If you’ve been crying a river of tears over the death of your favorite animal, Diane Pomerance can relate.

Pomerance, a certified grief recovery specialist, lost a close relative to lung cancer and a dear friend to AIDS. Even harder, though, was when she lost Caesar, an Alaskan Malamute dog.

“I really was grieving and I didn’t know it,” she said.

After Caesar died, Pomerance said, “I lost it.”

She was short-fused and anxious, and she couldn’t sleep well. She said she had all of the classic symptoms of grief.

She was crying almost constantly, and then she started doing some research and learned about the Grief Recovery Institute in Los Angeles.

She attended the school, where she became a certified grief recovery specialist after learning how to identify and express more than 40 kinds of grief.

Pomerance and the SPCA of Texas host a pet grief counseling group the third Saturday of every month at the SPCA of Texas’s Phoebe Sherwood Perry Animal Care Center in McKinney.

Pomerance said she started noticing that many people are in denial about grief and try to keep a “stiff upper lip” about both the loss of human beings and the loss of pets.

Then Pomerance became especially interested in helping people be able to identify and express their grief about their deceased pets. She said that’s partly because she just wasn’t seeing others reach out to grieving pet owners.

These days Pomerance runs the Pet Grief Counseling Program.

“We offer this (program) because the death of a pet can stir the same difficulty of emotions” that the death of a human being can, said Maura Davies, media relations specialist for the SPCA of Texas.

The SPCA of Texas, which has existed since 1938, is a Dallas-based non-profit group dedicated to the welfare of animals and people programs. It began the Pet Grief Counseling Program in 2001 in Dallas to help grieving pet owners. Then in March 2003 the group started offering pet grief counseling in McKinney as well.

Pomerance and other trained volunteers offer one-on-one and group guidance in a supportive environment, as well as offer telephone counseling.

Grieving pet owners can call a hotline at 888-ANIMALS, ext. 172. The SPCA of Texas’s volunteers try to respond within 24 hours.

Also, Pomerance recommends that people in grief read The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James, founder of the Grief Recovery Institute.

Although participants at pet grief counseling group meetings talk about losing various animals, dogs and cats are the most commonly grieved over, Davies said.

Pet owners sometimes spend all day with their pets, watching DVDs, traveling with them and much more.

“So, the loss is huge,” Pomerance said.

Pomerance, who has 11 dogs, recently lost Maximus, an adopted dog.

“He was 131 pounds of pure love,” she said.

A previous owner locked the dog in a shed for a few years, and then Pomerance took care of him for two years.

Pet grief recovery participants vary in age, with the youngest being four or five years old. Sometimes entire families attend. Also, Pomerance sees every walk of life, from dentists to lawyers to teachers. Every kind of profession and socio-economic background one can think of is represented at the meetings, she said.

Most participants also are extremely intelligent and compassionate, Pomerance said.

Asked if participants make repeat visits, Pomerance said, “Ohmigod, yes.” In fact, some come back for years, missing only a couple of sessions. Others attend only once.

Pet owners’ relationships with their pets vary in intensity, so their needs vary. For some, a dog or cat is the one constant source of unconditional love, Pomerance said.

Pet grief recovery meetings differ in terms of what Pomerance says to help people. However, she said that “it’s intuitive” and that she tries to help the people who need the most help. Some pet owners arrive sobbing.

“One of the first things I will say is, ‘No, you are not alone,’” Pomerance said.

She said she’ll tell pet owners that it is normal to cry, for experiencing the loss of a pet creates a huge void.

Also, she said, there is no time limit on grieving, and she reminds pet owners that, while they might feel a void and grieve, they also should be grateful and try to celebrate their having experienced unconditional love from their pets.

One of her dogs, Tobias, is a rescue dog who has a crushed pelvis and suffers from terminal bone cancer.

“We celebrate the times we have together,” she said.

Asked how participants react after they’ve gone to the Pet Grief Counseling Program, Pomerance said, “They’re so grateful and relieved.”

She said that after a session, “it’s as though a huge load has been lifted off their shoulders.”

Keeping busy can be one way that people experience denial of grief, Pomerance said. However, if one doesn’t address grief, it will manifest itself in other ways. And the longer one waits, the bigger the explosion, she said.

Expressing grief in a compassionate place where people have expressed similar losses can be very therapeutic, Pomerance said.

“To be with compassionate, sensitive people is such a privilege,” she said.