Do Dogs Grieve When Other Dogs Die?

I was at a small housewarming party recently where a guest arrived late, looking harassed. She explained that one of her dogs, Max, had recently passed away, and her second dog, Penny, was taking it pretty hard. Penny had always struggled with anxiety, but with consistent care and training had made tremendous progress over the past couple of years. Now, without Max around, she was reverting to her old ways. She was eating less, didn’t play as much, wouldn’t engage with other dogs, and was having accidents in the house. (Penny’s mum had to clean up one of these accidents before she left, which is why she was late.)

According to a paper published in the journal , Penny’s behaviour isn’t unusual. The study looked at data collected from 426 adults with multiple pet dogs and found that surviving dogs who lost a canine companion showed “grief-related and emotional patterns”. The most common behaviours owners reported were attention seeking (67 percent); playing less (57 percent); a decline in activity (46 percent); sleeping more (35 percent); increased fearfulness (35 percent); eating less (32 percent); and increased vocalisation like barking and whining (30 percent). 

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How long do dogs grieve?

Of those participants who noticed a negative behaviour change in their surviving dog, about a third said it lasted between two and six months after the death of their companion, 29.4 percent said it lasted less than two months, and 24.9 percent said it lasted over six months. 

The study also found that the amount of time the dogs had spent together had no effect on the surviving dog’s likelihood of exhibiting negative behaviour. A much stronger predictor, they found, was the quality of the dogs’ relationship. Dogs were far more likely to play less and show disrupted feeding patterns if their relationship with the deceased pup had been described as ‘friendly’ rather than ‘agnostic’ or one of ‘mutual tolerance’.

Dogs and humans influence each other

These findings are significant, because even though most dog owners have spent hours observing and dissecting our dogs’ most minute behaviours, preferences and quirks, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the inner lives of our furry companions. As Dr Stefania Uccheddu, one of the authors of the study, tells us, the study was born out of a desire to shed light on a fundamental but still under-explored area of dog’s lives: their complex emotions, particularly grief. 

“In general, emotions are perhaps the most enigmatic sphere of animal life – the most difficult to explore,” explains Dr Uccheddu. It’s this challenge, she says, that makes them an especially compelling undertaking for scientists. She adds that one of the findings that surprised her the most was that a surviving dog was more likely to eat less if their owner was also displaying signs of grief. This could be the result of ‘emotional contagion’ between the dog and human, or the result of a dog’s ability to pick up on the negative emotions of their owners. 

“Dogs have become extremely sensitive to human communicative gestures and facial expressions, especially their emotional expressions,” says Dr Uccheddu. Indeed, the study found a positive correlation between an increased fear level in the surviving dog and the owner’s own level of suffering and anger. As two social species, Dr Uccheddu explains, dogs’ and humans’ emotions are highly susceptible to the emotions of those around them.

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Are we just projecting?

How can we know whether the change in behaviour we’re seeing is really grief or something else? Are we projecting our own human emotions on to our pets? “I think anyone who has lived with animals for long enough has seen them mourn the passing of a household member, whether it’s an animal or not,” says Robert Haussmann, a certified dog trainer, co-founder of Dogboy NYC and Kinship Collective member. “But is it mourning? Is it separation distress? Is it change in routine distress? Those are all important things to bring up.”

As Haussmann notes, it can be tempting for owners to anthropomorphise our pups. And we’re not completely unjustified in doing so. Modern dogs have been bred for centuries to be social and read human emotions. “That’s why pet dogs are able to be pet dogs,” says Haussmann. “We’ve gone out of our way to make them social creatures, and they’re also highly emotional creatures.” 

So, while we can’t say for sure that what a surviving dog is experiencing is definitely grief as we humans conceive of grief, we can’t dismiss the possibility that they’re feeling something similar to our loss either. “In my opinion, I do think dogs mourn their companions,” says Haussmann.

Dogs are pretty stoic, he notes, so they might not display their grief by moping around the house. They might behave like they did before but be more jumpy, bark more or pull more on the lead. “Give the dog some time to adjust, and be proactive,” says Haussmann. If they get anxious or aggressive or their new behaviour does seem like it requires training, reach out to a professional who can help put a plan together for the dog. “If that dog was mirroring their big brother or sister and now they’re gone, you might need you to be a better teacher.”

And above all, Haussmann says, adjusting to the new normal just takes time. “I always point out to people: this is an animal without a language centre. They’re not using inner dialogue. They’re not going to journal about it. It’s something that is very different from us, and we need to respect it.”