Sympathy Offered for a Special Kind of Grief : Counseling: Missy Will helps people who have lost their pets and find it hard to talk about--and cope with--their loss.

The dog, Zoya, was ill. Her owner, Tanya Walker, 65, was in distress.

Veterinarians had indicated that if Zoya did not recover and remained in pain, she might have to be euthanized.

“I love Zoya,” Walker said. “I’ve been so worried about this. I’ve had no one to talk to.”

But on this recent day, Walker had found Missy Will, a counselor who specializes in helping people deal with the loss of pets. The two sat in a pleasant, quiet room at the Huntington Beach Church of Religious Science. Zoya, her ears perked up in interest, sat between them.

With calm, gentle questions, Will asked about the dog. About whether Zoya might be suffering. About how Walker would feel if she knew Zoya were suffering needlessly.

Walker responded: “I can see that you care about Zoya--that you love animals too. And this has made me realize that I’ve been thinking about myself instead of Zoya.”

For Missy Will, 37, this is a career.

“People want to talk about the loss of a pet, but they don’t know how or where,” Will said. “Too often, people find they can’t talk about their grief for losing pets. They hear someone tell them, ‘Oh, it’s just a damn dog.’ ”

Will, who grew up in Newport Beach and graduated from Harbor High in 1972, has had a varied career: police officer, sales executive and now a pet-loss counselor.

There is a direct connection between being a police officer and a counselor, Will said.

“I was a police officer in Anaheim for four years,” she said. “I saw death. And I’m not afraid of death. I’ve been with people right before they made their transition” from life to death.

But one death in particular contributed to her decision to leave police work.

“It was the death of a baby,” she said. “I was the first officer at the scene. The husband was a military person who had gone on active duty and had come home. During the night, the baby cried in the crib, and he went over and hit the baby with a crowbar and killed it. And right after that, I was called to the scene. And there were no words. Just that silence. And I thought, ‘This isn’t for me. I can do a lot of things, but I don’t think this is one of them.’

“I was a police officer from 1974 to 1978, and at that time, there was no one for police officers to go to and talk about things like that baby’s death. I really think I would have stayed on the force if there had been someone I could have talked to. But back then, if you talked to anyone, you were 51-50, which is police talk for being crazy.”

Will said she thus knows, firsthand, the human need to talk about death and grief.

About eight years ago, Will joined the Church of Religious Science in Huntington Beach, and “was impressed at how members gave of themselves. And I decided I wanted to do something to help people, so I took four years of classes that led to becoming a licensed counselor in the church. Along the way, I started specializing in pet-loss counseling.

“I’ve always loved animals. And I just started working with people who have lost their pets. Those people go through the same grief process as people who’ve lost human relatives. There is no difference: Grief is grief. These people mourning their animals need to talk to someone.”

Will, who is married to a banker, Jim Will, and lives in Huntington Beach, said she charges $55 per counseling session. Sessions vary in length “to whatever it takes,” she said. She gets referrals from the Orange County Humane Society, the Church of Religious Science and word of mouth.

Often, when people first call her, they are distraught and in need of immediate counseling by telephone, she noted.

Tanya Walker, a retired teacher who lives in Long Beach, said that she was extremely upset when she called Will for help the first time.

“Missy is very direct and honest,” Walker said. “She asked me questions about Zoya and about what the veterinarians had to say. I felt much better after talking to her. She’s wonderful. She’s more than wonderful.”