At some point somebody has to say something. It might be a few lines at the bottom of the garden, or a card for a colleague whose cat died at the weekend, or nothing more than a reply to a text you've been staring at for a day. These pages are about finding those words. Where they quote anybody, the quotation is attributed and the copyright checked, which is why some of the best-known lines about pet loss appear here as a name and a link, not a block of borrowed text.
The reading, in order
- Writing a pet eulogy: A simple five-part shape for a eulogy, with examples for a dog, a cat and a pet who died suddenly.
- Poems worth reading: Whole poems you can read aloud or copy into a card, each with its author and what the copyright allows.
- Quotes, checked and attributed: Short lines for a card or a headstone, every one traced to the book or poem it came from.
- The misattributed quotes: The famous lines with the wrong name on them, who really wrote each one, and how to check a quote yourself.
- What to write in a card: Lines you can use in a card, sorted by situation, and the one thing that makes any message land.
- What to say out loud: What to say to a friend face to face or by text, and the well-meant things that land badly.
What these pages keep concluding
Read all five and the same thing keeps happening. The borrowed line is what people reach for and the specific detail is what works: the third stair, the tennis ball carried for nine years, the cat who sat on the warm bonnet and would not be moved. A poem says something true about loss in general and can't say any of that. So most of these pages end up pointing the same way, at whatever you can write, or keep, that is about your animal and no other one.
If you only have time for one
For a card that has to go in the post today, start with what to write in a card: it has lines sorted by situation that you can copy or change. If you have been asked to say a few words, the eulogy guide gives a simple shape that takes away the blank page. And if the words are for a friend standing in front of you, what to say out loud is the shortest page here, because the answer is short: say the pet’s name, and offer to do something you will actually do.
Every quotation on these pages names the person who wrote it. Where a famous line carries the wrong name, the misattributed quotes says who really wrote it, so nothing untrue ends up in a card or on a stone.
And after that
The stage that follows this one is remembering: Ashes, a stone, a garden, a keepsake. Practical choices, and what each costs.