She Wasn't Supposed to Be Mine: Experiencing Pet Loss Grief

I didn't want a dog.

I want to be really clear about that, because the story of how she changed my life only makes sense if you understand where it started. I wasn't ready. I had good reasons, or at least they felt good at the time. And then she arrived, the way important things often do: uninvited and completely inevitable.

She trained for three marathons with me. The long runs, the early mornings when the paths were still dark and neither of us was entirely sure we wanted to be out there. She also became a therapy dog in the schools where I worked. I watched her do things I couldn't do as a psychologist: walk up to a child who'd been closed off for months and simply lie down beside them. No agenda, no clinical framework, just warmth and presence. She had a gift for finding exactly who in the room needed her most. She was irreplaceable, and I knew it even then.

Here she is at a student wrap-around support meeting, resting right next to the student. 

How Dogs Support Emotional Healing and Grief

There's a reason animals show up in trauma therapy. Laurel Parnell, a leader in attachment-focused EMDR therapy, talks about nurturing figures: internalized images of beings who offer unconditional positive regard, comfort, and safety. These figures don't have to be human. For many clients, their dog is that figure, the one they picture when they need to feel held or less alone.

We see this a lot when working with clients. They may have no memory of a safe childhood figure and will sometimes light up when asked about their dog. "Can I use them?" they ask, almost shyly, as if it's cheating. It isn't. The brain doesn't require a nurturing figure to be human. It requires them to be real, warm, and safe. Dogs have that completely figured out.

What Pet Loss Grief Actually Feels Like

The hardest things to explain to people who haven't experienced pet loss grief are the small things. The way you reach for the leash when you’re going for a walk, and then don't go for the walk at all. The way the house sounds different. The way you feel lost when you don’t know where to put leftover shredded cheese. The way you'll be fine for three hours and then completely undone by something small, which feels humiliating until you realize it isn't. It's just love with nowhere to go for a moment.

David Kessler, who spent decades working alongside Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on grief, makes a point I keep returning to: grief is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is the proof of something that mattered. Man, did she matter to our family. The size of the grief is almost always proportional to the size of the love. 

Kessler also talks about finding meaning and not wrapping the loss in something tidy, but letting what happened actually change you. She doesn't have to be ‘gotten over’. She gets to mean something. 

Waiting for some leftover cheese. Her favourite spot outside, but inside of the kitchen.

Why Grief Can Leave You Feeling Numb or Flat

Things have felt a little flat since she died. Not broken, not dark, just quieter than usual. The colour has turned down a notch. I know enough to know this is part of it: the nervous system recalibrating around an absence that was also a presence.

I'm giving myself permission to let that be true for now. There's a version of grief that pushes for resolution, that wants things processed and filed and returned to baseline as quickly as possible. I don't believe in that version. I believe in the one where you move through it at whatever pace it asks, where you notice the dull days without panicking, where you trust that the flat season isn't permanent. It's just part of the terrain.

Finding Your Way Through Pet Loss Grief

I can think of her and feel joy. Not just sadness, although that’s still thick sometimes too. I can remember the runs, the walks, the way she let my kids build Lego on top of her belly, and I can smile about it. That coexistence of grief and gratitude isn't a contradiction. I can hold both.

I can hold the sadness and carry on. I know things will brighten. I'm not waiting for the grief to end. I'm trying to walk alongside it, which is, as it turns out, a skill I learned from a dog who never once let me stop moving.

She was irreplaceable. I'm not going to try. I'm just going to keep going, one walk at a time.

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This blog was written by the OBP Team | Off the Beaten Path Psychology and Wellness | Airdrie, Calgary, and Cochrane, Alberta

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At OBP Psychology, we support clients through all kinds of grief, including the kind the world doesn't always make space for. If you're navigating a loss and finding it harder than you expected, you're not alone. Reach out at obpwellness.com.