Studying
relationships with animals in childhood illustrates cultural conceptions of
animals as well as those about children and childhood. Similarly, childhood
experiences related to animal death demonstrate associated
rituals, practices and conceptions. In this chapter, I scrutinize the memories
of animal death in childhood, based on data comprising narratives collected in
a nationwide writing collection on human–pet relations in Finland. The data
used includes the authors’ memories of animal death in childhood.
Theoretically, the study draws on recent studies about childhood and about
human–animal relations, with a relational viewpoint that emphasizes emotions
and embodiment.

The
study suggests that there are special meanings involved in relations with
animals in childhood, and these are epitomized in the experiences of animal
death. The memories analyzed illustrate the position of animals as friends and
family members already before pet keeping became a central part of home and
family. Animal companions have been lost and killed, buried and mourned, and
their death is frequently contextualized in the experiences of growing up. In
the childhood memories analyzed in this study, the human–animal boundary does
not appear clear-cut but instead, mourning the loss of an animal bears
similarities to mourning the death of a human. However, grief for a dead animal
has been culturally forbidden, which is seen in parents’ relative silence and
the challenges faced in communicating the grief between parents and children.

Keywords:
childhood, death, emotions, Finland, human–animal relations, memory, pets