When you lose a beloved dog, sometimes the right words can help to make sense of your pain and possibly even ease it. Maybe you need the right words for your dog’s headstone or memorial.

Or possibly you’ve had a friend whose dog has recently passed and you want to find something meaningful to write in a card for them. Whatever your reasons, we’ve compiled 100+ loss of dog quotes right here to help you.

How Loss of Dog Quotes Help You Grieve?

When we lose someone we love, like a beloved furry member of our family, grief can be a difficult process to wade through. At times it can be hard to decipher all of the emotions we experience.

However, other people’s words can help to put those emotions into words and make our grief feel more tangible and manageable.

The loss of dog quotes gathered here are in six different categories. RIP dog quotes, Memorial quotes, Inspirational quotes, Sympathy quotes, Condolence quotes, and Short Dog Quotes for Urns.

Some of these quotes can be used for different purposes and aren’t boxed into the categories we’ve selected, but rather this is a guide.

 1. “Dogs are always good and full of selfless love. They are undiluted vessels of joy who never, ever deserve anything bad that happens to them.” – Steven Rowley

2. “Once you’ve had a wonderful dog, a life without one is a life diminished.” – Dean Koontz

3. “A dog wags his tail with his heart.” – Martin Buxbaum

4. “A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.” -Josh Billings

5. “Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.” – Sigmund Freud

6. “Dogs don’t rationalize. They don’t hold anything against a person. They don’t see the outside of a human but the inside of a human.” – Cesar Millan

7. “Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.”- Roger A. Caras

8. “When an eighty-five pound mammal licks your tears away, then tries to sit on your lap, it’s hard to feel sad.”- Kristan Higgins

9. “The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.”- Ben Hur Lampman

10. “Dogs are miracles with paws.” – Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy

11. “You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.”-Robert Louis Stevenson

12. “…love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” – Kabil Gibran

13. “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” – Saint Francis of Assisi

14. “God’s finger touched him, and he slept.” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

15. “Don’t cry because it’s over, Smile because it happened.” – Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

16. “Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you…I loved you so- ’twas Heaven here with you.” – Isla Paschal Richardson

17. “Those we love don’t go away, They walk beside us every day. Unseen, unheard, but always near, So loved, so missed, so very dear.”-Anon.

18. “Our animal friends teach us more than we could have expected …And love us more than we could have hoped …… That’s why we miss them more than we could have imagined.”-Anon.

19. “Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, filling an emptiness we don’t even know we have.” – Thom Jones

20. “Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.”-John Grogan

Dog Memorial Quotes

Many pet owners will choose to memorialise their beloved dog with a stone or plaque, whether they bury their dog or cremate them. This is a wonderful way to keep their memory alive and honour them.

This section of loss of dog quotes is geared towards helping you find the words to memorialize your dog on their headstone or plaque.

 21. “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

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

23. “Dogs leave paw prints on our hearts” – Author Unknown

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

25. “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

26. “The world would be a nicer place if everyone had the ability to love as unconditionally as a dog.”  – M.K. Clinton

27. “If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.”- Phil Pastoret

28. “You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says,‘Wow, you’re right!I never would’ve thought of that!’”- Dave Barry

29. “A person who has never owned a dog has missed a wonderful part of life.”- Bob Barker

30. “The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.”-Johnny Depp

31. “Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”- Emily Dickinson

32. “A dog will teach you, unconditional love. If you can have that in your life, things won’t be too bad.”-Robert Wagner

33. “To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.”-Aldous Huxley

34. “Dogs leave pawprints on our hearts”-Unknown Author

35. “It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.” – John Grogan

36. “His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears.” ― Elizabeth Barrett

37. “Sorrow is how we learn to love. Your heart isn’t breaking. It hurts because it’s getting larger. The larger it gets, the more love it holds.” ― Rita Mae Brown

38. “Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man, without his vices.” – Lord Byron

39. “Goodbyes are not forever. Goodbyes are not the end. They simply mean I’ll miss you until we meet again!”-Author Unknown

40. “Of all the earthly music, that which reaches farthest into heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart.”- Henry Ward Beecher

Inspirational Loss of Dog Quotes

Sometimes the wisdom in other people’s words, when you are feeling overwhelmed, can help you to sort through your feelings. This section of loss of dog quotes is to help you grieve.

