30 Powerful Quotes About Losing a Dog & Dealing With Grief

The worst part about owning a dog is having to say goodbye, and that goodbye often feels far too soon. Studies have shown that the loss of a beloved pet can cause severe psychological distress, and for many of us that grief is overwhelming.

Grief has a way of making us feel alone, and it’s not the easiest of topics to talk about. In those dark times I’ve often found comfort in the words & wisdom of others. If you’re struggling with the loss of a pet I hope these words bring comfort.

30 Powerful Quotes About Losing a Dog

“Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. A dog can show you more honest affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.” – Gene Hill

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“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

“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” – Aeschylus

“The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth can ever be.” – Konrad Lorenz

“Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. A dog can show you more honest affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.”  – Gene Hill

“Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. ” – Mark Twain

“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

“Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet, you were not pretending to love it.” – Amy Sedaris

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” – James Herriot

“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 there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” – Will Rogers

“They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite.” – Cassandra Clare

“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

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.” – Roger Caras

“Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love, they depart to teach us about loss. A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs your heart is very big.”  – Erica Jong

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.” – From an Irish Headstone

“Dogs leave pawprints on our hearts” – Author Unknown

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” – Anatole France

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” – Washington Irving

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” – Vicki Harrison

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” – Khalil Gibran

“Although it’s difficult today to see beyond the sorrow,
 may looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow.
” – Author Unknown

“What we have once enjoyed 
we can never lose; 
All that we love deeply
 becomes a part of us.
” – Helen Keller

“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 should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone-you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence.” – Alyson Noel

“Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.” – Alphonse de Lamartine

“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

“The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” – Pierre Auguste Renoir

“Grief doesn’t have a plot. It isn’t smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end.” – Ann Hood

“The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief. But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love.”  – Hilary Stanton Zunin

“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.” – William Shakespeare