Heartbreaking photo shows dog standing at owner's casket
A poignant photograph has captured the moment a loyal family dog stood at the funeral casket of his owner of 13 years.
When Canadian woman Julia Beaulieu’s husband died from a sudden heart attack, she was grieving – but so was Sadie the dog, who stopped eating for 10 days after her owner’s death.
Mrs Beaulieu told Global News Canada that Sadie had also gone into mourning and lost 10 pounds from not eating.
She said when paramedics attended her husband after the heart attack, “she came and she laid with him and pushed at his hand as if to get him to pet her.”
“She was daddy’s girl – she was his and he was hers.”
Mrs Beaulieu decided that Sadie should attend her husband’s funeral.
“She hadn’t eaten since he passed,” he said. “So I thought by letting her see inside the coffin and seeing him there, maybe it was going to give her some closure, as it did for me.”
The funeral company’s CEO took the picture, showing the Border Collie/Dalmation/German Shepherd cross standing at the casket next to Mrs Beaulieu.
The dog, who was adopted by the couple when she was just 13 weeks old, appeared to “relax” afterwards.
“I let her stand up and look and she had almost a look of shock on her face,” Mrs Beaulieu said.
“She … was quite puzzled by it and then she just seemed to relax and just stood there with me.”
The funeral company’s director, Jeremy May, said it was increasingly common for pets to attend family funerals.
