I really need some advice and I'm struggling with how to handle a pretty unique situation that I need to face this afternoon.We have been dealing with a very sick 16 year old cat. Working with our vet we made a plan on how to make sure is last days are full of love and comfort and how to look for the signs to know it was time to compassionately put him down. He and his brother have been indoor/outdoor cats their whole lives, but the sick one hasn't been outside in weeks (although does have access to the cat door).On Tuesday morning the cat went missing. We spent hours on Tuesday looking for him. We live in the northeast and Tuesday night was bitterly cold. It is unusual, even when he was healthy, for him to spend more than a few hours outside. On Wednesday we looked again, and did not find him. We assumed the worse - that our cat had walked into the woods near our house to die.Our two year old daughter started asking questions yesterday about where he was. We did some research about how to talk about death of a pet and told her the following: "Our cat died, which means we won't see him any more. We can think about him and love him, but we can't see him any more. We are sad, but we love him." Obviously at 2 years old this is very hard to understand and she didn't seem upset or distraught, I think mostly she didn't understand, but she did say several times that she wanted to pet him and we told her that we won't see him any more.This morning on facebook my wife found a post on our local humane society's page. A very well intention person found him outside (very close to our house) and saw that he was sick and brought him to her vet. We will go pick him up this morning.I am very concerned and confused about how to explain this to my daughter. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2naJRsD
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