Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA
02-13-07
Pet chaplain
By JEFF REINITZ, Courier Staff Writer
CEDAR FALLS --- When it is time for a four-legged friend to go to that great
backyard in the sky, Janice Ephraim is there to offer comfort.
Ephraim, of Cedar Falls, has been consoling grieving pet owners for the past two
years as an ordained pet chaplain.
Through her ministry, Sha-lom Pet Services, Ephraim offers free funerals to mark
the passing of furry family friends as well as free counseling for the two-legged
survivors.
"There are many people who go into serious depression over the loss of a pet or
want to memorialize their beloved pet with some sort of funeral service," said
Ephraim, who works as a John Deere tour guide by day.
Also popular are annual "life parties" where the owners celebrate their passed-on
dogs, cats or other animal friends on their birthdays or dates of death by
releasing balloons.
"It's a closure for them. Just think of it as a person," she said.
Her services include helping owners who are faced with the decision about
euthanization.
She talks them through the decision, but doesn't offer medical advice or tell them
what to do. In the end the final call is theirs.
Another complicated part of her job is answering the inevitable question at the
crossroads of religion and pet ownership.
Do animals go to heaven?
"I have a real difficult time answering that because I'd like to think that heaven
wouldn't be heaven without pets. That's kind of the way I answer it. And
sometimes I tell them that God will have new animals for us to enjoy in heaven,"
she said.
Ephraim became curious about services for grieving pet owners a few years ago
after both of her neighbors had cats that died.
The neighbors were single women and took the losses hard, Ephraim said. The
cats were like their children.
After some Internet searching, she found information about pet chaplains and
asked her own vet if it would be wise to take a correspondence course to
become ordained.
"He said he would have laughed 10 years ago, but this has become a serious
matter in this culture," she said.
Indeed it has. Since 1994, the pet business has gone from a $17 billion-a-year
industry to a $36 billion industry, according to the American Pet Products
Manufacturers Association.
After finishing the course work, she took her vows and was ordained through
Chaplain of the Pets Interfaith Ministry in California.
She is the only chaplain ordained in Iowa through Chaplain of the Pets Interfaith -- the organization has about 50 chaplains in the United States and Canada --but there are other outfits that offer similar courses.
Ephraim's ministry is registered with the Iowa State University's College of
Veterinary Medicine in Ames, which offers advanced treatment for animals.
She gets referrals through the college and has her business card tacked to
bulletin boards of some local vet offices.
Ephraim is in the process of writing a book about dealing with the loss of a pet
and is also exploring the possibility of setting up a support group for people
whose pets have died.
She can be reached at 266-6205 or through e-mail at janvan@cfu.net.
Iowa State University offers a Pet Loss Support Hotline at (888) 478-7574 or on
the Internet at www.vetmed.iastate.edu/animal_owners/petloss/default.asp.