Pet grief and loss

Here are far more words than I expect anyone to read about pet grief and loss, which floored me during the first few days of 2026. (Anyone who wished me ‘happy new year’ can consider that wish a total failure). 

We lost our beloved dog Talisker, a mainstay of small family life since 2016, leaving us a smaller and much poorer family. It helped me a little to write these words. My hope is it might help someone a little, even one person at some point in the future, to read some of them.

There’s an unspoken hierarchy when it comes to grief, and pet grief sits some way down the order. This can lead to embarrassment or stigma.

Any embarrassment or stigma, any feelings of being weird or wrong or disordered: they are empowered by investing strongly in what other people consider normal or ordered or coping. By caring what other people think.

Such feelings are also empowered by attaching to an idea that you are doing it wrong. That you, very specifically you, are weird and disordered. That we are not all different because we have led different lives, had different experiences, and developed different ways of living and being. That we are not all wrestling with and adapting to rapid technological change, and likely some level of screen addiction which has rewired how we think.

Ideas of wrongness or disorder can apply to grieving, as they can apply to many other things.

These are my views. Others are available. Even so, it might seem rational to view some grief and loss as more acceptable than other grief and loss. Factors can include the suddenness and shockingness of death. Although all death is, in its own way, sudden. A living being is alive, at least to some extent — in one moment there is a beating heart, and in the next moment there is not. There is also the factor that, however much death might be anticipated, we can never anticipate exactly how we will react. Our response can be shocking: I'm crying far too much, I haven't cried at all. That said, consider losing a family dog against losing your entire family in a house fire, a car crash or plane crash, a terrorist attack. The former of those seems a preferable loss, and grief responses to the latter would likely elicit broader and stronger sympathies. You might also consider losing a pregnancy versus losing a young child. Or the unexpected suicide or homicide of a young person, versus the death of an older person in their 80s after a long illness. Let's go further. The death of hamster when you’re 9, a rabbit when you’re 22, a horse when you’re 56, an uncle you memorably holidayed with as a child but had no adult connection with due to a family feud you don’t fully understand. The confusion and difficulty in processing grief and loss can be overwhelming.

We can have an external sense of these differences. But from inside the experiences, when there is close attachment to the deceased, such differences do not simply correspond to grief responses.

There is no mathematical formula.

There is no grief and loss hierarchy.

There is no right or wrong grief response.

Again, my views. Others are available. We processes grief according to our history and our experiences. How we handle grief today might not be the same as how we handled grief 20 years ago, or how we will 20 years in the future. There may be differences in demographics, between cultures, and across faiths. The Shame of Grieving

Variables may involve how safe we feel to grieve -- remember that rare sense of public permission to communally grieve for Queen Elizabeth II, and how other feelings of grief and loss were transferred in that moment. There may be a factor of how closely we feel the loss or absence -- a pet is a comforting day-to-day presence in a way a distant relation is not. Another factor may be our age and how close we feel to death, and another in what the expectations are of us in our day-today life: if we feel a need to appear like we are ‘coping’ for a child, to model some way of sensible processing, or for work, or for a partner, or if we instinctively cling to occupation or productivity as a way of avoiding pain. There's some sense in it. Shame can be a difficult complication involved in grief: a threatening idea of self pity, wallowing, or 'woe is me'. When ideas of 'strength,' stiff upper lip, and keeping calm and carrying on, are far more acceptable. Shaming of grief can also be a response of those who feel uncomfortable or guilty about the emotional pain of someone close to them. People are often made to feel bad because their behaviour is making someone else feel bad. Emotional responsibility can cycle, flip and pinball erratically. It's often the inescapable lot of parent-child relationships, from cradle to grave. There can also be a less interpersonal sense of shame. Instead, a somewhat rationalist guilt by comparison. I'm not the first person ever in the history of the world to have lost a pet, a parent, a spouse. It happens all the time, so I should be able to adjust and move on as well. They seemed to adjust ok, so I should too. If only it were that simple.

Pet Grief When our dog Talisker was put to sleep recently, the daily routines and rituals that were woven into the fabric of our family over the course of a decade were finished.

There was an almost unbearable sadness that was hard to avoid, even though it was not truly shocking as she'd been in decline for some time, her walks reducing in distance. Her arthritis was without any obvious pattern, sometimes appearing to restrict her, sometimes barely there. Endorphins provided by a dunk in the river appeared to entirely banish any dim notions of ageing. Her inner pup was never far from the surface. Pets can provide a dependable source of constant comfort that can’t be found in erratic, unpredictable and forever flawed humans. They can be seen as our personal mental health support workers, so their loss is shocking. I felt some comfort in RSPCA data indicating that 67% of pet owners are shocked by the intensity of their grief.

I like to consider myself fairly emotionally consistent and self aware. As a practising psychotherapist, you are trained to be aware of all your stuff and the need to be congruent in order to work effectively with clients. We learn the common human threads that people share. The trauma, insecurity, vulnerability, 'stuff' – whatever you want to call it, how it maps onto self image, how it impacts relationships.

But for all that, in this moment of grief and loss I wasn’t so sure of myself. How would I handle all the changes to routine, and the rolling waves of emotion over the coming period? It was destabilising and scary.

My parenting patience levels were strongly tested, my 7-year old child clearly processing things in her own very different way, still wanting to have fun, still wanting to play the Mary Poppins soundtrack and upbeat Christmas songs on the smart-speaker. But it felt like it strengthened my marriage. A sort of trauma-bond emerged as we supported each other through it. She of course had her own special one-to-one relationship with the dog, as I did. I wondered at how much harder the grief would feel if you had nobody else to lean on.

