On March 13th, 2023, our beautiful Cocker Spaniel Holly died and that day is, most possibly the saddest day of my life. For some, that might sound over dramatic but I’m hoping that sharing this short series of blogs around pet grief, and grief in general, will help others understand grief and also how to support others around them who may be going through the same or similar experience. 

Before I go on, I want to say that I understand that grief is a very different and difficult journey for each of us and my intent here is to describe mine and in no way is it intended to diminish anyone else’s experience. My heart goes out to each and every one of you who is experiencing grief at this time.  In contrast, I hope this serves to help those who are experiencing grief and those who are supporting loved ones at this time.

Secondly, I am not an expert on grief and the following are just my reflections and insights through my experience of losing Holly.

My hope is to describe:

• Why all loss is grief; people, animals, and things.

• My personal journey sitting with grief, as well as celebrating the life I shared with Holly.

• Explain disenfranchised grief and why it’s okay to grieve the loss of your pet.

• Why learning to grow around and through loss is important.

The first place I want to explore is taken from Dr. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., who is known for his Huberman Lab podcasts: Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast - Huberman Lab.  Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the department of neurobiology and by courtesy, psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford School of Medicine.  Dr. Huberman discusses neuroscience: how our brain and its connections with the organs of our body control our perceptions, our behaviours, and our health.

Dr. Huberman says that the grieving process applies to anything, everything, and anyone in these three dimensions people, animals, and things. 

When dear people, animals, and things are not accessible to us, it hurts – grief is a state of sadness and desire to reach out and reconnect with what we have lost.  It is a process with a beginning, middle, and end which is both psychological and physiological.

Grieving is a process where our brain is attempting to make predictions, for example, what will it take to see them again or when will I see them again?  Essentially, the brain is misfiring and still trying to connect with who and what has been lost.

The brain cannot conceptualise the fact that the person, animal, or thing doesn’t exist anymore because our brains rely more on experience than knowledge, and it is hard for the brain to discard all that previous knowledge.

The ability to predict where a person, animal, or thing will be has been obliterated but the attachment hasn’t been interrupted and this is the hard part.  Grieving is the process of uncoupling and remapping those neural pathways associated with attachment.

Dr Huberman says, we map our experiences in these three dimensions:

Space – where we expect people, animals or things to be.

Time – when we expect people, animals, or things to connect with us.

Closeness – how bonded and attached we are to said person, animal, or thing.

For example, when I return home from work and turn my key to my front door, I have the overwhelming desire and momentary sense of reality that Holly will be there to greet me with all her excitement and joy.  So when x happens, at x time of the day, week, or year, the neural pathways fire from experience, and the impact of that response is evoked, which is dependent on the depth of the attachment. So now, when Holly isn’t there, there is a psychological and physiological response by way of sadness, tears and heartache.

Dr. Huberman says that we can all greatly align this thinking when a person is grieving the loss of another person but it is important to understand that we are capable of creating the same attachment with animals too.  He also says that as people, we can also elicit the same response, to a degree, when we lose a ‘thing’, for example, a wedding ring or other significant object that is connected to a person or animal.

He says that pets bring us purpose, happiness, gratitude, and unconditional love rarely experienced in any other relationship. The death of a pet hurts as much as any other loss.

You can watch or listen to the whole podcast here: The Science & Process of Healing from Grief - Huberman Lab

I’ll move on to the tools he discusses to shift or dismantle these neural pathways later, but I want to provide a small glimmer into life with Holly.

Holly was fourteen and a half years old when she left, and her loss has been a pain so deep that at times it feels like my heart has broken into a million pieces and I know I’ll never be the same person I was before that day.

Of course, she wasn’t just my dog – she resides in the hearts of both my immediate and extended family, as well as friends and neighbours, who all loved or connected with her.

For me Holly was my source of comfort, my joy, she was my companion, she was my best friend.  For me, our lives were intertwined together in an unshakeable bond of unconditional love.

Towards the final year or two, I began to think about her parting and I always knew would be incredibly difficult, but I have to say, I entirely underestimated the depth of pain that followed. 

With thanks to Pic Collage

I realise no amount of photographs can describe Holly but here is my little snapshot all the same.  When we went to pick her out she was the smallest puppy in the litter, and there was just something about her that we knew she’d be the special one for us.  Being the smallest in the litter, we often had comments about her size from other dog owners, using the phrase runt of the litter, which we didn’t really care about because she was just Holly and she belonged to us and we belonged to her.

She was a shy and sensitive dog.  Being so small she was overwhelmed by the more boisterous dogs at puppy training and it’s where she got her sensitivity and her apprehension around being near other dogs, which she carried through her life.

She loved her food, never really took to dry kibble and mostly had a home-cooked diet.  She loved her doggie snacks and absolutely loved doggie chocolate – in her younger years we would hide chocolate drops in the lounge and she would patiently wait outside the door.  Upon opening the door she would quickly and efficiently sniff out all her chocolate and look very proud of herself when she’d done so. We all loved to play that game each evening. 

She loved playing chase the ball and loved finding the biggest sticks or branches she possibly could and would delight in enticing us to chase her.  Which of course, we happily did.  She loved to chase the birds in the park, and could never quite understand why she never managed to catch one, as they flew off into the sky.  She was the same with snow, she loved to frolic in the snow and when we threw snowballs, she would dart off to catch them, only to be confused as to where they went when they hit the ground and dispersed – she never figured that out, and her reactions always made us laugh.

We always celebrated her birthdays with balloons and special treats.  Balloons always fascinated her and she would happily play with them and was so gentle with picking them up at the tied end with her teeth, so as not to pop them – she was so amazingly gentle.

We never had a holiday without her, and she never once went in kennels or to dog sitters.  Our favourite place to take Holly was the Peak District, where she would enjoy the walks and new sights for many years.

She hated loud noises and we never really managed to soothe her fear of fireworks. For a Cocker Spaniel, Holly didn’t really like the water and we never thought she could actually swim, although she loved a paddle in shallow water when the days were hot.

She loved the sofa and the evenings of being snuggled up next to us – this may have been when and where she was most content. Come to think of it, it might have been where I most felt content too.

As she slowed down, after an initial disdain, she enjoyed walks in her stroller, where she could watch the world from another height and enjoy the fresh air.

During her last year or so, she lost her hearing after a vestibular attack and became very anxious when I wasn’t around.  Her doggie super sense of smell became more heightened though and she could literally sense any member of the family as soon as they entered the home.

I’m so thankful she came into my life, as she gave so much throughout her time with us.  The pandemic was a blessing for her, as she was never left alone, and was content in the knowledge we weren’t going off to work every day and leaving her alone and this continued until we lost her. I could go on and on and perhaps I will in a private journal, but I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into who Holly was.

We love you and miss you Holly - thank you for bringing us such happiness and joy for 14 and a half years.

In part 2, I focus on loving an animal and explore the effects on pet grief of living in a society where disenfranchised grief exists.