pet loss & grief
a love this big stays with you. resources for the days, weeks, months, and years after.
When Grief Begins Before the Loss: Anticipatory Grief
Not all grief comes after. For many pet parents, the grief begins long before the loss, in the waiting room after a difficult diagnosis, in the watching of a…
Talking to Your Children About Pet Loss
For many children, a dog is their first experience of death. How we handle it matters, both for the immediate grief and for how they learn to understand and…
Your Other Dogs Are Grieving Too
If you have other dogs in your home, they are experiencing something too. Dogs form deep social bonds with each other and with the humans around them. When a…
Coping: What Actually Helps
There is no shortcut through grief. But there are things that help.
Deuce’s Story
I was scared of the day I’d lose my good boy Deuce for over 16 years. For the final 4 years before we said goodbye, I battled severe anticipatory grief. I was…
Disenfranchised Grief: When the World Doesn't Recognize Your Loss
There is a term for what many pet parents experience after losing their dog: disenfranchised grief. It was coined by grief theorist Kenneth Doka to describe…
Grief Support & Resources
You do not have to grieve alone. These are real, vetted resources from organizations the Good Boy Foundation trusts.
Honoring Their Memory
One of the most consistent things the grief research tells us is that continuing bonds with those we have lost, rather than “moving on” from them, is…
Opening Your Heart Again
There is no right time to open your heart to a new dog. There is only your time.
Taking Care of Yourself
Grief is not just emotional. It lives in the body. Many people who are grieving a pet experience physical symptoms that are real and worth taking seriously:…
What Grief Actually Looks Like
Grief does not follow a schedule. It does not arrive in tidy stages that proceed in order and resolve cleanly. It arrives in waves, sometimes crashing,…
Knowing When to Reach Out For Support
For most people, the acute pain of pet loss softens over time. The waves come less frequently, and eventually, more days feel manageable than not. This is not…
Why This Loss Hurts the Way It Does
If you have ever felt that losing your dog was harder than losing a person, you are not alone, and you are not wrong to feel that way. Research supports what…