It's never easy to say goodbye to a beloved pet, and it's not any easier for a licensed professional counselor.

Tika was 14 when she died, and the fact that this grand old dog lived a long life did little to lessen the grief for Karen Litzinger. It was some consolation that Tika was happy, healthy and active until November.

Ms. Litzinger's professional specialty is career counseling, but in 1995 she received additional training to be a pet loss counselor. To cope with her own loss, Ms. Litzinger is following the advice she gives to grieving clients. She's creating a meaningful memorial to Tika that she hopes will help other animals and the people who love them.

Nearly four years ago, Ms. Litzinger went to the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society to adopt an adult dog.

"I thought maybe 5 to 7 years old. I walked around and around the shelter" and kept coming back to an unusual-looking dog that the paperwork said was an Australian cattle dog/Catahoula leopard dog mix. Ms. Litzinger walked on when she saw that Tika was 11 years old.

Shelter workers said Tika had been there for a month. Many people are unwilling to invest their love in an animal that will die in a few short years.

Sometimes you pick a pet. Other times the pet picks you.

"Tika was adorable. She was calm. She walked to the front of the cage and gave me a look that melted my heart and I started to cry," Ms. Litzinger said.

Tika settled right in at her new home in Swissvale. She was bright and so energetic, Ms. Litzinger thought Tika needed a "job."

They went to training classes at Animal Friends. Tika passed a test and became a certified therapy dog. They regularly visited a veterans facility and the Children's Institute until November when Tika started having "periodic collapses" that veterinarians could neither diagnose nor treat.

After each episode Tika was fine, but her appetite was declining. Earlier this month Ms. Litzinger "sensed this was the beginning of the last chapter." Worsening symptoms resulted in another vet visit.

"Without going into detail, I made the intensely difficult decision with a compassionate vet sharing alarming bloodwork," Ms. Litzinger said in an email announcing Tika's March 19 death to friends and her "Heal From Pet Loss Community" clients.

The final diagnosis still was not specific, but "I did not want to put Tika through invasive tests and hospital stays with almost no hope of helpful treatment and further questionable quality of life."

She tells clients it can be comforting to memorialize a pet by creating a photo album or collage or planting a flower or tree. She went for help to her friend, Carnegie artist and writer Bernadette E. Kazmarski.

Ms. Kazmarski has used Tika's image on a pet sympathy card. Tika's soft eyes gaze directly at the camera lens. "No other eyes will look at you in quite the same way again," says the card.

Ms. Litzinger asked if some of the proceeds from those cards could be used to help the two shelters that helped Tika.

"I am happy to do that," Ms. Kazmarski said.

For each box of six Tika sympathy cards, Ms. Kazmarski will contribute $1 to the WPHS and $1 to the Animal Friends Pet Therapy Program. Sympathy cards featuring the artist's cats also benefit the shelters.

Go to www.healfrompetloss.com or www.bernadette-k.com for further information.

Let pros do the washing and drying, with proceeds benefitting Going Home Greyhounds, at the Greenfield Grooming Salon, 4028 Beechwood Blvd., from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

At the "Spring Bathathon," the recommended donation for a bath and nail trim is $15 for greyhounds and $25 for other breeds. No small dogs, please, because some greyhounds are aggressive toward small dogs, especially if they are white and fluffy and look like the rabbits that hounds have been bred to chase and kill.

Going Home Greyhounds is a local group whose volunteers rescue racing greyhounds whose track careers are over. They've found new homes for 1,954 retired racers since 1995.