Giving Yourself Grace After Losing a Dog
Here’s the weird thing about dogs—they are so much *themselves* that when they leave us, they take a part of *us* with them. If you’ve lost a dog before, then you probably get it. Losing one feels like losing oxygen for a moment.
A loss that hit me hard was my dog Daisy, my yellow lab. She was 12, with a love for table scraps, and a personal vendetta against squirrels, when I lost her suddenly. One day -just like that—she got sick out of nowhere and then she was gone. No fanfare. Just this big, gaping hole in a house suddenly too quiet.
And just when I thought my heart couldn’t take another crack, it did. Shadow, my black lab and my very first dog, passed a few years later at age 16. Shadow wasn’t just a dog; she was the foundation of my childhood. Saying goodbye to her was like closing the last page of a book I didn’t want to end.
If you’re here because you’ve said goodbye to a dog of your own, I just want to say one thing—it’s okay to be a mess. It’s okay to not have the words for it. And more than anything else, it’s okay to give yourself grace. Coping with the loss of a dog isn’t neat or predictable. But it’s also one of those heartbreaks that reminds you just how big their love was—and maybe still is.
I met Shadow when I was 11. She was nine months old, shy but watchful, sitting in the back of a shelter kennel while all the louder dogs barked and begged for attention. But her eyes? They were everything. She just *looked* at me, still and steady, like, “Oh, finally. There you are.”
From that moment, it wasn’t *me* rescuing *her*—it was mutual. We grew up together. Shadow was there for every awkward middle school phase, every heartbreak, every late-night cry over something that felt important till it didn’t anymore. Even when I moved around as an adult—new jobs, new homes, new seasons of life—she was always there. Constant. Unshakable.
Her and Daisy were the kind of dogs you don’t just remember, you *memorize*. The sound of their paws on the wood floor. The way Shado would steal Halloween candy or how Daisy would pick the exact worst moment to sit directly behind me while I'm cooking.
And when I said goodbye to them—after so many years of that quiet, unconditional love—I realized something heartbreaking and beautiful all at once. Dogs teach us how to love, but they also teach us how to grieve.
It's reminded me that the most joyful good things in life—like a goofy yellow lab who lived to make me smile—can be snatched away too soon. It taught me that loss doesn’t feel less painful just because you know you’ve been lucky.
Finding Grace in the Goodbye
Here’s what I’ve learned, for whatever it’s worth. There’s no right way to get through losing a dog. It’s messy, and personal, and it ebbs and flows. But if you’re in this right now or know someone who is, here’s what helped me, in case it helps you too.
Feel Everything (Like, *Everything*)
Expect to sob while scrolling through old photos. Or when you're watching an Instagram reel a year later. Expect to laugh at dumb memories, like the time they ate all the steak off the counter on Father's Day....sorry dad. Expect to feel totally fine—for five minutes—and then feel like a bulldozer hit you during a random Thursday staff meeting. It's all normal.
Find Your People
Talk about them. Tell stories. Like, all the stories. The good friends won’t care if you’ve already told them the one about the time your dog ran off into a neighbor's acreage and you got zapped by their electric fence—they’ll laugh like it’s the first time.
Save the Little Things
Keep their collar. Frame their paw print. Buy every goofy piece of cheesy “Rainbow Bridge” art Etsy has to offer if it makes you feel one ounce better. Cherish the pieces of them you can hold onto.
Honor Their Legacy
For me, looking at photos of Daisy and Shadow helps. For someone else, maybe it’s planting a tree in their memory, making a donation to a shelter, or just whispering their name when the stars are bright. Find what feels right to you.
Love, Loss, and Forever
The thing about dogs—and we all know this going in—is that their chapter in our lives is always, always too short. But if you’re lucky, they leave behind lessons, and joy, and love so big it follows you forever.
Shadow taught me about loyalty—about what it’s like to have someone by your side even when everything else feels uncertain. Daisy showed me how to live big and love often, even if it means leaving a trail of paw prints and fur-covered furniture in your wake.
I’ll miss them for the rest of my life. But I’ll never stop carrying them with me, in the quiet moments, in the loud ones, and every single time I see another wagging tail of a yellow or black lab.
Grieve the way you need to. Cry when you have to. Be gentle with yourself. And one day—maybe not soon, but eventually—you’ll look back at all those goodbye moments and realize they don’t hurt quite as much. They leave behind something softer, something sweeter.
And maybe that’s just love changing shape—but never, not for a second, disappearing.
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