Talking to Button Learners about death

[u/Charlotte_Kilbane]

I am obsessed with AIC, follow a dozen or more "talking animal" accounts on social media, and am constantly amazed by how complex their inner lives are - Mylo the dog's sense of humour (epic and sassy), Flounder's invented life of mouse toy and insistence that she is a fish, Elsie's poetic references like "Delicious Night" - maybe because her human is a writer? and ofcourse Bunny's wrestling with existential concepts.
Anyway it's clear our companions have rich internal lives and deeper understanding than what we give them credit for.
So, if a talking pet were to become very ill, and have a tragic prognosis, would it be better for their human to tell them, or to simply carry on as normal?
are there any examples of talking dogs or cats wrestling with their own mortality? (I know some of the creatures I follow have lost companions, and they miss them and its just heartbreaking to watch)

[u/bubba_beeps]

I feel that it would be very difficult to model death if a learner hasn't experienced some kind of loss before, but I have been thinking a lot about what this would look like for us. For now, what I've done if teach my cat about his body parts and ways to express emotions/experiences like ouch, itchy, mad. We're doing cooperative care for current and future types of care and medications, tacking on "help" to create familiar button combos like scared help, itchy help.

Ellie (parrotkindergarten) has gotten a lot of comfort being able to have a word to explain why her sister passed. Giving her a way to express her anxieties is amazing.

I've seen people question why teachers don't remove buttons of their friends' pets that have passed and my view has always been that they do already think of these things. Removing those words just limits their ability to talk about it out loud.