Pet Loss in the Workplace: Why Bereavement Leave for Pets Is Growing

Until recently, if your pet died and you needed a day to grieve, you had two options: take a sick day and hope no one asked questions, or come to work anyway and try to hold it together.

That is starting to change. A growing number of companies — from small businesses to major corporations — are now offering bereavement leave specifically for the loss of a pet. And the research on why this matters may be more compelling than you expect.

The Scale of the Problem

The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that there are over 90 million pet dogs and 94 million pet cats in the United States alone. The overwhelming majority of these animals will predecease their owners, and a significant portion of those owners will experience meaningful grief in response.

Research from the University of New Mexico found that the grief response to pet loss is comparable in intensity to grief from human bereavement — with similar patterns of sleep disruption, concentration difficulty, emotional dysregulation, and reduced productivity. A study published in the journal Society and Animals found that many pet owners meet the clinical criteria for complicated grief following the loss of an animal companion.

And yet, until recently, almost no workplaces formally acknowledged this.

Why It Affects Work Performance

Grief affects cognitive function in measurable ways. Research on bereavement consistently shows reductions in concentration, working memory, and decision-making capacity in the weeks following a significant loss. Sleep disruption — common in acute grief — compounds these effects.

For pet owners, the disruption can be particularly significant in the immediate period surrounding the death: the anticipatory grief of a terminal diagnosis, the logistical demands of euthanasia appointments and aftercare arrangements, and the acute grief of the first days afterward.

Asking someone to perform at full capacity through this experience — without acknowledgment, without flexibility — is asking something that the science suggests is genuinely difficult.

The Companies Leading the Way

A number of major companies have introduced pet bereavement policies in recent years. Mars Petcare, the animal nutrition company, offers employees paid leave following the loss of a pet. Kimpton Hotels has offered pet bereavement leave since 2016. A growing number of smaller companies, particularly in the tech sector, have followed.

The typical policy offers one to three days of paid leave for the loss of a pet. Some companies extend this to cover the loss of any animal that was part of the household.

The Argument for Formalization

Beyond productivity, there is a simpler argument: acknowledgment matters. The research on grief consistently shows that disenfranchised grief — grief that is not socially recognized — is harder to process than grief that receives formal acknowledgment.

When a workplace formally recognizes pet loss as a legitimate reason for bereavement leave, it communicates something important to employees: your grief is real, and you do not have to hide it here. That communication has value that extends beyond the specific days taken.

For people who live alone, whose pets are their primary daily companionship, the loss of an animal can be genuinely destabilizing in ways that rival any bereavement. Treating this with the same seriousness that human bereavement receives is not sentimentality — it is an evidence-based response to a documented human experience.

What This Means for Pet Owners

If you've recently lost a pet and are struggling at work, know that what you're experiencing is real and documented. You are not being dramatic. You are grieving, and grief affects performance in ways that are not a character failing.

If your workplace does not have a formal pet bereavement policy, consider speaking with HR about your needs. Many managers, when approached directly and honestly, are more understanding than the formal absence of a policy might suggest.

And if you are in a position to influence workplace policy, the research supports making the case. The cost of one to three days of paid leave is modest. The message it sends to employees is not.

At Ashes to Artworks, we work with grieving pet owners who are often in the middle of this experience — navigating loss alongside work and family and all the other demands that don't pause for grief. We see firsthand how significant this is. And we believe that honoring that significance — at work, at home, in the ways we choose to memorialize — is not only meaningful but necessary.



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