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Drawing from his extensive knowledge of dog behavior, Marc Bekoff examines anecdotes about dogs and death and explains what we can know about our canine companions' understanding of mortality.


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Dogs, Dying, and Death: Science, Stories, and Spirituality
From Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., PsychologyToday.com
July 2025

dog and cemetery gate
Images from Canva


Key points

  • We have to move away from anthropocentric ideas about what dogs know and feel about dying and death.

  • We must take into account how other animals sense their worlds and use this information in different contexts.

  • Differences among members of the same species aren't surprising because they can have different personalities.

  • When we allow science, stories, and spirituality to meet, it will help us learn more about dying and death.

During the past decade or so I've received more than 100 emails and other sorts of queries about what dogs know about their own mortality and that of other dogs, other nonhuman animals, especially their household companions, and humans. I've written a good deal about this and frankly, I don't think that science (aka data) alone has told us much about what they know and feel about dying and death.1 However, if and when we allow science, stories, and spirituality to work together, it will help us learn more about what nonhumans think and feel about dying and death.2

Richie, Ozzie, and Tonia

I'm revisiting this important topic because in the past three months alone I received 17 queries about what dogs might know about dying and death, To begin, many researchers accept that dogs and other animals grieve the loss of others—they miss one another—when they disappear from their lives and loss can include their dying. (Also see Do Dogs Grieve the Loss of a Canine Housemate?)

One recent query from Arianne was based on what her dog, Richie, did when his canine friend, Ozzie, died and when another canine friend, Tonia, had to be rehomed. In both instances, Richie grieved the absence of his friends in the same way: He became restless, lost his appetite, didn't want to play, and "simply moped around until he realized that neither dog was coming home."

So, did Richie know that Ozzie had died and Tonia was alive but had to be rehomed? Not according to Arianne, who knew all three dogs very well. Arianne's story reminded me of what my students and I once observed in wild coyotes when we studied them in the Grand Teton National Park. One day, Mom, the mother of six young pups disappeared, and her children and husband grieved but had no idea if Mom had simply left the pack and was alive or had left the pack and died. After a few weeks, life got back to normal because there were things they had to do to live wild coyote lives. Both Arianne's story and what we observed showed there was no difference in how "surviving" group members or an individual (Ozzie) behaved due to the disappearance of a friend so we feel comfortable that these stories show that death itself wasn't a factor in grieving but doesn't tell us what the survivors really knew.

Was Sadie trying to tell her human companion that Oscar was dying?

Let's consider another story. During a phone call with his father, who told Joseph the following story based on what others witnessed, Joseph learned that Oscar, a senior dog, seemed to be doing very well and went to bed as usual on his pillow downstairs in the house where he lived. As usual, Sadie, Oscar's best canine friend, went to sleep near Oscar and all seemed normal.

Around midnight, Oscar got up and walked to the steps that led upstairs and tried in vain to gain footing. According to Joseph's father and others who lived in the house, Oscar had never done this before. Oscar was sprawled out at the foot of the steps and the noise awoke Sadie and she went over to see what was happening.

Sadie sat with Oscar a few minutes, sniffing his body and whining softly, and then she seemed extremely concerned and flew up the steps and ran directly to the bed where Joseph's father was sleeping.

By the time Joseph's father was able to go down the steps, Oscar had died. Joseph was told, "Sadie was moping around and seemed out of sorts. She knew something was wrong and wouldn't leave Oscar's body."

Coda: What do we know and where to from here?

I wanted to share the stories of Richie, Ozzie, and Tonia, and of Oscar and Sadie, because they're entirely consistent with other stories of which I'm aware. Do I know what was happening with certainty? No, I don't. However, something was happening both for Richie and Ozzie and for Oscar and Sadie and there's no reason to doubt that each knew something "wrong" or "bad" was happening. Perhaps they were sensing a unique death-related odor or were concerned about their friend's immobility and lack of reaction to things that were happening around them. The difference between Ozzie and Tonia's response isn't surprising because dogs and other animals display within-species (intraspecific) differences in personalities. (Also see Wildlife conservation: The importance of individual personality traits and sentience.)

When I told a few people about these stories, some said that surely Richie knew something "bad" was happening to Ozzie and Oscar likewise knew what was happening to Sadie. I agree this could be a possibility and we must keep the door open on what dogs and other animals know and feel about dying and death.

When we get a better understanding of what's happening in their heads and hearts, we can use this information to help them along and do the best they can in troubled times. We need to focus on the sick and dying dog as well as their surviving friends, nonhuman and human.

Science, stories, and spirituality, working hand-in-hand, can help us along in our quest to learn more about what dying and death mean to other animals. Some scientists routinely shy away from or diminish or demean the value of stories and "flaky" appeals to spirituality, but there's no reason for them to do this. NYU philosopher Dale Jamieson and I like to say, "The plural of anecdote is data." This isn't anti-science because science is but one way of knowing and science and spirituality can complement one another.3

Reliable answers to queries about dogs and other animals' conceptions of dying and death should emphasize that while we have to move away from anthropocentric ideas about death and dying and move beyond our own sensory and belief systems, we really don't know all that much from the nonhumans' point of view.

I'm not trying to be a naysayer or party-pooper, but right now I don't think we know all that much about what dogs and other animals truly know, feel, or believe about dying and death. There's still much to learn and it's essential to keep an open mind about different opinions on this incredibly important and interesting subject.

This isn't a cop out but rather a fair assessment of what science, stories, and spirituality currently tell us. We must continue trying to learn more about how other animals sense and feel about their worlds despite the daunting challenges we face.

References

1) Do Dogs Know They're Dying?; Do Dogs Understand When They're Dying?; Animals Know More About Death and Dying Than We Often Assume; What Can Dogs, Coyotes, and Opossums Tell Us about Death?; Dogs, Dying, and Death—and How to Help Them Cope; What Do Animals Know and Feel About Death and Dying?; Rituals and Practices Surrounding Animal Death.

Bekoff, Marc. Dogs Demystified: An A-to-Z Guide to All Things Canine. New World Library, 2023; _____. The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy―and Why They Matter. New World Library, 2024.

2) I'm using the word spirituality to refer to the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than oneself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature. Loosely put, in other words, there's something bigger than oneself or science. (For more discussion click here.) One can also consider that dogs and other animals have spiritual lives that go beyond themselves (See, for example, We're Not the Only Animals Who Feel Grief and Spirituality and Do Animals Have Spiritual Experiences? Yes, They Do.)

3) Franks, Becca et al. Conventional science will not do justice to nonhuman interests: A fresh approach is required. Animal Sentience, 2020; Hogan, Linda, The Radiant Lives of Animals. Beacon Press, 2020; Smuts, Barbara, Becca Franks, Monica Gagliano, and Christine Webb. The Connection We Share: Animal Spirituality and the Science of Sacred Encounters. In Animals and Religion, edited by Dave Aftandilian, Barbara R. Ambros,and Aaron S. Gross, New York, pages 277-288, Routledge, 2024.

About the Author

Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Online: marcbekoff.com, X

Article originally published on PsychologyToday.com:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/202507/dogs-dying-and-death-science-stories-and-spirituality

Posted on All-Creatures.org: December 29, 2025
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