In 2025, healing often arrived on four legs.

For Norm Feigenbaum, 93, it came back home on a leash. When his yellow Lab, Sunny, vanished for nearly two weeks in Los Angeles, the days stretched thin. Sleep slipped away. The apartment felt hollow. When volunteers finally reunited them, Norm’s world steadied again. “Without her, there’s nothing,” he said.

For ten-year-old Kynlee Rogers in Kentucky, healing looked back at her with the same crooked smile. Kynlee was born with a cleft lip. So was Tennessee, the Boston terrier she adopted. They share a birthday, June 4, and a quiet understanding. Tennessee didn’t fix anything—she reflected it. “Tennee is just like her,” Kynlee’s mother, Kimberly Rogers, said. “It just gives her something she can relate to. She’s not alone.”

Other pets helped simply by being ridiculous.

Why Losing an Animal Can Hurt as Much as Losing a Person

For many people, the grief that follows the loss of an animal arrives with unexpected force. The pain can feel overwhelming—sometimes even heavier than the loss of a person—leaving people confused, guilty, or isolated in their mourning. Yet this depth of grief is neither unusual nor misplaced.

Losing an animal hurts deeply because something central to daily life has been disrupted. The bond was real. The loss is real. And the grief deserves to be recognized.

Many people discover this work during moments of loss or burnout, when animals have quietly carried them through.

Every day—in exam rooms, barns, shelters and living rooms—something extraordinary happens—often quietly, sometimes unexpectedly, always profoundly.

A dog steadies a trembling hand. A cat curls into the space grief carved open. A horse mirrors a child’s first tentative steps toward trust. A rescued animal finds safety and, in doing so, restores a person’s hope.

These moments aren’t small. They’re reminders that the human–animal bond isn’t an abstract idea—it’s a living, breathing force that shapes our lives.