[memyselfI]

Honesty is the best way to go. They will cry but it's ok for them to do. It's ok for them to see you cry as well. It's a sad event but one they will experience over the course of their lifetimes.

Your beloved dog will provide the gift of being the first time they encounter death and grief. How you handle this news will set the tone for how they see death and grief in their lives. Your dog, in it's death, gave you an opportunity to have her legacy touch their lives for the rest of their lives. It's devastatingly hard and sad but it need not be hidden.

Let them be part of the process.

If you saw Marley and Me then you saw their family have a small ceremony and the kids drew pictures and wrote letters to their dog and then they buried the ashes. We did this with our cat and it really helped everyone deal with the death part. The missing them part is what has been hard.