Anticipatory Grief: Grieving a Pet Who’s Still Here

When a pet is diagnosed with a terminal illness, or starts to slow down in their senior years, the sadness often doesn’t wait for the end. Many families tell us they had been grieving for weeks or months before they ever called us. They cry over things that used to be ordinary, lie awake listening to their pet breathe, and feel guilty about feelings they never expected to have.

That grief has a name: anticipatory grief. It’s a normal response to knowing you’re going to lose someone you love.

This guide explains what anticipatory grief is, the signs we see most often in the families we care for, and what research on grief and caregiving suggests can help. We’re a veterinary practice, not grief counselors, so when we talk about coping, we lean on the people who study it. What we can tell you from our own experience is that what you’re feeling is normal, and you are far from the only one feeling it.

Before we get to the signs, it helps to understand what anticipatory grief actually is.

Anticipatory grief is grief that begins before a death, when you know a loss is coming¹. The idea isn’t new. The term was first used by a psychiatrist in 1944², and today’s veterinary guidelines ask veterinarians to recognize it in families caring for a pet near the end of life³.

It can start with a diagnosis, or with a vet gently saying “months, not years.” Sometimes it starts when you notice your dog can no longer manage the stairs, or your cat has stopped jumping up onto the bed. Part of what you’re grieving is the loss you know is ahead. Part of it is the losses already happening, like the long walks you can’t take anymore or the cat who used to meet you at the door.

It also doesn’t move in a straight line. Researchers who study family caregivers describe it as rising and falling over the course of an illness, with hope and sadness often sitting side by side⁴. You might hope for one more good month and, on the same day, wish your pet didn’t have to struggle anymore. Both can be true at once.

Pet owners feel this as deeply as anyone. In a survey of 347 owners of senior dogs, anticipatory grief was linked to how close people felt to their dog, and not to how sick the dog was⁵. Feeling it deeply says more about your bond than about how your pet is doing.

Not everyone feels it, though, and not feeling it doesn’t mean you love your pet any less. In a study of people caring for an older or seriously ill dog or cat, some owners coped with very little distress at all⁶.

Because it looks so different from one person to the next, anticipatory grief often goes unrecognized, even by the person feeling it. In the families we care for, it tends to show up in four ways.

You might recognize yourself in one of these, or in all four. None of them mean you’re handling this badly. They’re some of the most common things we hear from families before an appointment, and researchers studying people caring for sick pets have described the same things.

Guilt is one of the first things many people feel. “Did I miss something earlier?” “Should we have tried another treatment?” “Am I doing enough?” In one study, owners caring for a seriously ill pet reported guilt and fear about the future at levels similar to people caring for a family member with dementia⁷.

A good day can bring on its own kind of second-guessing. We often see a family make a plan during a hard stretch, and then their dog eats breakfast with real enthusiasm, or their cat comes looking for a lap, and suddenly they aren’t sure of anything. Good days are worth enjoying. Our article on why the euthanasia decision feels impossible talks about what they can and can’t tell you.

Some people feel guilty because, alongside the sadness, they feel relief, or catch themselves wishing it were over. That doesn’t make you a bad owner. Watching someone you love struggle is exhausting, and wanting that struggle to end is part of caring about them. In a study of family members caring for a person with dementia, 72% said the death came as a relief to them⁸. Every feeling you have through this, relief included, is okay. If guilt or relief stays with you after your pet is gone, our article on guilt and relief after saying goodbye may help.

Guilt often grows out of how much you’re doing for your pet, which brings us to the second sign.

Caring for a sick pet is real caregiving, and it wears people down. Families tell us about setting alarms through the night for medications, sleeping on the couch or the floor to stay close, and lying awake listening to their pet breathe. Many are afraid to leave the house, or dread going to work in case something happens while they’re gone.

Research backs this up. Owners of a sick dog or cat report more stress, more symptoms of depression and anxiety, and a lower quality of life than owners of healthy pets⁹, and that holds for cat owners as well as dog owners¹⁰. Owners in one study described giving kidney medication every eight hours and losing sleep out of worry¹¹. Owners of aging dogs in another described getting up in the night and staying home as much as possible, just in case¹².

If this sounds like you, you’re carrying a lot, and it makes sense that you’re tired.

All of that watching and worrying often comes with grief of its own, even while your pet is right there beside you.

Many people are surprised to find themselves crying over ordinary things: the leash hanging by the door, the food bowl, the sunny windowsill where their cat spends every afternoon. You might find yourself missing your pet while you’re sitting right next to them, or picturing the house without them.

Some people do the opposite and pull back. We see families stop lying on the floor with their dog, or stop inviting their cat up onto their lap, because being close has started to hurt. If you’ve noticed this in yourself, please be gentle with yourself about it. It’s a way of protecting your heart, and it’s more common than you might think.

Researchers have found the same mix of feelings. In a survey of owners of aging dogs, the people most attached to their dogs felt more of the hard feelings and more of the good ones¹². Sadness and cherishing your pet tend to go together.

Grief like this can be hard for the people around you to see, which is where the last sign comes in.

Anticipatory grief can make you short with the people you love, and it can make you feel very alone. Not everyone understands. A coworker says “it’s just a dog,” or a friend asks why you don’t just get another cat. Grief that other people don’t recognize is sometimes called disenfranchised grief¹³, and owners who feel that society doesn’t take the death of a pet seriously tend to grieve harder after their pet dies¹⁴.

Grief over a pet is real grief. In a UK survey, about 7.5% of people whose hardest loss had been a pet had symptoms of prolonged grief disorder, about the same as people whose hardest loss was a close friend, a sibling or a partner¹⁵.

