On Grief and the Space a Dog Leaves Behind

To You, Who Is Grieving

One of my dogs died unexpectedly a year ago. It’s not that long ago and I still cry about her, but I can see how my journey with grief have evolved. I’m writing this to share my experience. I won’t go into the details of what happened, but I will tell you what I felt and what I did along the way.

Before anything else, I want to start with this: your grief and pain are real, and there is no comparison. Your life, your love, and your experiences are uniquely yours, and so is your pain. This means that not everyone can fully understand what you are going through. Some people won't understand the pain of losing a beloved pet, and that’s okay. They likely have their own pain that we might not understand. But there are also those who will understand the semblance of grief and loss you are experiencing.

To whoever is dealing with the pain of losing a beloved pet, I hope this makes you feel less alone.

The Immediate Aftermath: The First Days

The Uncanny Feeling of Loss

When my dog died, we didn’t get to bring her home with us. To our devastation, there were a few reasons that made it unwise to do so. We did get to see her body after the emergency vet informed us that she couldn’t make it.

As I saw her, it felt... uncanny. What I saw looked like her - it was her body - but I instinctively knew she was no longer there. I honestly couldn’t feel much in that moment. I could hear myself screaming and crying, but I couldn't connect with the feeling, a state I now think is called dissociation.

Over the next few days, my partner and I would cry whenever we saw traces of her. Sometimes, the dissociation would kick in when it all became too overwhelming.

I would cry when I prepared breakfast for my other dogs as I saw there was one less bowl to fill.

I would cry when I saw the bed she used to lie on.

I would cry whenever I noticed she wasn't there - which, at that point, felt like all the time.

I would cry whenever I thought of the future I imagined with her that we will never have.

My partner and I were the same. It felt like we took turns having breakdowns, so one of us could always be strong enough to care for the other.

The Fear of Forgetting

I was also terrified. I was terrified of forgetting her. For the first few days, I frantically backed up photos, something I had never thought about until it happened. I was scared I would lose my memories of her, and of all my dogs when their time comes. So I signed up for cloud storage and uploaded every photo there. At least if I lost my phone, I would still have them. We set up a photo slideshow of her to make sure we always remembered.

That said, even with our best efforts, some things would fade. One of them was her smell. Whenever we saw her bed, we would cry, and we would also smush our faces onto it because it still smelled like her. I knew the smell wouldn't last long, and I knew the memory of her smell would fade too. We frantically tried to collect whatever was left of her and remember it for as long as we can.

Finding a Path Through Grief

Taking Care of Our Bodies and Each Other

A lot of the things we did in those first few days were driven by logic - things we knew we should do to keep ourselves functional. We had no appetite, so we had to force ourselves to eat something. We took morning walks even when we didn't feel like it.

We talked to our friends, and I want to highlight how lucky I am to have such good friends in my life. A lot of them are people we came to know after getting our dogs (yes, having a dog really does expand your social circle). They are dog owners who love their dogs as much as we do ours.

One of them rushed over the night we lost our girl, just to be there while we cried. We called another friends who had lost their pets before, and we talked about her grief and ours. We received so many flowers from those who couldn’t be there physically.

Through this process, we also came to understand something else - those who have not yet lost someone important to them don't yet understand the true weight of that grief. This was me before I lost my girl. I was undoubtedly there in sadness when my friends lost their beloved family members. I had cried many times imagining the day I would lose mine. But whatever I felt then paled in comparison to when it actually happened. I finally got it.

To you who are in pain and feel profoundly alone, I hope you can find a little comfort in knowing this: the people who show up for you, even without the right words, are trying their best. Their presence is a language of its own, and I hope it reminds you that you are not walking this path entirely alone.

Changing Our World to Match Our Reality

Before this, I'd always felt there weren't enough hours in a day. We were busy. There were things to do, plans to be made, and hours to fill, always. But in the few weeks after we lost her, everything felt slow, like it was all in slow motion. It felt like there were hours in our days that were just filled with silence. I couldn’t remember what I used to do or what I was so busy with before it happened.

It's a wonder how such a small creature can fill so much space. You only realise it after looking at the emptiness that is left behind.

We started walking in the morning because we had to get out of the house. I found that things felt very unfamiliar. The beautiful morning sky that used to make me feel appreciative now felt hollow, and scenery that used to make me think, “Ah, this is nice,” now made me feel uneasy.

There was a feeling of incongruence.

Our world had significantly changed, so how come everything outside still looked the same? It’s like having motion sickness - a conflict between what our inner world is experiencing and what we see on the outside.

Something visible had to change to reflect what we were feeling. So we coped by making changes. We redid our front yard. We got a new car and put her name on the number plate. We put up an artwork of her on the wall. These were all things we had been planning to do but hadn't because ‘we were busy’.

Now, I’m not saying that you should buy a new car or do anything expensive. But I think making small changes helps us cope. Our inner reality changed, and we couldn't bear to see that the absence of our loved one didn't change a thing in the outside world.

Bringing Her Home

Her ashes came back to us after six weeks. We cried seeing that whatever was left of our beautiful girl was now smaller than the palm of our hand.

We chose a frame where we could put her ashes, place her photos, and display a paw stamp. A bit of her fur was also taken for us to keep. We had to put it all together ourselves, and we cried through the entire process. We placed her frame in our home office, so she is always visible to us. It helps with the fear of forgetting her.

Seeking Professional Help for the Trauma

The entire experience leading to my dog’s death was traumatic. We both blamed ourselves - the endless loop of "should have, could have, what ifs." We kept replaying the incident: when she started having a seizure, when her body went limp in my hands as I picked her up, the rushed car ride to the emergency vet, the moment we received the news that she was gone, and when we held her lifeless body.

We knew we needed help, and we eventually sought it out.

In the early days, I first sought help by contacting an animal communicator. I just wanted to know if my girl was okay and to tell her I was so sorry. That session helped me feel better and gave me a way to cope.

We know we had to deal with the trauma of the memory itself, so we eventually saw a psychologist to help us process it. There is still a lot more work to be done, but we are more functional over time.

Where I Am Now

Time helps, but I'll start by saying what everyone who has experienced grief knows: there is no timeline for grief. Others don't need to understand, and you don't need to justify your pain. It is there. People who know, know.

For us, time helps because life happens, and that gives us small distractions from the sadness. New memories are created, giving you something to ponder aside from the memory of loss. Time gave us the space to remember the silly times, the good times, the pure joy that was our girl, and not just the day we rushed to the emergency vet and lost her.

Over time, our crying reduced from every day to every other day, then every few weeks. And then sometimes it comes roaring back for multiple days of sadness. Sometimes there's a month where we feel almost normal.

I’m still sad I can’t see her, touch her, or smell her. I think I always will be. But now I can also see how lucky I was to have the chance to love her at all.

Grief doesn’t end - you just learn to live with it. I know I will feel it again and again as my lovely dogs eventually meet the end of their time here. But I also know now that while grief changes you, it doesn’t erase all the good things that came before it.

If you are grieving now, I hope you know that while the pain will be part of your journey, so will the love.