There can be an idea of anger in the grieving process at a perceived unfairness. And a related urge to find sense. I absolutely felt this. Talisker was only 9 and a half. Not at all an old dog, by dog standards.

Her brain and nose were still full of energy and curiosity. Her appetite for life and food and people was entirely undimmed. It was only her limbs that were letting her down, and the swelling growth of a bone cancer making a rear leg barely usable. She could and should have gone on for longer. I had met dogwalkers who said their Fox Red Labrador lived to 13 or 14. Why couldn’t ours? It wasn't fair. This piece of writing by playwright Tom Stoppard was shared online around the time of his own death, a few months ago:

There's something here about fully appreciating the present moment of natural life, and also the human process of letting go. Of allowing memories to rest, not continuing to dig and record and dig and record, which I am certainly guilty of.

Acceptance would be more helpful, but it feels hard to do when the loss is so raw. However comforting and wise the words might appear, day-to-day acceptance of vicious absence is much easier said than done. Grief Through Expression

I did what I often do, and Iooked to words and pictures. Often not especially well, but the act of creative expression is important to me and my personal processing. There’s something about expressing for the simple act of composition and expression which I find useful.

It shouldn’t necessarily matter whether the output is objectively good, if it reads well or sounds nice, if it’s successful, popular, well ‘liked’ or well received. (Though of course it does matter a bit. Ego is hard to entirely ignore). But you are expressing and there’s value alone in that.

Much like creative activities more readily associated with upbeat mood, such as singing, playing an instrument, whistling, or even humming, any present moment act of expressing an emotion can provide relief or affirmation. It can also offer focus and purpose, a gentle displacement.

The following poems were written in an attempt to express. My hope is that it might offer some support to people experiencing similar grief and feelings of sudden scary destabilisation.

In summary, my suggestion is to trust in time, in the passing of each day to reconfigure, to process, and integrate the experience. Have somewhere to direct your energy and pain: a framed photo, some flowers, a collar that can also offer comforts of both sound and smell. Allow yourself to continue talking to your pet if it helps. Give yourself kindness and permission to believe in the gradual regrowth of your control in adjusting to the painful new reality.

Allow, as ever, for hope. worst week the worst week

series of lasts

griefstricken peak

then all in the past

it hurts like hell

this ancient trail 

this quest back to well

everyone knows

this is attaching and loving 

then learning to let go spacedog

daily rituals and routines 

maintained nearly ten years woven in family fabric halted in tears

no first thing in the morning 

no last thing at night

programmed patterns and pulses

now just not right where once was purpose and duty 

abundance of joyful life now empty space, open wounds 

disarming windows of time indecision rife no gentle thud thud of wagging tail no click clacking claws on laminate floor

no splashing at water bowl

no scratching of ears no licking of holes

no glancing downstairs no doubting our roles no seeing you waiting and wagging no jangling collar giddy for walk

no zoomies or tummy tickles no towelling muddy belly scrubbing each leg and paw no quick muzzle wrestle before stepping back indoors

no wide-eyed request when opening fridge how how how

I want to trip over you now 

no bark warning of visitors no sigh or yawn or shake or moan

now a sudden void a freshly hollowed home  enduring friendship doesn't come easy

human to human more complex and tricky always locked in past and future rarely present

not so sticky but humans and dogs 

are partners old as time constant comfort companions

and you, sweet girl, were mine

no question of trust unspoken exchange give and take from each other

until the day

day feared from the first there is not another

was it worth it all?

resoundingly yes

which might make it hurt less

but grief is not rational

place trust in time and distraction

attend pictures and words

to comfort a fraction poo bags in pockets how to handle the hurting

pulsing waves i can't ride 

memories vibrate everywhere

without my dog beside sidewinding gutpunches

pawprints and hair

smells and silences

every room bare

poo bags in pockets change so stark and sad

such vicious absence

might drive me mad emotion blurs 

unmerry go round

remember smooth fur that pup bowling round

stupid notion of strong i had

of coping with grace

to maintain school gates face

to feel steady in body

less lurch and choke

access composure exude blunted bloke

rebirth and relapse utterly draining

mindless phone scroll to

football scores then next world war

no end of complaining

needling guilt for recent moans disturbed sleep and slow walks no way to atone hungry for nothing

want putting to sleep

hide from grim reap 

of blazing awake

hope pinned on time

updating applications of mind circuit broken time at desk

lost in work

glancing out window at grim grey jan

break-time muscle memory and around I span

to see you down there

curled up asleep

to pat your head and smooth your hair 

you perfect circuit-breaker

you giver of cheer you escape provider but you’re not here

unflinching finality 

back like a knife

plunging the dagger

ripping out another

ribbon of never again time tweaks time tweaks grief dims it down and up until a night you go to bed confused and ashamed

for today having less sorrow

which isn't to say

it won't resume tomorrow

no neat straight line or rules to follow

like you're still here still let you out the back

last thing at night

first thing in the morning

still speak to you often

like you’re just here

are you ok, lovely girl?

shall i clean your ear?

resist losing our language

different tones of voice

verbal shorthand we built our reunion rejoice

can’t freeze the daily flow

won't let our rhythms wilt

still cling to such comforts as dull jan weeks pass as dog hairs decrease and we keep off painful grass still so empty the glass

but maybe slowly dim sense of self regrowing

grief starting to uncurl

night night now Tali

you be a good girl