Losing my pets... an occupational therapy perspective.

As an occupational therapy student I now have this constant awareness of occupation all around me and around each person that I encounter. I have an in-built understanding and awareness of environment-person-occupation and of which occupations constitute as self-care, leisure or productivity or even what activities are meaningful enough to a person to be considered as an occupation in the first place.

One of my most meaningful occupations in my life was being an owner to my two cats Suki and Amber. Unfortunately I have lost both of my cats this year. Suki passed away in May and Amber more recently in November. Occupational therapy has given me an awareness and understanding of why my cats meant so much to me, and why it has caused me much distress to have lost them.

Duncan (2011) discusses that occupational therapy is concerned with the key elements of both occupational performance and occupational identity. This can be explored as how a person identifies themselves, their roles and their relationships within their physical and social environment. From this I have realised that a big part of my occupational role was being a pet owner and this was also a huge part of my occupational identity. This dawned on me recently when Amber had passed away and the thoughts of meeting new people on placement...

"Hi my name is Vicky, I have a little cat called Amber, and she only has one eye as she was ran over... look how cute she is!" Oh...

Being a pet owner can be conceptualised as an occupation as it refers to groups of activities and tasks of daily life (Allen 2000). Allen (2000) & McNicholas et al (2005) explore that pet ownership can provide structure to daily routines and can contribute to the areas of self-care, leisure and productivity. Here is my illustrated version:

Routine, self-care, leisure and productivity.

My day would generally start promptly at 6:00am by being 'dive bombed' off the window ledge by this one, closely followed by a lot of purring down the ears, a lick to the face and if I was being really lazy, then a bite to my toes. I would then get up to feed her and get ready for work or uni. This is Amber by the way.

Amber would make sure I did my hair and make-up just right... and would make it as difficult as possible to undertake my self-care activities, especially by stealing my towel...and even my shoes!

Suki loved to get involved with my occupations of leisure and productivity, here she is 'helping' me to knit and wrapping presents.

They both loved to get involved in my uni work and made excellent study companions. I think Suki however, became quite jealous of the laptop taking up space on my lap. 

From this illustration it could be questioned if my occupation was a pet owner who looked after my cats or was I the pet and my cats were the ones looking after me... I think the latter somehow! 

You can see that within my daily routine as a 'pet' my cats were a huge part of my everyday life, and were involved in the majority of my daily occupations at home. I have referred to them above as companions and I do think of them as family members and this is also reflected by McNicholas et al (2005) that over 90% of pet owners within the study regarded their pet as a valued family member. It is also discussed further that 'companionship' may have an importance in fostering positive mental health on a daily basis. 

I can personally relate to this notion that my cats definitely had a positive impact upon my mental health and their little characters genuinely made me happy, laugh, smile and gave me a purpose. I would look forward to coming home after a long day to sit balancing both purring cats on my lap with a cup of tea to un-wind. To look after my cats by feeding them good food, spoiling them with treats, toys, grooming you name it was such a rewarding occupation for me to engage in as they gave so much back in terms of companionship and love. Nicholas et al (2005) discuss that people value the relationship and the contribution their pet makes to their quality of life, reflecting my opinion completely. Looking after their health was a huge part of this too as Amber had a terrible accident in 2013 resulting in losing her eye and fracturing her jaw. It took months of surgeries and tube feeding to nurse her back to health. This therefore did cause me some stress, lack of appetite & sleep and did have a negative impact upon my occupational performance at that time.

But of course I wouldn't have had it any other way! This is an important point though that as well as enhancing quality of life, pet ownership can be stressful at times and the death of a pet can cause extreme distress for owners (Allen 2000, McNicholas et al 2005). Although discussed by Nicholas et al (2005) that pets may be of particular value to older people and patients recovering from major illnesses, there is therefore a risk of a person becoming so attached and reliant on their pet for their quality of life, routines and social interaction that the loss of a pet could cause a reversed affect and the person could become stressed, anxious or socially isolated, having a negative impact upon their occupational performance and general health. From this it is evident just how powerful pet ownership is as an occupation and an experience that I have encountered twice in one year.

To conclude my discussion, it is important as occupational therapists to recognise pet ownership on the impact of occupational roles, routines and occupational identity as it could have a significant meaning within the life of an individual. Pet related occupational therapy interventions could therefore be effective in promoting independence and enabling occupation (McNicholas 2005). 

I hope that this blog post has given you an insight into my occupational identity and role as a cat owner, I really wanted to celebrate their little lives and how they made each part of every day special and unique for me and in turn definitely enhancing my occupational purr-formance. 

References:

Allen, J. M. (2000) 'The Experience of Pet Ownership as a Meaningful Occupation', Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67(4), pp. 271-278.

Duncan, A. S. (2011) Foundations for Practice in Occupational Therapy. 5^th edn. Edinburgh: Churchill livingstone Elsevier.    

McNicholas, J. Gilbey, A. Rennie, A. Ahmedzal, S. Dono, J. Ormerod, E. (2005) 'Pet Ownership and Human Health: A Brief Review of Evidence and Issues', British Medical Journal, 331(7527), pp. 1252-1254.