Grieving and Loss—More
Dog Quotes to Help You Heal

These 30 dog quotes are about grieving and loss. Grief is a needed step when recovering from the loss of a loved one, including your dog. Dancer was my companion for 16 years. It took me months to recover from his death. And it took four years before I was ready to have another dog.

If you've been unable to grieve, or unable to finish the grieving process, these dog quotes will help you. I hope they allow you to complete your relationship with your dog so that you can move on, and possibly find another furry friend to love.

You can also share your dog's story, and your love for your dog, by writing a memorial. Write your dog's memorial here.

Click on the link at the bottom to read the first page of dog quotes about grieving and loss.

If it should be that I grow frail and weak
And pain should keep me from my sleep
Then will you do what must be done
For this—the last battle—can't be won.

You will be sad, I understand
But don't let grief then stay your hand
For on this day, more than all the rest
Your love and friendship must stand the test.

We've had so many happy years
What is to come can hold no fears
You'd not want me to suffer, so
When the time comes, please let me go.

Take me to where my needs they'll tend
Only, stay with me until the end.
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.

I know in time that you will see
It is a kindness you do to me
Although my tail, its last has waved
From pain and suffering I've been saved.

Don't grieve that it must now be you
Who has to decide this thing to do
We've been so close—we two—these years
Don't let your heart hold any tears.

Julia Napier (I've seen this posted in some locations as "Unknown Author")

Dogs...do not ruin their sleep worrying about how to keep the objects they have, and to obtain the objects they have not. There is nothing of value they have to bequeath except their love and their faith.

Eugene O'Neill, from his Dalmatian, Blemie's, last will and testament

One last word of farewell, dear master and mistress. Whenever you visit my grave, say to yourselves with regret but also happiness in your hearts at the remembrance of my long happy life with you: "Here lies one who loves us and whom we loved." No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail.

Eugene O'Neill, from his Dalmatian, Blemie's, last will and testament (click here for the full version of Blemie's last will and testament)

Two days ago we waded through the mud out to this grave beneath the pines at the foot of the hill to place a Christmas wreath on it, hoping he would look down from the Paradise of Ten Billion Trees and Unrationable Dog Biscuits and pity us.

Eugene O'Neill, speaking about Blemie

No louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast,
When husbands or lap-dogs breathe their last.

Alexander Pope

Here lies DASH, the Favourite Spaniel of Queen Victoria
By whose command this Memorial was erected.
He died on the 20 December, 1840 in his 9th year.
His attachment was without selfishness,
His playfulness without malice,
His fidelity without deceit.
READER, if you would live beloved and die regretted, profit by the example of DASH.

Queen Victoria

Jason Oliver C. Smith, a big dumb guy who was tan, died March 30 of lung cancer and old age. He was 13 years old and lived in New Jersey, Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, his license was current and he had had all of his shots. He is survived by two adults, three children, a cat named Daisy who drove him nuts, and his lifelong companion, Pudgy, whose spaying he always regretted, as well as a host of fleas who have gone elsewhere, probably to Pudgy. He will be missed by all, except Daisy. He never bit anyone, which is more than you can say for most of us.

Anna Quindlen, an obituary for her golden retriever

The best way to get over a dog's death is to get another soon.

Ronald Reagan

My friendship with Mitzi was like the friendship that many children have with their pets. My mother and father thought it was "good for me" to have a dog for a companion. Well it was good for me, but it was only many years after she died that I began to understand how good it was, and why.

Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers)

God turns clouds inside out to make fluffy beds for the dogs in Dog Heaven, and when they are tired from running and barking and eating ham-sandwich biscuits, the dogs find a cloud bed for sleeping. God watches over each one of them. And there are no bad dreams.

Cynthia Rylant

I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?

Sir Walter Scott

The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?

Sir Walter Scott

The sweetness of his disposition and endearing qualities are sufficiently attested by the fact that, to the last, when sometimes his sickness entailed additional and disagreeable duties in regard to him, not a servant would hear to his days being shortened, and when he died there were those of the household who felt that though but a dog he had qualities which would have adorned a Christian.

Charles W. Shimmain

There is another world for all that live and move—a better one!

Robert Southey, after the death of his favourite spaniel

Soon or late, every dog's master's memory becomes a graveyard; peopled by wistful little furry ghosts that creep back unbidden, at times, to a semblance of their olden lives.

Albert Payson Terhune

In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe, peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able somehow to bear.

James Thurber

The stone tells that it covers the white Maltese dog. They called him Bull while he still lived, but now the silent paths of night possess his voice.

William Tymmes
Epitaph for a Dog

Foxes, rejoice! Here buried lies your foe.

Unknown Author (inscribed on a wall stone in Euston Park, England)

Greyfriars Bobby.
Died 14th Jan 1872.
Aged 16 years.
Let his loyalty & devotion
Be a lesson to us all.

Unknown Author (Inscription on Bobby's headstone, as tribute to the Skye terrier who slept on his master's grave every night for fourteen years. American donors erected the tribute in the 1930s.)

I didn't know if there was a special dog that she was looking for... she just slowly walked through the little burial plot, reading the names and pausing now and then to stop by a gravestone. She stooped down once to touch one of the grave markers and to brush something off of it. She looked sad and thoughtful, and finally left, without saying a word.

Unknown member of Queen Elizabeth's household, talking about her visit to the cemetery on the castle grounds, where her dogs are buried

I explained it to St. Peter,
I'd rather stay here
Outside the pearly gate.
I won't be a nuisance,
I won't even bark, I'll be very patient and wait,
I'll be here, chewing on a celestial bone,
No matter how long you may be.
I'd miss you so much, if I went in alone,
It wouldn't be heaven for me.

Unknown Author

No cold philosophy, no cynic sneer,
Checks the unhidden and honest tear,
What little difference, and how short the span,
Betwixt thy instinct and the mind of man.

Unknown Author (Inscription on a dog's gravestone)

Animals have these advantages over man: They have no theologians to instruct them, their funeral costs them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

Voltaire

Our German forefathers had a very kind religion. They believed that, after death, they would meet again all the good dogs that had been their companions in life. I wish I could believe that too.

Otto von Bismarck

His friends he loved. His direst earthly foe —
Cats—I believe he did but feign to hate.
My hand will miss the insinuated nose,
Mine eyes the tail that wagged contempt at Fate.

Sir William Watson

If my dog is barred by the heavenly guard
We'll both of us brave the heat!

W. Dayton Wedgefarth

At thieves, I bark'd, at lovers wagg'd my tail,
And thus I pleased both Lord and Lady Frail.

John Wilkes (epitaph about Lady Frail's lapdog)

The dog without his master was like a body without a soul.

Mary E. Wilkins

Tiger the dog had a showdown with a fast moving flower truck in the middle of the street and lost.

Barry Williams

It is a terrible thing for an old woman to outlive her dogs.

Tennessee Williams