Carrying the Weight of Loss as a Pet Photographer
It's been a struggle to sit down and write this one.
In the time that led up to this post, I said goodbye to two long-term foster dogs — Astro and Miller — and to my own dog Bella. I also knew it was nearing time to let Charlie, our current hospice foster, pass on as his cancer progressed.
As someone who has run a rescue that specializes in medically fragile and senior animals — I know this is what we sign up for. The antique barrister’s bookcase in the dogs’s room holds memorial urns, collars, photographs, and small mementos from fifteen years of heartbreak. Every item in there was a life that mattered.
As a pet photographer, I have had the chance to help many pet parents prepare for losing their animals. In this post I want to try to share some of what I've learned about carrying that weight.
Both of These Are Normal
Sometimes I process a loss by doing everything.
I come home from the vet and I clean — frantically, completely. I pull everything out of the kitchen cabinets, scour the insides, purge the plastic containers, reorganize the pots and pans. If I can just keep moving, if I can just control how the snacks are sorted, maybe I can make this all make sense.
It never makes sense. Whether the loss was sudden and unexpected or a slow march alongside disease, losing an animal that has only ever loved us doesn't make sense. It shouldn't.
Other losses leave me sitting dazed in my chair while soda cans and cold mugs pile up on the side table. I can't feel, can't move, can't do anything further than bodily function requires. If everything will just stop for a moment, maybe this won't be real.
Both of these are completely normal. There is no right way to grieve, and allowing yourself to do whatever you need to do is the only way through.
Grief Cannot Be Fixed. It Can Only Be Carried.
After I lost Ginger — my 30-year companion, my horse — I came across the work of grief therapist Megan Devine. The concept that has stayed with me most is this: you don't "get over" a loss. You learn to keep living with a hole in your heart. The wound scabs over, but it doesn't disappear.
And that wound can rip back open unexpectedly — months or years later.
You spot a husky puppy in the basket of a bicycle and the markings are so close to Bella's that your chest twists. Your new puppy jumps up on the dishwasher door the way Ryder used to, and you sit right down on the cold kitchen tile and scroll through your camera roll until you find the photo that confirms it really happened, that you really were loved like that.
You're not crazy. You're just someone who loved.
Grief and Photographs
The first thing I often do when I'm grieving is look for photos.
Every image calls back a specific memory. Snapshots from my phone bring back funny moments and small stories. Professional photographs bring back how it felt to set aside that particular time, just for us — to say this matters enough to document.
As a photographer, I encourage you to schedule a session for your dog. And as someone who has lost dogs and horses and fosters — I also encourage you to be in the photographs.
It doesn't matter if you need to lose weight, or if you haven't had a haircut, or if you're wearing the wrong thing. When you look back at these images, you won't see any of that. You'll see the way you looked at each other. You'll see the specific, unrepeatable love that existed between you. And it will be enough to help you shoulder the weight and keep going.
If you've made it this far — thank you.
Pet loss isn't an easy topic. Being loved by an animal is an incredible gift. Carrying the loss is the price we've paid, over and over, and I'd pay it again every time.
→ Read next: