In Latin America, we just go get a new one, where do you think the attachment to pets has its roots in North America and why do you think it is so embedded in the culture to "mourn" a pet when you can just go get one looks exactly like it, does the same things as the old one?

Yes! Here are the things I like to suggest people do when mourning their pets:

1. Post about your pet's death on social media. Some people are hesitant to do this because the feel embarrassed by the grief they feel over their pet or don't want to appear needy, but those I have talked to who have done this have said it has really helped. After posting, friends who are fellow pet people will notice and can reach out and send words of comfort and it's nice to know there are a lot of people you know who have been through this too, who understand. It makes you feel less alone.
2. Figure out some tangible way to hold onto your pet. There are a lot of talented artists (you can find many on Etsy) who will paint a pet portrait, who will make a pet memorial bead mixing some of your pet's ashes into glass, who will make a stuffed animal "clone" of your pet.... these things may seem silly, but having a physical thing to touch and hold when you feel sad helps a lot of people. I hung up my dogs' collars on a nail by the door, which makes me feel like their spirits are still in my apartment.
3. Make a scrapbook of photos of your pet. Print out photos and frame them and keep them around your home. Your pet was part of your life. Don't feel you have to just forget about them now that they're no longer alive. I still have lots of framed photos of my childhood dogs, Gus and Gwen, around my home even though they've been dead for years!
4. Don't necessarily rush into getting another pet. Some people say it helps them immediately to have a new friend in the house, but also a few people I've interviewed have said they wish they had waited a bit before getting another pet because they felt they were constantly comparing the new animal to the old. A nice thing to do can be to volunteer at an animal shelter or offer to dog/cat sit or dog walk for people. Then you can get a bit of an animal fix while still giving yourself space to mourn your pet.
5. Take as much time as you need. It is okay to feel sad and to feel sad for a really long time. I still miss Gwen, and she died in 2013. It's okay to feel sad. Don't rush yourself into feeling better.
6. Reach out for professional help if you are feeling really lost. There are actually a lot of therapists out there now who specialize in pet loss support. (I interviewed a wonderful therapist named Jennifer Breslow who is based in NYC and does art therapy and pet loss support groups.) There are also other pet loss support groups out there which can be a really nice way to find other people who get how you are feeling, and even pet loss hotlines you can call for comfort.

Sometimes certain burial/mourning traditions go along with the type of animal. For example, there are often specific responses to the death of a race horse, and that is in part because of the animal's size -- for example, a tradition with race horses is to only bury their head, hooves, and heart and cremate the rest. But in terms of the grief people feel in response to their animal's death, it doesn't matter if it is a bird or a dog or a horse -- it all depends on that person's relationship with the animal. Some people who maybe, say, have a cat and a hamster might feel more sadness over the cat's death because they had the animal longer, but that isn't always the case. People I spoke with who had tarantulas mourned them just as deeply as people who had dogs. Grief is grief.

Did you learn any commonly recurring or especially useful coping mechanisms people employed during their journeys of grief?

Does the type of pet (say, a dog or cat versus a goldfish or hamster) have any correlation to the response people have to its death?

I love that idea! That sounds beautiful. I'm personally thinking about one day preserving the shell of my red-foot tortoise, Terrence, though joke's on me he is probably going to outlive me.

I personally love a foot and tail print I got for one of my beardies - it preserves the details of the scales so beautifully.

Yes! I currently have and have had several pets myself that are not cats and dogs, so this topic was of special interest to me and I tried hard to cover as big of a range of types of pets as I could in the book. I found all kinds of pets buried in pet cemeteries -- birds, reptiles, small rodents, chickens, raccoons, squirrels, etc. People also had portraits made of non-dogs-and-cats, and tattoos and even have had skeletons and parts of their pets preserved as well. In short, anything people do to memorialize cats and dogs I found people have also done with other types of animals!

Did you come across a lot of rituals for pets besides cats & dogs? When my beardies passed away I found a lot of people didn't understand mourning animals besides cats and dogs

Of course! That's Seymour! He is approximately three years old, a rescue from Florida via the Animal Rescue League of Boston. He is named after Seymour in Futurama (episode "Jurassic Bark"). My dad gave us a DNA kit for Christmas 2020 and it seems Seymour is mostly blue nose AmStaff, a couple other types of pit bull, chihuahua, and then a bunch of other terriers: Schnauzer, Rat Terrier, Jack Russell, etc. He is very sweet and loves people and like 80% of other dogs.