Knowing you aren’t alone in your grief, that other people have been through what you are going through and have understood your pain, can help to ease your pain.

41. “Grief is so painfully real, regardless of its origin. The love of, and attachment to, an animal friend can equal that of human relationships. Likewise, the loss of an animal can be just as devastating.”–Rev. Joel L.

42. “Dogs do not ruin their sleep worrying about how to keep the objects they have, and to obtain the objects they have not. There is nothing of value they have to bequeath except their love and their faith.” –Eugene O’Neill

43. “If I have any beliefs about immortality it is that certain dogs I know will go to heaven and very very few people.” –James Thurber

44. “I think God will have prepared everything for our perfect happiness. If it takes my dog being there in Heaven, I believe he’ll be there”. –Rev. Billy Graham

45. “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

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

47. “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

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

49. “If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.”- Marjorie Garber

50. “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.” By Gene Hill

51. “Dogs’ lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you’re going to lose a dog, and there’s going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can’t support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion.

There’s such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price.”- Dean Koontz

52. “The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.”- Martin Luther

53. “Do dogs understand death? Do they have souls? Do they go to heaven? I have always believed so, but this [event] confirmed that all of God’s creatures, humans and animals, have a soul and that we will all be reunited in heaven.

My pastor once told me, if there are no dogs in heaven I don’t want to go.’ I agree.”- Glenwood McNabb

54. “I believe all animals were created by God to help keep man alive.”- Iwao Fujita

55. “Pets are our seat belts on the emotional roller coaster of life–they can be trusted, they keep us safe, and they sure do smooth out the ride.” ―Nick Trout

56. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”-Winnie The Pooh

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

58. “A rose will still be a rose in heaven, but it’ll smell ten times sweeter.”-Meg Woodson

59. “If a dog has brightened your life and every day silently accepted your tears without judgement snuggled with you forgiven your faults and loved you unconditionally, then you know what a gift dogs are to this world.” ―  Anonymous

60. “He is my other eyes that can see above the clouds; my other ears that hear above the winds. He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea.

He has told me a thousand times over that I am his reason for being; by the way he rests against my leg; by the way he thumps his tail at my smallest smile; by the way he shows his hurt when I leave without taking him. (I think it makes him sick with worry when he is not along to care for me.)

When I am wrong, he is delighted to forgive. When I am angry, he clowns to make me smile. When I am happy, he is joy unbounded. When I am a fool, he ignores it. When I succeed, he brags.

Without him, I am only another man. With him, I am all-powerful. He is loyalty itself. He has taught me the meaning of devotion. With him, I know a secret comfort and a private peace.

He has brought me understanding where before I was ignorant. His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things.

He has promised to wait for me… whenever… wherever – in case I need him. And I expect I will – as I always have. He is just my dog.” – Gene Hill

Sympathy Loss of Dog Quotes

It is often difficult to find the right words to say to a friend or family member when they lose a loved one. Even more so when they’ve lost their canine family member.

The following loss of dog quotes offer words of sympathy that you can add to a card to let your friend or family member know you care about them and their grief.

