Interfaith spiritual care and resources for people who love animals
Pet Chaplain® is an educational and community service organization dedicated to raising public awareness about the spiritual quality of the human-animal bond and the unique challenges of losing an animal. Through the creation of engaging educational resources, we’re striving to address the spiritual needs of pet keepers, expand the availability of spiritual support for pet loss, and spark discussion about the evolving relationship between people, animals, and the planet.
The Pet Chaplain Learning Series
An extraordinary journey of learning, healing, and self-discovery for people who love animals
4
books
Coming in 2025!
The Pet Chaplain Learning Series is a flexible, self-guided education program that offers an in-depth exploration of the experience of loving and losing an animal companion. You’ll discover why we’re so in love with our pets, the complex reasons that losing a pet hurts so much, and how the love we continue to feel for our lost companions can be a positive, transformational force in our lives.
The series includes rigorous academic research into the latest understandings of the human-animal bond and bereavement combined with intimate stories of pet keeping and loss that bring this research down to earth. We call this educational approach “healing through learning.” The series also includes thought-provoking questions for self-reflection and discussion that make the series a great fit for book study groups.
Finally, the series offers instruction in the art of interfaith spiritual care for people who are grieving the loss of an animal companion. Most pet keepers struggle to find sympathetic listeners when they lose their pet, and it’s even harder to find people who are prepared to address the spiritual questions and concerns that inevitably arise with the death of a loved one, whether human or animal. We hope to empower anyone with an interest in helping others discover creative ways to serve the animal lovers in their communities.
Heart Animals
Sacred Stories About the Animals Who Changed Our Lives
“Just an Animal”
Reflections on the Human-Animal Bond and Western Culture
Always in My Heart
Coping Creatively with the Loss of a Special Pet
Veterinary Chaplaincy
A Practical Guide to Interfaith Spiritual Care for Pet Loss
The Pet Chaplain Learning Series will launch in 2025. Let us know if you’d like to receive an email when the books are available for purchase.
Celebrating two decades of community service
Pet Chaplain is 20 years old this year!
Rob Gierka, EdD, founded the Pet Chaplain community service organization in 2004. Since then, Rob has provided support to pet keepers in his community on a voluntary basis. He’s facilitated a pet loss support group; served for nearly two years as the on-call chaplain at a large veterinary teaching hospital; and earned a doctoral degree in adult education with a research focus on the human-animal bond and pet loss. In 2018 Rob developed and taught an online course, the Introduction to Pet Chaplaincy, in partnership with his life partner Karen Elizabeth Duke. In 2023 Rob and Karen decided to discontinue the course so they could focus their time and energy on publishing the Pet Chaplain Learning Series. The series represents the culmination of a long journey of community service and scholarship, and it seems fitting that we’ll be releasing the series just a year beyond our 20th anniversary.
Are you grieving for a pet?
Join us online for the SPCA pet loss support group
Are you grieving for the loss or imminent loss of a pet? Do you need someone to talk to about it? Someone who understands? Someone who mourns for their pet, too?
The SPCA pet loss support group may help. The group provides a safe space for people grieving the loss of companion animals to share their stories and support each other. It has been meeting monthly since 2006 and is facilitated by Rob Gierka, founder and president of Pet Chaplain.
The group meets via Zoom on the third Sunday of every month. Attendance is free and open to the public.