Families don’t always grieve the same way, either. One person wants to talk about it all the time while another can’t bring it up at all. One is ready to start planning, and another isn’t ready to hear the word euthanasia. Disagreements about timing, on top of the demands of caregiving, can pull at a family¹⁶. If that’s happening in your home, our article on when family members disagree about euthanasia may help.

With all of this going on, many people hope that grieving now will at least make the loss easier when it comes, as if there were only so much grief to go around. Unfortunately, the research doesn’t support that. Grief isn’t a fixed amount that gets used up¹. In studies of people caring for a dying family member, those who grieved most intensely before the death usually had a harder time afterward, not an easier one¹⁷. In a Danish study of more than 2,000 caregivers, severe grief before the death was one of the strongest predictors of complicated grief six months later¹⁸.

What does seem to help is feeling prepared. Caregivers who felt prepared for the death had less depression and complicated grief afterward than those who felt caught off guard^19,​20. Feeling prepared isn’t the same as grieving less. You can be grieving hard and still feel prepared, because being prepared comes from knowing what to expect and having support around you.

No one has studied this in pet owners yet, but having some warning does seem to matter with pets, too. In one study of owners whose pet had been euthanized, a sudden death was linked to more anger, while owners whose pet had been diagnosed with cancer, and had time to see the loss coming, reported less anger and less guilt²¹.

Grieving now won’t spare you the grief that comes later. But the time you have now can help you feel more prepared for it, and that points to where your energy is best spent.

We’re not grief counselors, so the ideas below come from research on people caring for a seriously ill family member, along with the smaller body of research on pet owners. No one has yet tested a support program for owners of sick pets, so we can’t promise any of these will make the grief go away. They may make it easier to carry.

Please don’t feel you need to do all of them. Choose the ones that feel manageable right now.

Things to consider:

• Talk to people you trust – Caregivers with more social support tend to have less anticipatory grief²², and owners of aging dogs who felt supported had a more positive experience caring for them¹². A friend who has lost a pet of their own is often a good place to start.
• Share the caregiving – If someone else in your home can take a medication time or a night, let them. Owners in one study said sharing the care with family eased the load¹¹.
• Ask your vet what to expect – Caregivers say uncertainty is a big part of what leaves them feeling unprepared, and that clear, honest information from the care team helps²³. Ask how your pet’s illness usually progresses, what signs to watch for, and what your options are when the time comes.
• Ask whether the routine can be simpler – Owners with more complicated treatment plans tend to feel more strain²⁴. If giving medications is wearing you or your pet down, ask your vet whether there are easier options.
• Protect your sleep – Caregivers tend to sleep less, and less well, and simple changes to sleep habits have improved caregivers’ sleep in studies²⁵. Even trading off nights with someone else can make a difference.
• Learn about what you’re feeling – Support programs that helped caregivers recognize and understand their grief seemed to be among the most helpful²⁶. Reading about anticipatory grief, as you’re doing now, is part of that.
• Talk to a counselor – Counseling has been shown to ease caregiver stress and low mood²⁷, though there’s less evidence that it changes the grief itself²⁸. You don’t have to wait until your pet has died to talk to someone.

Sometimes those things aren’t enough, and that’s okay, too.

If the grief is making it hard to get through your days, or it feels too heavy to carry on your own, please reach out for more support. A counselor or therapist can help, and so can the free pet loss support lines run by veterinary schools and veterinary associations. They’re staffed by trained volunteers, and you don’t have to wait until your pet has died to call. The Tufts line, for example, also supports people facing a decision about euthanasia.

Pet loss support lines:

• Tufts Pet Loss Support Helpline – (508) 839-7966, Monday through Thursday, 6 to 9 pm Eastern. You can leave a voicemail anytime, and they’ll call you back.
• Cornell Pet Loss Support Hotline – (607) 218-7457, answered by trained veterinary student volunteers. Hours vary through the year.
• Chicago VMA Pet-Loss Helpline – (630) 325-1600. Leave a message and a volunteer will call you back.

If you’re in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, please call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.

You’ll find more support, including books for adults and children, on our pet loss grief resources page.

And you can always talk to us.

Most of what we do for families going through this is simple. We reassure them that what they’re feeling is normal, and we hold space for those feelings. Wherever you are, whether you’re ready to plan every detail or can’t yet bring yourself to say the word, that’s okay with us.

You may need to bring it up yourself. In one survey, nearly three in four owners of senior dogs said their veterinarian had never asked how caring for their dog was affecting them⁵. Please don’t wait to be asked. Tell your vet, or tell us, how you’re doing. You can call or text us just to talk, even if you never use our services.

If you’re starting to think about what the end might look like, our article on creating an end-of-life care plan is a good next step. If you’re considering a goodbye at home, What Happens During In-Home Euthanasia walks through the visit step by step, and our guide to preparing for an in-home euthanasia covers the practical side.

Grieving a pet who’s still here can feel lonely, but it’s one of the most common things we see. If you’ve recognized yourself in this guide, please know that nothing is wrong with you. The grief you’re feeling comes from how much you love your pet.

Take the help that’s offered. Say yes to the friend who wants to sit with you. And try to be as patient with yourself as you are with your pet. Whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s okay.

→ Why the Euthanasia Decision Feels Impossible (And That’s OK)
Why we struggle with this decision and giving yourself permission to choose.

→ When Family Members Disagree About Euthanasia
How to navigate different perspectives and find consensus during an emotional time.

→ Creating an End-of-Life Care Plan for Your Pet
How thinking through your preferences now makes the hardest day easier, and what decisions to consider in advance.

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