Today would have been my soul dog’s 14th birthday. It’s the first one we’ll “celebrate” in our house without him incessantly yapping at my feet and tripping me multiple times while I scramble up some eggs to add to his and his dog brothers’ breakfast bowls. Instead of getting a jump on making a small dog-safe cake or thawing out a little steak while I chop fresh veggies for the birthday dinner, I am sitting on the porch with my coffee and my cig while staring at an empty spot on the rug and dealing with a wave of grief that feels as sharp as it did on the day we lost him; a day that I unapologetically label as the worst day of my adult life so far.
I’m dropping my usual bitching about daily inconveniences and the sweaty, uncomfortable warfare biology wages on an aging female body for today because we need to talk about the absolute agony and isolation of pet loss grief—especially when you are a childless adult.
“Everybody hurts.” – R.E.M.
Look, I know this pain and sorrow aren’t exclusive to my lifestyle. Adults with busy households, spouses, and a growing pack of human children feel this exact same shattering heartbreak. To be honest, I can’t even imagine the extra, agonizing layers of trying to navigate your own private mourning while simultaneously trying to explain death to a crying six year-old. Whether an animal is your only baby or the centerpiece of a loud, busy family, losing them is a universal equalizer. The grief doesn’t care about your tax bracket or your dependents; it just destroys you.
And that’s just the effects on the humans. If you have other animals in the house, you have to watch them muddle through a quiet, confusing mourning of their own. It is an entirely different level of helpless. You can’t sit them down and explain where their sibling went. You can’t explain why there’s one less bowl on the counter being filled at meal time. Instead, you just watch them stare blankly at the back door, waiting with a look of heavy confusion for their pack mate to come back inside.
In the midst of your own grief, you worry constantly that you’re missing the signs of their depression. Are they sleeping more because they’re sad, or are they just tired? Are they having tummy troubles or are they slow to finish their food because they miss their friend? You stand there looking at them, completely powerless, with no real ideas for how to comfort a grieving animal when your own heart is already in pieces. You are both just sitting in the same quiet house, grieving the same loss, entirely unable to talk to each other about it.
The ‘It’s Just a Dog’ Mindset Can Kick Rocks
When you don’t have kids, it can feel like society views your pets through a weird and borderline condescending lens. People call them your “fur babies” with a patronizing smirk, or assume a dog is just a trial run for a human infant. Let me be unequivocally clear: my precious little boy wasn’t a placeholder. He wasn’t a practice round. He was my baby and the intentional recipient of my maternal instincts. I wasn’t looking for the pitter-patter of little feet; I wanted a noisy, clingy little wire-haired pain in the ass who loved me unconditionally and never refused to eat the meals I made or needed me to drive a minivan full of his friends around to a bunch of activities. That’s what I got, and then some.
Those who know me know that I when I talked about my little pack of dogs, I frequently referred to my boy as my son and I jokingly labeled the other dogs as his pets. Losing him didn’t make me a grieving pet owner. It made me a grieving parent to someone I loved differently than anyone else I ever loved or will love, human or animal, in this lifetime or any other.
The World’s Tiniest Window for Compassion
Does society even have a protocol for this? It surely doesn’t appear that way. When a human relative passes, you get a generically polite email from HR offering bereavement leave. People bring you casseroles and send sympathy cards. They lower their voices when they speak to you. When your heart animal dies—the creature who sat by your side through every single meltdown, panic attack, and terrible morning—you get a collective shrug. You get maybe 24 hours of acceptable crying (that’s being incredibly generous in my case) before you are expected to be all ‘business as usual,’ log back into Zoom, engage with your colleagues, and pretend you aren’t completely shattered.
It leads to a deeply dark, isolating kind of mourning. Adding to the heaviness of the loss itself, you feel like no one can relate, like no one actually cares, and like people are going to look at you funny if you don’t magically get your shit together with a snap of your fingers. It disallows any small amount of grace you try to show yourself through the hurt and makes you question your sanity like maybe you’re doing a little too much grieving.
Next on This Morning’s Agenda
It’s suffocatingly humid and overly buggy outside already, so for a few moments before I have to start getting ready for work, I’m going to slam this last bit of coffee, put out this cigarette, and move this misery fest inside.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be face-down on our bed, sobbing so violently into a pillow until my tear ducts are on the verge collapse. It’s going to be some of that ugly, snot-running, chest-heaving crying that you absolutely cannot do in front of another human being but could openly share with your four-legged friend and confidant. I’ll glance at the spot on the bed where my boy would lie and absorb all of the world’s problems with genuine concern and not an ounce of judgment and repeat to myself through my hideous sobs that there just wasn’t enough time.
And then a memory of a time when his goofy antics made me laugh myself into hyperventilation will fill me with a sense of warmth and comfort in a way that only my little boy was capable of. In my mind’s eye, I’ll vividly replay a time when he tried to steal my snacks as we watched a movie on the couch or the way he would lose his everloving shit when I’d come home from work. In this moment, I’ll know our connection remains unbreakable and he’s still in his spot, letting me know that it’s time to dry my eyes and get on with my day.
Before I Drag Myself Out of This Bed, a Final Message
People who don’t get it can barely get out a half-assed “sorry for your loss” before they’re already suggesting you get another pet as if you can just replace a soul like a broken toaster. They don’t understand that losing a pet means losing a witness to your life. Your routines are completely fractured. I still look down when I drop a piece of cheese on the kitchen floor. I’m still conditioned to reach in the treat jar and pull out three treats instead of two. I still listen for the click of his little nails on the hardwood. Even with two small breed dogs still here alive and well (and currently barking like crazed maniacs), he was always the loudest and the silence without his contributions to the canine chorus in this house is deafening.
Childless or not, if you are a missing a piece of your heart today, you are not alone. If you are tired of pretending your grief is “just” for an animal: I cut my soul wide open to share these words with you in loving memory of my dearly departed little doggo and my greatest joy. You are allowed to be broken. You are allowed to hate the silence. YOU are the only one who has a right to tell you how to feel. Please know that a piece of me hurts for you as well.
8/10/2012 – 3/26/2026
“As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” 🌈
Happy heavenly birthday to you, my sweetest little baby. I miss you every single second of every day. Thank you for visiting me in my dreams last night. Thank you for everything. I’ll see you when I get there.
I Can't Be The Only One 
Leave a comment