Helping Pet Owners Heal

 Through empathy, storytelling, and presence, veterinarian Staci Goussev guides families through the most painful part of loving an animal: saying goodbye.

While on an emergency shift at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston when veterinarian Staci Goussev, just two months into her internship, was interrupted by the loudspeaker alert, “triage to lobby.” She sprinted down the hallway, through the double doors.

There she saw a young woman struggling under the weight of a German Shepherd in the midst of a seizure.  The dog—Luca—was in critical condition, likely suffering from heatstroke and neurological complications Judging by the grey in his muzzle, Staci determined the shepherd was older. “He wouldn’t walk,” the owner announced. 

As Staci and the ICU team hoisted him up onto a gurney and raced him to ICU to try to stabilize him, Luca’s owner explained that she had adopted the dog after surviving a traumatic assault; he had been her guardian and source of safety.

What the pet owner didn’t know was that Staci was carrying her own grief. Just a year earlier, Staci’s fiancé, G, had suffered a catastrophic brain injury and never regained consciousness. In the wake of that loss, Staci abandoned the couple’s shared plans and moved to chart a new life on her own. She headed off from Ithaca, NY, where she recently graduated with Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine to Boston, hoping a city full of strangers, grueling internship and exhaustion would keep her heartache at bay.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” the pet owner asked.

Staci suppressed the flashback to the final weeks of her fiancées’ life, returning to Luca and his owner. She needed to steel herself to share a tough recommendation:  humane euthanasia to relieve Luca’s suffering “I’m so sorry,” she remembers telling the pet owner, tears welling in her eyes.  “This is the hardest thing to go through.” 

The pet owner reached for Staci’s hand and asked if Staci can stay with Luca after his euthanasia. She honored that request throughout the early morning until 7:30 when the shift ended and she took Luca to the morgue.

This encounter—and many like it—underscores the central theme of Staci’s work and mission: how to help pet owners (and veterinarians) carry grief, how to witness it in others, and how our love for animals becomes intertwined with our deepest human experiences.

Today, Staci,  who specializes in small animal internal medicine, practices trauma-informed and grief-informed at Sunstone Veterinary Specialists in Portland, OR.

Helping Pet Owners Love their Pets To and Through Death

In her Substack blog and forthcoming book, It Always Feels Too Soon, Staci explores these intimate intersections of loss, love, and healing—both as a veterinarian and as someone who has lived through profound personal sorrow. Her writing, shaped by her professional expertise and personal journey, offers a compassionate guide for those navigating the hardest goodbyes.

“I know that the worst day of your life as a pet owner is the day you must say goodbye to your pet,” she says.

“Unfortunately for most pets (unless you own a tortoise), their lifespan is relatively short compared to humans,” says Staci. One of my mentors, Sharon Center, a Cornell veterinarian, used to say to owners: ‘That day you bring home a puppy is one of the happiest, but you will likely outlive that puppy and one day be saying goodbye to it.’ When you have a pet with a chronic illness, that lifespan may be even shorter. “  Because of this she has guided thousands of clients through their pet’s disease process, and eventually, very difficult end of life decisions.

A Risky Business: Guiding the Goodbye

“Veterinarians are trained to save animals,” she says. “We’re taught clinical protocols and emergency procedures—but we’re not really taught how to talk to someone when saving their pet isn’t possible. The unspoken rule is to compartmentalize, to move quickly to the next case, the next patient you can help.”

And while that mindset might protect vets in the short term, it also puts vets at a high risk of compassion fatigue, a sustained stress that takes a toll on a caregiver's mind and body — and their heart.

It can morph into many forms: But research suggests veterinarian suicide rates are some of the highest in the medical field. A 2014 study of about 10,000 veterinarians found twice as much "severe psychological distress" in them than in the general public. One 1 in 6 veterinary school graduates say they have considered suicide.

That’s where narrative medicine in veterinary practice comes in.

“We are kind of like the original narrative medicine practitioners because our patients can’t talk,” says Staci. “We have to use stories, the stories of their owners, or the pet sitters or grandma they are living with, to hear the clues about what is going on with the pet.  How are they eating and drinking?  Has their stool changed?  Are they easy to medicate?  Has the pet had any visible changes? “

Veterinary medicine is all about listening, observing and “developing a trusted relationship with the pet and pet owner,” she says. “It is also full of moments of brief, intense intersections of love, loss, and meaning. And yet, we’re rarely given space to process them. “

From her own losses, her fiancée and the death of her father when she was only 24, Staci says she has learned to “not sugarcoat what the end of life looks like. “

“Seeing what my father went through and the suffering through his cancer, then losing him, taught me a lot about end of life and grief,” says Staci.

For Staci, storytelling—on the page and in the exam room—is an act of survival. “It reminds me that the weight we carry as vets is real and worthy of tending to.”

And that reflection came not just from clients, but also from personal experience.

"Every loss is different,” she says. “And every relationship deserves to be honored—even when all we can do is bear witness to it.”

A San Francisco native, Staci graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology from the University of California Berkeley. She is recognized as an expert in her field, and has lectured at numerous veterinary conferences and veterinary medical association meetings. In addition to authoring many scholarly and peer-reviewed journal articles, she has also been interviewed as a veterinary expert by television media and veterinary specialty magazines regarding pet health matters.

Adopting, Advocating for Pets

Staci is the first to admit, she’s got a soft spot in her heart and adopts homeless senior dogs.

When one of her former San Francisco vet techs became seriously ill and died, it was Staci who came to the rescue. She drove from Portland to California to pick up her two new loves: Syd, a 90-lb. Huskey and Suki,  a 20-lb. Shar-Pei. The duo were readily accepted by her five-pound Chihuahua, Bruce.

“When someone has to put their pet down, it is a very sad moment of course,” says Staci. “I try to help them celebrate the pet. I’ll ask them why they ended up picking the dog and tell me stories about their special pet. It is a good way to end a life and to celebrate it. “

Narrative Mindworks Questionnaire

Who are your favorite writers?
For nonfiction, Melissa Febos, Susan Orlean and Joan Didion. For fiction I adore a good mystery so probably Tana French, Anne Cleeves and Agatha Christie.

What's next on your bucket list?
Travel to Australia and New Zealand. The landscapes look gorgeous and the people seem laidback and fun.