61. “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” –Mitch Albom

62. “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

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

64. “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

65.“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

66.“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

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

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

69. “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

70. “Dogs’ lives are too short.Their only fault, really.”- Agnes Sligh Turnbull

71.”Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.” -Richard Bach

72. “When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.”- Author Unknown

73. “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” -Emily Dickinson

74. “If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.” -James O’Barr, David J. Schow, and John Shirley – The Crow

75. “Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.” -Robert Louis Stevenson

76. “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

77. “Of all the animals, surely the dog is the only one that really shares our life, helps in our work, and has a place in our recreation. It is the only one that becomes so fond of us that sometimes it cannot go on living after its master dies.”-Ferdinand Mercy

78. “The dog of your boyhood teaches you a great deal about friendship, and love, and death: Old Skip was my brother. They had buried him under our elm tree, they said—yet this wasn’t totally true. For he really lay buried in my heart.” -Willie Morris – My Dog Skip

79. “Dogs die. But dogs live, too. Right up until they die, they live. They live brave, beautiful lives. They protect their families. And love us. And make our lives a little brighter. And they don’t waste time being afraid of tomorrow. “– Dan Gemeinhart

80. “When we think of those companions who travelled by our side down life’s road, let us not say with sadness that they left us behind, but rather say with gentle gratitude that they once were with us.” - Author Unknown

Condolences for Loss of Dog

Finding the rights words to express deep sorrow for your family member or friend that is suffering can be a daunting task. Your heart hurts for them in their loss and you want to express that feeling to them because you understand that if they know how you feel, it may help them to feel a little bit better.

The following loss of dog quotes can help you extend your condolences in a compassionate manner.

81. “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

82. “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

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

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

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

86. “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

87. “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

88. “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

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

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

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

92. “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

93. “Owning a dog always ended with this sadness because dogs just don’t live as long as people do.”- John Grogan

94. “People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from.

Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.”-Ashly Lorenzana

95. “Dogs don’t know about beginnings, and they don’t speculate on matters that occurred before their time. Dogs also don’t know or at least don’t accept the concept of death.

With no concept of beginnings or endings, dogs probably don’t know that for people having a dog as a life companion provides a streak of light between two eternities of darkness.”- Stanley Coren

96. “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

97. “For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God .”Job 12:10

98. “Animals have come to mean so much in our lives. We live in a fragmented and disconnected culture. Politics are ugly, religion is struggling, technology is stressful, and the economy is unfortunate.

What’s one thing that we have in our lives that we can depend on? A dog or a cat loving us unconditionally, every day, very faithfully.” – Jon Katz

99. “We go through the same stages of grief when we lose a pet, and humans often have the same unfinished business with pets as humans, feeling that ‘I could have done more…I was not prepared to lose my best friend.’”

(Reverend Betsy Salunek, as told to Reuters)

100. “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

Short Dog Urn Quotes

101. "The journey of life is sweeter when traveled with a dog." - Bridget Willoughby

102. "There is no death, only a change of worlds.” - Chief Seattle

103. Gone from our sight, but never from our hearts."

104. "No longer by my side, but forever in my heart." 

105. “Barking, playing, an endless run; I’m up in heaven having fun.”

106. “You left pawprints on the hearts of everyone you nuzzled.”

107. “Until the day we meet again on the Rainbow Bridge.”

108. “It’s impossible to forget a dog that gave you so much to remember.”

109. “Forever loyal, forever loved.”

110. "Heaven’s the place where all of the dogs you’ve ever loved come to greet you."

111. "You left pawprints on the hearts of everyone you nuzzled."

112. "You have left my life but you will never leave my heart. I thought of you with love every single day."

113. "Missing your unconditional love and playful paws, we are now apart. You’re gone to another place but we’ll never forget you."

114. “I Loved You Your Whole Life, I’ll Miss You the Rest of Mine”

For your family or friends who may have recently lost a cat, our collection of loss of cat quotes may offer them solace during this difficult time.

Finding Comfort and Connection with the Help of Loss of Dog Quotes

While reading quotes about loss and grief will not erase the pain of losing one’s dog, those words can still help. Whether you’re reading them because you’ve lost your own dog or you’re looking for the right thing to say or write to someone, the writing of other wordsmiths can be extremely helpful.

This list of 100+ loss of dog quotes was gathered to help those who’ve lost their beloved companion to find some peace during their time of grief and to help those who want to help their loved ones work through their grief.