Heartbroken Pet Owners Share Touching Accounts Of How Their Dogs Sensed Their Journey Across The Rainbow Bridge Approaches

"He died from heart failure and left me with a broken heart."

May

• Published in Interesting
• February 27, 2024

It is pretty fascinating how dogs seem to have this sixth sense when it comes to our health. They can pick up on things like cancer, seizures, and even when we're feeling anxious.

People even say they might have a hunch about death, although scientists are still trying to figure out how they process that. It's all because of their incredibly powerful sense of smell.

They can literally sniff out changes in our bodies, like when stress levels spike. They can even detect shifts that happen months before someone passes away.

They seem to know what's coming. When it comes to their own health, they're pretty intuitive, too.

They can tell when they're not feeling well, and they pick up on our stress levels like nobody's business. But unlike us, they don't really dwell on the concept of death.

It's just another part of life for them, with no deep thoughts or emotions attached. In today's post, you'll discover stories from different dog owners, telling how their dogs were able to sense their approaching end.

People began sharing their heartbreaking stories after one user asked this question:

Do dogs know when they are going to die? Are there any signs that suggest they know the end is near?

The dog kept his distance until it was time for him to go.

Our dog, Tiger, did know that 24th November, 2012 was going to be the last day of his life and he tried enjoy it to the fullest. He was 9 years and 6 months old when he got severe infection in his ears and stomach.

His hind legs had also become weak. He could barely walk.

In his last 2 months, he spent most of his time sleeping alone in the garden and never entered the house. He lost interest in food and playing, the two things he loved the most.

He started keeping distance from us.

But one night, when my father approached him for a walk, he showed a lot of energy. He went for a long stroll with my father and was quite peppy.

This made my father believe that he is recovering from infection. He had his dinner and requested for a car ride too.

We thought that he won’t be able to get into the car as his legs were too weak, but to our surprise, he jumped into the car without any trouble. That night, he slept inside the house after 2 months.

At 4 o’clock in the morning, he entered my parents' bedroom and started frantically sniffing my mother to wake her up. As soon as she got up, he laid beside her on the ground and slept forever.

Dog saves man from a perilous situation.

In 1998, I brought home a shelter rescue dog, Jenny, and she turned out to be a once in a lifetime dog. Suffice to say, she was the best…dog… ever.

She passed away in 2008, and it has just been in the last few years I can look at pictures of her without emotionally falling apart. Jenny literally saved my life.

You can read the full story here if you care to.

Dan Birchfield's answer to Has your pet saved you from a perilous situation?

After adopting Jenny, I took some good-natured ribbing and several people in my circle, who loved Forrest Gump, began referring to me as, “Lieutenant Dan.” I didn’t mind.

In November of 2008, Jenny, age 10, was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in her lung. With the vet’s help, we kept her comfortable in her final days.

Toward the end, Jenny would limp over to me, lay down at my feet, and look up at me with a pleading expression. She was in pain, and was ready to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

She was weak, couldn’t keep her balance, and was coughing continually, when one morning while I was shaving, she limped into the bathroom and laid down between my feet and again looked up at me with that pleading expression. I called the vet that day and made the appointment I was so dreading.

That afternoon, I carried Jenny to the car, and we went for a drive. I put all the windows down, and as we meandered a long route through the country to the vet’s office, she kept lifting her tired head and felt the breeze on her face as she always loved to do.

Finally, we reached our destination, and as I carried Jenny into the vet’s office, she went limp in my arms. They rushed her into the examination office, but she had already crossed over.

I wept like I had lost my best friend, which I had. She had, in her own way, been pleading with me to end her suffering, but I wasn’t ready to let her go. I am very thankful that I was holding her close to me as she left this world.

So, in answer to your question; oh yes, dogs let us know when the time has come. We just have to be ready to accept it.

Rest in peace, girl. I miss you so much.

It was like losing a best friend.

I’d say so yes.

My dog had bladder cancer and I could see she was a the stage where she was really starting to struggle.

One night, about 1am, I got out of bed and walked out to the front yard to have a cigarette. All of a sudden I heard a whimpering coming from the back of the house.

I walked to the back yard and she was laying on her bed crying. I covered her with a blanket, laid next to her, put my hand on her and she stopped crying.

For the rest of the night, anytime i’d move my hand away from her, she’d begin to cry again. There was no way she was letting me out of her sight.

For the next 7 hrs I laid with her making sure I was touching her. Her in her bed and me on the ground, keeping her warm and letting her know I was with her.

I thanked her for her years of loyalty, friendship and love. I thanked her for helping me through the tough times when I felt so alone in this world and told her I loved her.

When the morning broke, and I could see her in full light, I could see that look in her eyes almost telling me it was all too much. She’d had her last hours with me, said her goodbye and was ready to go.

At 9.10am, I gently carried her outside and placed her in the passenger seat of my car and we took our last drive together. At 9.30am, with us looking into each others eyes, the vet stuck the needle into her leg, she drew her last breath and I said my last goodbye the best friend i’d ever had.

If only he knew.

One night, I was watching TV, feeling tired and a bit grumpy after a hard day’s work. My good old Watson, who normally quietly slept on the far end of the sofa, came to me and started scratching my leg.

I absentmindedly petted him, but he kept scratching and scratching until I grew tired of it and told him in a stern voice to go sleep in his basket. He obediently did as he was told.

When I went to check on him after the film ended, he was dead, his mouth slightly open and his tongue hanging out. I felt bad, sad, guilty, mortified for not understanding my old beloved friend was trying to get some comfort as he felt sick.

