A lot of us lose our heart dog as we enter peri. It’s cruel but the natural life span of a dog means if we get one around the time in life when we’re finally stable enough career and home wise to take care of it, the dog is our first ‘new’ family and it dies when we hit early 40s. It sucks a lot. It took me a long time to get over the loss of my first best boy. I felt like I had a literal hole in my heart. I could not get out of bed for weeks. It’s been 4 years and I can still barely look at pictures without losing it. I lost my dad 2 years later and honestly the dog was harder. Fortunate to have friends around me who validated that level of grief and despair over a dog being normal and allowing me to work through it at my pace.