How to talk to your kids when a family pet dies

As a communications professional familiar with crisis work, Nicole Yelland is used to having difficult conversations, but it didn't make explaining to her children that their dog was dying any easier.

"I agonized for days on what to say," she said. "Our dog Coach was our daughter's first word."

While large-scale data doesn't exist, small surveys suggest that nearly 80% of children first encounter death when a pet dies, according to Gail Melson, a child development expert and psychologist who has spent decades studying relationships between children and pets. The close bond children often have with a pet makes the loss profound, and, depending on the age - children younger than 4 often have trouble understanding the finality and irreversibility of death, said Melson.

Yet, pet grief remains one of the most under-supported forms of mourning.

It's not typical to receive bereavement leave or casseroles from neighbors when a pet dies, but experts say the way families handle it has consequences that can last a lifetime.

"Early childhood experiences with pet loss, where it's often a child's first close connection to grief, help develop a lifelong healthy relationship with uncomfortable yet very human emotions," said Eric Richman, MSW, LICSW, a clinical social worker at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

Pet illness and death, he adds, also teach children about kindness, love and compassion - toward animals, other people and themselves.

The biggest mistake parents make, grief experts say, is rooted in their own discomfort.

"Many parents are uncomfortable with thoughts, feelings and communication about death, dying and loss," Richman said. "This is common in a culture that tends to be death-avoidant."

That avoidance shows up on a spectrum - from simply not knowing how to talk about a pet's death, to telling a child that Fluffy was sent to a farm to live out her days.

Language matters. Well-meaning phrases like "put to sleep" can lead a young child to associate sleep with disappearing, and cause sleep disturbances. "In a better place" can feel abstract and dismissive. And "don't cry" teaches children precisely the opposite of what grief requires.

"Tears are language, and a very appropriate way to express oneself," Richman said.

Yelland, who had days to prepare, chose her words to her 4 year old and toddler carefully.

"I came to this: ‘Coach is the best dog, and we always want her to feel good. She hurts really badly and has a disease that won't let her feel happy or good. We are going to say goodbye to her this morning because mommy and daddy are going to take her to the vet to die so she doesn't have to hurt anymore,'" Yelland recalled. "My sweet girl looked up at me and said, 'I'm gonna miss her,' gave Coach a squeeze, and hopped off the couch."

It's worth noting that children don't grieve the same way adults do.

A child who seems unbothered in the days after a pet dies isn't necessarily suppressing - they may simply be processing it in smaller doses.

Richman described it as taking a bite out of an apple, putting it down to play at the playground, then coming back later to take another bite while watching a cartoon. The grief is real; the rhythm is just different.

"Children express themselves through play and drawing," Richman said, echoing the work of grief researcher Alan Wolfelt, PhD, who has written extensively on children and pet loss and emphasizes paying attention not just to what children say, but to their non-verbal behavior. A child may seem fine at dinner and bring it up at bedtime, or revisit it weeks later, out of the blue.

Parents can help by keeping the door open without forcing it. A simple "Sometimes I feel sad when I think about her - you can always come to me if you have feelings about it too" creates an invitation without pressure.

For children who aren't expressing grief verbally at all, Richman noted that workbooks using pictures and storytelling can help give feelings somewhere to go, even before a child has words for them. Factors like age, developmental level and neurodiversity all shape how a child processes loss; there is no single right way to grieve, and no timeline to impose.

What many families find, almost instinctively, is that ritual helps. After our dog died when my child was just about four, I filled a jar two-thirds full of water and, with pieces of broken glass, put it on our entranceway table and told my child she should shake it whenever she was thinking of her. Eventually, the glass would turn smooth, like the sea glass we'd find when we took walks on the beach with our dog. That jar became a touchstone, something physical to reach for when words fell short.

Joellen Russell, a climate scientist and mother of two, planted a tree in her backyard when each of her dogs died.

"The kids can come out and see how big the tree is and remember," she said.

Her family lost their dog, Maddie, when her children were 8 and 12.

"Ultimately, the loss of a pet helps kids understand that we only get to keep our loved ones for so long," Russell said. "I think it helps my kids think ahead and meditate on kindness. Because you want to be good to your dog now. You don't know how long you get to keep them."

At Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, Richman and his colleagues have formalized that impulse into care bags distributed to children and teens who experience pet loss at their hospitals. Each bag - tailored by age, from young children through young adults - contains a stuffed animal, a book about pet loss, a small gift, and written guidance for parents.

It's a small but telling detail: even a veterinary hospital understands that when a pet dies, the children in the family need tending to as well.

The goal of all of it, whether a jar of sea glass or a sapling in the backyard, is the same: to give grief somewhere to live, to show children that loss doesn't have to be faced alone or in silence, and that love is worth the grief.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to talk to your kids when a family pet dies

Reporting by Bridget Shirvell / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

This story was originally published July 9, 2026 at 4:30 AM.