He died from heart failure and left me with a broken heart.

Dog was able to retain his sense of humor even during his final hours.

When I was a teenager my dog, Happy, was my best friend. He got me through those terrible high school years and helped me transition to university and then into the workforce.

Then, when he was ten, he got sick. Despite taking him to every vet I could find and running every test on offer, no one could tell me what was wrong with him.

He lost his energy and the fire behind his eyes, but he still had his sweet, funny personality.

I made him a promise: no matter what happened, I would not have him put to sleep. He would pass away in his own time, on his own terms.

I also asked him one favour: please don’t make me ‘find you.’ I was terrified that one day I would go outside to get him and find that he had died.

Happy was an outside dog, but when he got sick, my parents said he could move inside. But he didn’t want to.

He loved coming inside for visits and to relax on his futon, but he still wanted to live outside. He liked some attention but didn’t want me fussing over him all the time.

He wanted his freedom.

One day I came home from work to find that he was having trouble walking. His steps were slow and laboured, and he was clearly exhausted.

I took him for a short walk, and he made me laugh when he decided to do his business right next to our neighbour’s letterbox. He may have lost his energy, but his sense of humour hadn’t gone anywhere.

That would be his last walk.

I took the day off work the next day, knowing that Happy was running out of time. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I went outside to check on him.

He was lying on his bed, very tired, but still alive. I went back inside to have breakfast, and planned to bring him in the house after breakfast to care for him.

After breakfast, I went back outside to see Happy. I brought Mum with me, partly because I thought I might need some help getting him indoors, but also because I was still constantly afraid of finding him lifeless.

Happy was in the same place he’d been before, still alive. I knelt down next to him, stroking him and talking to him, and then he died.

My hands were on him as he stopped breathing, and I watched as his stomach stopped rising and falling. I felt as his heart stopped beating, and I watched him lift his head slightly then lay it back down for the last time.

I was so thankful to have my Mum there with me. In that utterly surreal moment, she reminded me to tell him that it was okay to go. I did so, and told him that I loved him, and then just sat with him and cried.

Other family members came out, one by one, to see him and pay their final respects, and I stayed with him for the rest of the day. At some stage, someone arranged for a pet crematorium to come and collect his body.

But in the meantime, I had several precious hours to sit with him, talk to him, and make my peace with what had happened. I cut off a curl of hair from the back of his neck, that I used to twirl around my finger when he was alive.

I had the gift of time to make sure I’d have no regrets. I still have that curl of hair in a little purse.

I had heard many times, and had seen in with my parents’ dogs previously, that when dogs know they’re going to die they seek solitude. I understood that dogs will take the opportunity to be alone, and will pass away at the far end of the backyard, or under a tree somewhere.

But my Happy: he did the opposite.

He waited for me. If he had wanted to be alone, he could have died during the night, or in the morning, or while I was having breakfast.

But instead, he waited until I was there with him, because that is what I had asked of him, and because he knew it would break my heart if I found that he had died alone.

Update: To those people who felt the need to “helpfully” comment that it was “selfish” of me to let my dog “suffer” by not having him put to sleep when he first fell sick, I say this:

I firmly believe that animals are more evolved than humans, and have the ability to end their own suffering when the time is right.

Dog dies, searching for her human best friend's warmth.

My sister took care of our dog for first six years of her life. She used to sleep with my sister in her bed.

Then my sister got married, and the responsibility of our dog went to my mom. Although she took care of her as her own child, she never allowed her to sleep with her in the same bed.

She got a sofa for sleeping. I guess for this reason, our dog considered my sister to be her true companion throughout her life.

She lived upto an age of 13, and was healthy till the last day, although she was not agile anymore and could not jump onto beds. Eventually the day came and she started showing signs of laboured breathing.

My mom, being a nurse, realized that the end was near. She stayed awake and took care of her as late as she could, and went to sleep at 3 am.

She expected that our dog would see morning lights.

At 5 am, my mom woke up to check on her, and realized that she had died, hopefully in peace. She managed to jump onto my sisters bed (a thing she never did in past two years) and died sleeping on the bed.

Dog dies in isolation. He probably didn't want his humans to be sad when he crosses the rainbow bridge.

On my 18th birthday, my dog Beau woke up at four in the morning and whimpered at the back door to go outside.

Under my grandma’s blossoming crabapple tree, he laid his massive nose on the ground and he went to sleep in the same place our older dog had just a few years prior.

In a little patch of dirt, where it was quiet and isolated and he could take his final breaths alone.

Our older dog had spent two weeks sleeping outside at all hours of the day under the tree before we took him to the vet to discover he had inoperable cancer and would have to be put down.

Beau too spent a lot of time by himself in his final days. He showed no outward symptoms of sickness— no lethargy, aggression, pain.

Just, isolation. He knew he was getting ready to go. Our 150-pound dog did us a favor by taking himself outside before passing on.

I’ve heard this about a lot of animals, that if they know they’re going to die, they’ll isolate themselves as much as they can from the rest of the family, the rest of the herd.

My dogs did. They knew. I don’t know how they knew and we never found out what Beau died from, but whatever it was, he knew long before we did.

Being with your dog as they near the end is a tender act of love and compassion. Comfort them with gentle touch, soothing words, and familiar scents.

Create a peaceful environment and cherish each moment, honoring the profound bond you share. Let them feel your presence as they approach their life's closing chapter.

May