In a previous post, I talked a little about whether animals feel grief towards each other when one of their own dies. This raises another possibility -- we all know that we humans grieve the loss of our animal companions, but do our animal companions grieve us when we pass on from this world first? I present a few stories culled from the web that seemingly demonstrate that animals feel sadness from the loss of their human companions.
First, a 2016 story about a cat in Central Java, Indonesia, who apparently misses her dead owner so much that she had spent over a year at the grave of the woman she loved the most. Even though a kind passer-by tried to give the feline a new home, she kept returning to the graveside:
The second story relates to a 34 year-old cowboy from Paraguay, Wagner Lima. Lima was killed in a motorcycle crash in Brazil on New Year's Day, 2017. During the funeral procession, Lima's horse, Sereno, was heard whimpering, and even at one point put his head on Lima's casket:
Finally, there's a YouTube video of dogs that appear to be grieving the loss of their owners:
Some people have provided alternate explanations for some of these stories, that the animals in question are not really grieving but are exhibiting other behaviors. Still, it's interesting to ponder the possibility that animals may miss their human companions in a similar way that we miss them when they take leave of this world.
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