It’s Not “Just a Dog”

How dismissing pet grief harms people — and why we need to talk about it

Pets are wonderful. They offer companionship, routine, joy, and a kind of uncomplicated love that humans rarely get to experience. But the hardest truth about loving an animal is that their lives are painfully short. If you’re lucky, a dog might make it to fifteen. Most don’t. And just like with human loss, we don’t talk nearly enough about the grief that follows.

Research shows that the grief people experience after losing a pet can mirror the grief of losing a child. It makes sense: animals, like children, give unconditional love. Losing them severs a profound emotional bond. The difference, of course, is that losing a pet doesn’t alter the trajectory of your entire life in the way losing a child does — but the emotional pain is still real, still valid, and still heavy.

Grief takes many forms and is deeply personal. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that grief isn’t something you can outsmart. You can delay it, distract yourself, bury it under work or caretaking, but it waits. Sometimes for years. Sometimes until the moment your life finally slows down enough for it to catch up.

Why am I writing about this now?
Because this week, I learned that my dog, Rocco, has cancer in his ear. There’s no cure, no treatment that would give him a meaningful future. So we’re shifting to comfort care — making his days as good as they can be until they’re no longer good for him. And with that decision comes anticipatory grief, the kind that creeps in before the loss even arrives.

Rocco isn’t “just a dog” to me. He has been my grief partner for almost six years. He was there when I shattered after losing my first husband — 37 years old — to the COVID‑19 pandemic. That loss was traumatic enough to leave me with PTSD, and now I’m discovering a trigger I didn’t know existed: the realization that Rocco’s time is limited.

What makes it harder is that he still acts young. He still wants to play. He still follows me from room to room like a shadow. If he wakes up and doesn’t see me, he screams — truly screams — in that uniquely dramatic French Bulldog way. He is a clown, a companion, a comfort. When he was a puppy, he’d steal anything from the closet — hangers, socks, shirts — just to get us to chase him, tripping over his own feet as he ran.

I share these details because grief for a pet is not small. It is not trivial. It is not something to brush off. When someone says their pet is dying or has died, they are not okay, even if they insist they are. Losing a pet can shake a person’s mental health in ways that deserve compassion, not minimization.

Having lost a spouse, I can say that what I’m feeling now isn’t the same intensity — but Rocco is still here. Anticipatory grief is normal; panic attacks are not. There is no shame in needing support. Only you know what your body is telling you. Only you can compare your experiences and understand what feels overwhelming.

And please, don’t let anyone talk you out of seeking help because they think you “shouldn’t be this upset.” People will fill in that blank however they want — it’s just a dog, it’s just a cat, it’s just a… — but they don’t get to decide what your heart holds.

Grief is grief. Love is love. And losing a companion who has walked with you through your darkest years is no small thing.

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