Grieving and Loss—Dog Quotes
To Help You Recover

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

When Relish died, I alternated between feeling numb and crying.

If you've been unable to grieve, or unable to finish the grieving process, these quotations can help you complete your relationship with your dog so that you can move on, and possibly find another furry friend to cherish.

Writing a memorial can also help. Share your dog's story, and your love for your dog, by writing your dog's memorial here.

There's another page of quotes about grieving and loss. Click on the link at the bottom to read them.

Old men miss many dogs.

Steve Allen

Unlike some people who have experienced the loss of an animal, I did not believe, even for a moment, that I would never get another. I did know full well that there were just too many animals out there in need of homes for me to take what I have always regarded as the self-indulgent road of saying the heartbreak of the loss of an animal was too much ever to want to go through with it again.

To me, such an admission brought up the far more powerful admission that all the wonderful times you had with your animal were not worth the unhappiness at the end.

Cleveland Amory

This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog.

Napoleon Bonaparte, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Napoleon was haunted by this scene until his own death.

At one time a synod of the Catholic Church was held in which the question of whether or not animals had a soul was discussed very seriously: would good dogs go to paradise and bad ones, who stole slices of lamb, burn in hell eternally. The denial of the soul was voted: it is enough for the honor of the species that the question was posed.

Alfred Barbou

I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die—it's a major offence.

Clive Barker

The CD is dedicated to our dog Nell, who passed away last year.

Julia Barr

If there is a heaven, it's certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them.

Pam Brown

For those who love dogs, it would be the worst form of a lie to call any place where dogs were banned "Paradise." Certainly no loving God would separate people from their canine friends for eternity.

Stanley Coren, dog psychologist

I know well enough that there have been dogs so loving that they have thrown themselves into the same grave with the dead bodies of their masters; others have stayed upon their masters' graves without stirring a moment from them, and have voluntarily starved themselves to death, refusing to touch the food that was brought them.

Miguel de Cervantes

Shall we, because we walk on our hind feet, assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperishability?

George Eliot

MAJOR

Born a dog
Died a gentleman

Epitaph on a dog's gravestone in Maryland, USA

She died as she had been born and as she had lived, in my care, and surrounded by those who loved her.

Vicki W. Fowler

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.

John Galsworthy

I guess you don't really own a dog, you rent them, and you have to be thankful that you had a long lease.

Joe Garagiola

If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.

Marjorie Garber

Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid,
Who fawned like man, but ne'er like man betrayed.

John Gay

To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though inasmuch as he had four legs, a tail, and barked, I admit he was, to all outward appearances. But to those who knew him well, he was a perfect gentleman.

Hermione Gingold

I think God will have prepared everything for our perfect happiness. If it takes my dog being there [in Heaven], I believe he'll be there.

Rev. Billy Graham

Oh the saddest of sights in a world of sin
Is the little lost pup with his tail tucked in.

Arthur Guiterman

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just Tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG.
Who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18th 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor's art exausts the pomp of woe,
And stories urns record that rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Masters own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnotic'd all his worth,
Deny'd in heaven the Soul he held on earth -
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debas'd by slavery, or corrupt by power -
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennoble but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on, it honours none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one - and here he lies.

John Cam Hobhouse

Found on the monument for Lord Byron's dog, Boatswain, on the grounds of Byron's seat in Nottinghamshire, Newstead Abbey.

These lines were long thought to be Byron's, but he decided to use Hobhouse's full epitaph instead of the last two lines:

"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one—and here he lies."

The above is quoted letter for letter from the stone inscription.

For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God.

Job 12:10

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Rudyard Kipling

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

Ben Hur Lampman

Many people have heard the remarkable example of devotion involving a Skye terrier dog who worked for a Scottish shepherd named Old Jock. In 1858, the day after Jock was buried (with almost nobody present to mourn him except his shaggy dog) in the churchyard at Greyfriars Abbey in Edinburgh, Bobby was found sleeping on his master's grave, where he continued to sleep every night for fourteen years.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died.

Marlee Matlin

There's a stone I had made for Luke at the top of the hill road, where the pasture opens wide and the setting sun highlights the words carved into its face. "That'll do, Luke, that'll do." The words are said to working dogs all over the world when the chores are done and the flock is settled: "That'll do dog, come home now, your work is done." Luke's work is done too. He took my heart and ran with it, and he's running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever.

Patricia McConnell
For the Love of a Dog

Of all the animals, surely the dog is the only one that really shares our life, helps in our work, and has a place in our recreation. It is the only one that becomes so fond of us that sometimes it cannot go on living after its master dies.

Ferdinand Mercy

I feel about my dogs now, and all the dogs I had prior to this, the way I feel about children—they are that important to me. When I have lost a dog I have gone into a mourning period that lasted for months.

Mary Tyler Moore

I came across a photograph of him not long ago... his black face, the long snout sniffing at something in the air, his tail straight and pointing, his eyes flashing in some momentary excitement. Looking at a faded photograph taken more than forty years before, even as a grown man, I would admit I still missed him.

Willie Morris

The dog of your boyhood teaches you a great deal about friendship, and love, and death: Old Skip was my brother. They had buried him under our elm tree, they said—yet this wasn't totally true. For he really lay buried in my heart.

Willie Morris
My Dog Skip

Grieving and Loss, Page 2