Thanks for the replies. Just noticed the blue staffy in your pic. Can you tell us all about them? 😍

I love this! This is so special. Yes, definitely, I found often people who paid to bury their animals in pet cemeteries would have funerals. One Jewish couple I interviewed opted to sit shiva for their Yorkie when he passed. My own family had a ceremony when we scattered my dog Gus's ashes by a lighthouse where he liked to go fishing with my dad. Also a lot of police officers and military folks have in depth burial rituals/ceremonies for their K9 partners/dog colleagues.

In terms of things evolving over time, I noticed that in even just the past five years people seem much more open about talking about their feelings about their pets dying and sharing their emotions. I think social media has helped with that a lot -- it's pretty common now for people to be open about posting about being sad about their pet dying and using Twitter/Insta/FB/etc. as a way to connect with other pet people who understand that loss or people who also knew and loved their pet. I also think similarly as we become more open talking about our feelings about pets dying we then also normalize having traditions/rituals around those pets' deaths. A lot more people now I think are down to have a memorial service or viewing hours for their pet, when I feel like even 10-15 years ago people may have WANTED to do that but felt weird about it.

Like I said above, I tried really hard not to let myself thing "wtf" about anything because I wanted to be open to any and all pet death rituals. My feeling very strongly is that everyone needs to do what is right for them and as long as they're not hurting themselves or anyone else, it's an okay way to grieve. But some of the more unusual ones for sure besides cloning (see my other reply for more on that) were probably the taxidermy/preservation options, like preserving a pet's ear or tail so you can still pet their fur when you miss them, or having the whole skeleton preserved and reassembled. One woman I interviewed had her Boston Terrier taxidermied in full and keeps in him a glass case like a side table next to her couch.

My stepdad was a funeral director and had a full on burial service for his favorite hunting dog at the gun club he went to, have you come across something similar?

I think I was most surprised by people's motivation to clone their dead pets! When researching/talking to people I tried really hard not to let my own assumptions or judgment cloud my perception of what they were sharing, though I have to admit that I went into the cloning interviews with some skepticism -- why would you want to pay all this money to try to duplicate your animal when it's not even actually the same animal? I assumed people were unable to let go of their dead pet and just trying to pretend the animal never died. But after talking to people who worked at various cloning companies and interviewing one gentleman who had his dog cloned, I learned that often people do it because they aren't trying to copy & paste the same animal they had before but want to continue the lineage. For example, they wish they could breed their cat with distinctive markings but had them spayed/neutered before they realized they wanted to. Or, like the man I interviewed about his dogs, he said he really loves knowing that his two clones are related to his previous dog, like they are her twin sisters and that it makes it special to have them for that reason. I loved hearing that.

Do you use any fetal cells in your work?

Unfortunately, Ebola never went away. It is endemic in wild animal populations and often spills over into human populations in contact with those animals.

If it continues to be under-diagnosed and insufficiently isolated, there will always be an opportunity for it to spread to other areas of the world. However, at this point, it seems quite unlikely.

What are some of the most “wtf” rituals/processes that you discovered?

Were you also able to observe any rituals/process evolve over time among curtain cultures or societies?

So I’ve always been interested in how vaccines and treatments are made for virulent diseases. I kinda have a few questions in one: what are the protocols for human clinical trials when treating a disease like ebola? Is it similar to less severe viruses, or is there more involved (given how dangerous ebola is)?

What was the most surprising thing you learned as part of this?

What are things we should be doing in the US to help?

Do you believe that misinformation is the main reason controlling this in Africa is so difficult? Or is it because of cultural behaviors? Or both?

Ebola is back?? How did this happen and will it affect more developed countries?

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There are two approved vaccines for Ebola Zaire, although availability is limited to those who work with it and those areas that are most affected. There is also a deficit in willingness to get vaccinated, as with many new vaccines.

There are several vaccines for Ebola Sudan in pre-clinical phases of development that are being fast-tracked in response to the current outbreaks. These are likely to be approved for emergency or compassionate use in the coming months, although general approval may be years away.

There are many factors that may influence a vaccine's availability, namely in resource-limited areas. Cost is just one of them. Developing effective disease treatment requires funding as well as support through technological and scientific resources that can be limited by your geographic area, infrastructure, and more.