One of the most tender questions a grieving pet owner can ask. Here is what we know — and what we believe.
After losing a pet, one of the first questions that surfaces — often quietly, late at night — is this: did they know how much I loved them? Did they feel it? Were they sure of it, right up until the end?
It is a question that carries a great deal of weight. And while we cannot know with complete certainty what any animal experiences, science, animal behaviour research, and the testimony of millions of pet owners all point toward the same answer: yes. They knew.
For a long time, science was cautious about attributing emotions to animals. That view has shifted dramatically. Neurobiologist Dr Jaak Panksepp demonstrated that mammals share the same ancient brain structures responsible for emotional experience in humans — the limbic system, including the amygdala and the hypothalamus. Dogs and cats are not experiencing a pale imitation of emotion. They are experiencing emotion.
Research by Dr Gregory Berns at Emory University used MRI scanning to study dogs' brain responses. When dogs were shown the scent of their owner, the caudate nucleus — a region associated with anticipation of things we love — lit up with significant activity. The same region that activates in humans when they see someone they care about deeply.
Oxytocin — often called the “bonding hormone” — is released in both dogs and their owners during eye contact and physical affection. This is the same hormone that binds human parents to their children. The bond between a pet and their owner is not merely habitual or transactional. It is neurochemically real.
“The evidence is now overwhelming that animals experience rich emotional lives — including love, grief, joy, and fear. What they lack is the language to tell us. But language has never been the only measure of feeling.”
— Based on research by animal cognition scientists including Alexandra Horowitz and Marc Bekoff
Pets do not experience love as an abstract concept. They experience it concretely — through routine, through physical presence, through the specific texture of daily life with you. The sound of your voice. The way you stroked their ears. The rituals of feeding and walking and settling in for the evening together.
Dogs in particular are exquisitely sensitive to human emotional states. Studies have shown that dogs can distinguish between happy and angry human faces, that they respond to distress in their owners with comfort-seeking behaviours, and that they show signs of anxiety when separated from people they are bonded to. They are not passive companions. They are emotionally attuned.
Cats, though more often described as “independent,” form deep attachments to their owners. A 2019 study at Oregon State University found that cats display the same secure attachment behaviours as human infants with caregivers — seeking proximity, showing distress at separation, and calming quickly upon return. They know who their person is. And they choose them, every day.
Many veterinarians and pet owners describe a quality of presence in animals near the end of their lives — a particular calm, a stillness, a kind of deliberate closeness. Whether this is awareness of what is coming, or simply the body slowing down, is something we cannot know for certain.
What we do know is that animals near the end of their lives often seek their person. They stay close. They seem to want contact. Whatever they are experiencing, they experience it with you — and that is not nothing. That is, in fact, everything.
They did not need words to know they were loved. They felt it in every day you gave them.
Grief after pet loss often comes tangled with guilt. Regret about decisions made. Moments you wish had gone differently. The fear that, in some way, they did not know how loved they were.
Here is what we gently offer: your pet did not keep a record of imperfect moments. They lived entirely in the present. They knew you by the warmth of your hands, the familiar weight of your presence, the simple fact that you kept showing up for them — day after day, year after year.
The very fact that you are asking “did they know?” is itself evidence of how much you loved them. Animals do not grieve for owners who were indifferent. Your pet was not indifferent to you.
Yes — they knew. Not in the way that needs language or explanation. In the way that matters most: they felt safe with you, they sought you out, they chose to be near you whenever they could. That is love, received and understood. You gave them that. Every day.
Letters From Stars delivers gentle letters written in your pet's voice — a tender reminder that the love between you was always real, and always felt.
Start for Free ✦