Losing a pet can be a very upsetting ordeal for anyone. They become part of your family. You don’t just see them as an animal living in your home. You know their personalities, their needs and their wants. It’s like looking after a child, although animals cannot tell you what they want or need.

In my family, a house is not a home without a dog running about and causing chaos. We lost our chocolate Labrador Henry in July of 2013. The silence in the house became deafening and although it would seem easy to some to ‘just get another dog’, it doesn’t work like that. You grieve for the loss of a pet as you would do a human.

Derek Swannick, 72, a volunteer at the Blue Cross said: “There’s never a right or wrong time to bring another pet into your home. But that pet has to be wanted and it cannot be treat as a replacement. For those who are not animal lovers, this may not seem an important issue. Animals have feelings and they’ll know if they’re not wanted in a home.”

It took my family a long time to come to terms with losing Henry but we started to become more comfortable with the idea of owning another pet after looking at animal rescue sites. Adopting a pet was a lot different to rearing a dog from being a puppy so we did not feel as much guilt when we adopted our black Labrador Baxter.

Bringing up a puppy and moulding it into your family life and seeing it through its lifespan is a rewarding experience in itself. Adopting an animal in need is a different kind of rewarding. According to the animal rescue organisation ASPCA, there’s approximately 7.6 million companion animals entering animal shelters each year.

If you’re thinking about adopting a pet, why not receive from advice from animal professionals and learn about the rewards of rescuing an animal in need.