodstove, prepare breakfast and enjoy a few minutes of tranquility. We had a small foyer connected to our kitchen which had a 3 inch drop between the foyer door and the kitchen door. I was always so careful about closing the door, checking no fingers or toes got caught. Our cat, Pepper had kittens a couple months prior. All but one had been placed into a new home and he must have, unbeknownst to me, got into the foyer. When I closed the door, I broke his neck. It… Read more »
Holy hell that is awful. I am so sorry. I can imagine how tramatic that must have been. It never really leavs us, just changes us. I hope you have found your own silver lining! Hope you are having a nice day!