I Grieved My Pet Like It’s My Child — And No, That’s Not ‘Crazy’

Jan. 21, 2025, is a date I’ll never forget. It marks the day I lost my beagle, Biscuit. I struggle to even write “dog” in relation to her because she wasn’t just a pet. She wasn’t a “dog” — she was my child.

Biscuit was only 6 years old, and I’d felt like the universe cheated me. She was the first dog I’d ever gotten on my own, and during a time when I was emotionally unstable. She helped me climb out of the hole I was in and gave me purpose.

It was the first snow of the year, and I was visiting my parents for the holidays. Biscuit and Gravy, her little sister, were playing in the backyard. It was dark, but I just let them out to do their business.

Gravy came to the door after a few minutes, but Biscuit didn’t. Even though it wasn’t unusual for one of them to stay out longer, I felt an immediate pit in my stomach. I grabbed the flashlight and scanned the yard, calling her name.

In a second, I found her. She was lying motionless in the snow.

I ran out to her, screaming her name. Her body was limp, but she was warm. I scooped her up in my arms and ran inside, frantically screaming, “Mom!” I don’t think I’ve ever screamed that loudly in my life.

My parents came racing into the kitchen. When they saw Bisky on the floor, mom started doing chest compressions, and my dad began breathing into her nose. Meanwhile, I was hyperventilating. I didn’t know what to do or how to help her.

After a few minutes that felt like hours, we realized she was gone. Gravy saw everything and was whining, and I could feel her pain as she nudged her nose against her sister.

I was in complete shock. Even knowing she was gone, I held her close, crying and telling her how much I loved her. I held her until her body grew cold.

Biscuit was my anchor, my emotional support system.

I have endometriosis, and I decided a long time ago that I don’t want to have children. There’s just too much pain that comes with it, and I’m so tired of being in pain. Biscuit seemed to understand this instinctively. Whenever I had to sit in the shower because the pain was too intense, she would lie on the floor just outside, waiting patiently. She’d stay there until I got out and would sleep with me for as long as I needed.

Biscuit, and later Gravy, became the center of my nurturing world. They weren’t replacements; they were the children I chose. I spent every minute I’m not working with them. And even when I wasn’t working, they were lying at my feet.

The days after Biscuit’s death were a blur of grief and disbelief. I didn’t get out of bed for three days; Gravy never left my side.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flashbacks of Biscuit lying in the snow. The living nightmare made it impossible to sleep, so I just laid there reliving this over and over again. My emotions swung wildly between sobbing uncontrollably and feeling completely numb.

“It’s just a dog” is something that I’ve heard multiple times. But what people fail to realize is that the bond with a pet is the same as the bond with a child.

“Society hinges on socially accepted ‘norms’ and hierarchies of what is important, from culture to culture, and typically speaking, pets often come second to any loss of human life,” said Alyson Curtis, a licensed mental health counselor in New York City who specializes in grief and pet loss.

“But anyone who has ever owned and/or lost a pet knows how frustrating that can be,” she continued. “After all, so many of us have felt exquisitely closer to our pets than, say for example, an uncle or even a grandparent.”

In hopes of destigmatizing pet loss, I asked Curtis to walk me through why we mourn our pets so deeply and how to cope with that grief.

“It is my belief as a therapist that our relationships with our pets can often easily surpass those of family and friends,” Curtis said. “They sleep in bed with us, wake us up in the morning, snuggle with us on the sofa, comfort us when we’re sad, play with us when we’re happy — it’s no wonder their absence would take us to the absolute bedrock of our hearts.”

One point Curtis made that really stuck out to me was that it’s possible we love our pets so much because they give us the permission and strength to not only love ourselves a little bit more but teach us how to love and bring meaning into our lives.

“I cannot think of any greater contribution to one’s life than those gifts,” Curtis said.

“Most people have a strong innate discomfort with death,” Curtis said. “In so much, their lack of relating to it is felt by those grieving, and the result is a lot of mistuned or offensive comments. … Even individuals who have gone through it, have gone through a distinctly different grief than you are going through with yours and may not truly get what you’re feeling.”

To protect your heart while it is at its most vulnerable, Curtis recommends taking time to reflect on whether you need to distance yourself from certain people, if only temporarily, during this time.

She also suggests having a physical coping mechanism like a journal to process your feelings and rehearse some comebacks or phrases to responses you’ve received from people that didn’t sit well with you.

“Take some time for self-care to write those up and practice them in your head or out loud so you’re ready the next time it happens,” she said.

“Grief is hard enough. People do care — their delivery can often suck, they may be conveying their discomfort with the idea — but don’t let their comments make you feel worse when you’re already going through a nightmare,” Curtis said.

According to Curtis, people’s discomfort with grief, or more specifically, their judgment of othering someone’s grief, is likely their own ego-driven defense mechanism to self-protect.

“It sucks for the grieving, leaving you feeling worse off, but death is something most of us choose to distance ourselves from in every way possible, including diminishing another’s loss, if it means we get to remain ‘safe from death’ in our minds,” she added. “All that’s to say, practice grace for yourself and others, if you have it within you. And when you don’t, it’s OK to take space.”

Curtis left me with one final thought: “Find a pet loss grief support group. If you can’t find that, connect with other individuals online or in person who absolutely get the unbearable pain of losing a pet.”