How a Pet (or Two) Can Help Your Grief

I had a meltdown this morning.

I’m approaching the five-year anniversary of Tom’s death, and as usual this time of year, all the sadness is rising back to the surface.

I can’t recall exactly what set me off, but suddenly I was sitting on the edge of my bed crying. Hard. And as soon as the first sob erupted, Millie, my terrier, was by my side, her warm, solid little body pressed up against me, her expression concerned as she tried to lick my tears away.

Millie never lets me cry alone.

Honestly, I don’t know how anyone gets through grief without pets. Especially anyone who, like me, lives alone.

Tom and I had dogs and an occasional cat in our years together, but we had been pet-free for a while at the time of his death. Months after he died, my cat-lady therapist suggested I get a kitten. But I had just returned from a solo road trip, one of my favorite pastimes, and decided I would prefer a “travel dog” that could ride shotgun.

I'm not alone anymore

Enter Daisy, a gorgeous 65-pound black-and-white pit bull mix I got from a rescue. Daisy and I took several road trips in our first years together. She’s a swell road trip buddy, except for her unfortunate tendency to lunge teeth-first at anyone—friend or foe—who comes near us. No trainer, behaviorist, or drugs has managed to fix this little problem, and so in that respect, Daisy has not made my life easier. Still, she does make me feel safe. As long as Daisy is nearby, no intruder will get into my house or close enough to hurt me. (I lock her up when friends visit.)

Daisy is a strange girl—friends have suggested she might be autistic, if such a thing is possible in dogs—and not big on empathy. When she came to live with me the year Tom died, I was doing a whole lot of crying, and she never tried to comfort me. That just isn’t in her skill set. That didn’t stop me from sobbing into her muscular shoulder at times, though. This comforted me; she tolerated it.

Nevertheless, it helped tremendously to have her greet me at the door every time I returned to my otherwise empty house. It was reassuring to hear her snoring nearby if I woke in the night. I enjoyed chatting with her while I was cooking dinner, and I could cuddle her whenever I craved physical contact.

Send in the clown

Then Millie turned up. I’d been looking for a second dog, thinking Daisy might enjoy a buddy, but none I’d met had felt right yet. Millie appeared in a local park during one of our twice-daily walks, She was black and white like Daisy, and so adorable that I was certain someone must have been looking for her, but my searches led nowhere. I did learn, however, that others had tried to capture her with no success, whereas she followed Daisy and me back to the car and hopped right in that first day. Obviously she was meant to be part of our family.

While they will occasionally play together, for the most part, Daisy and Millie are not crazy about each other (Daisy’s fault—she’s just a weirdo). But both of them love me and I love them. I am never lonely with these two in the house; Millie is as clingy as Daisy is standoffish, and Millie’s affectionate nature is rubbing off (a little) on Daisy.

And Millie is the family clown. She's funny. She likes to lie upside down. She plays with toys, She chases her tail. She makes me laugh.

Why they're worth the effort

Dogs are a lot of work. Travel is trickier. (I haven't taken a road trip with both of them yet, but that will happen this summer.) They’re expensive. They can be demanding. (Millie demands endless games of tug-of-war and belly rubs; Daisy is a bottomless pit for snacks.) I have moments when I wish I weren’t burdened by the responsibility of these two needy little beings.

But on days when the sadness is heavy and I feel like I could stay in bed forever, they insist I get up to feed and walk them—and a walk is always a mood picker-upper. Evenings on the couch, once spent with Tom, are now cozy dogpiles of the three of us. While I’m not a dogs-in-the-bed person, all I have to say is “bedtime” and they jump up and trot into the bedroom with me, where they settle into their cozy beds in their crates. And in the morning when she hears me stirring, Millie knows she’s then allowed to hop up on the bed to give me the most enthusiastic morning greeting I’ve ever enjoyed—a bouncy, squirmy, full tongue face-washing. Nobody has ever been so glad to see me. (Maybe Tom, but he was never particularly demonstrative. He was more like Daisy—although even she insists on head rubs in the morning, her tail wagging furiously.) And Christmas morning is a little less sad now that I’ve started buying gifts for them, which I wrap and put under the tree. (Yeah, I’m a dog geek.) The dogs give me someplace for all my love to go now that Tom isn't here to receive it.

And yes, while I get all this from my dogs, I have no doubt whatsoever that a cat (or two) would be equally comforting.

Millie stayed pressed up against me this morning, that loving concern on her little face, until my tears dwindled then dried. Then, satisfied with a job well done, she hopped up and fetched her pink elephant for a quick game of tug-of-war before our walk.

And I smiled.