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“I Saw Her With My Heart”: Supernatural

Experiences and Continuing Bonds After the Death
of a Dog

Jennifer Golbeck

To cite this article: Jennifer Golbeck (25 Mar 2024): “I Saw Her With My Heart”: Supernatural
Experiences and Continuing Bonds After the Death of a Dog, Anthrozoös, DOI:
10.1080/08927936.2024.2327174

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2024.2327174

Published online: 25 Mar 2024.

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ANTHROZOÖS
https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2024.2327174

“I Saw Her With My Heart”: Supernatural Experiences and

Continuing Bonds After the Death of a Dog
Jennifer Golbeck
College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Experiencing the ghosts of the departed is a common, cross- Dogs; grief; human–animal
cultural experience of grief; such interactions are part of so-called interaction; supernatural
externalized continuing bonds and represent an ongoing
relationship with the departed. This paper characterizes people’s
reported supernatural experiences with the spirits of their
deceased dogs and analyzes them in the context of bereavement,
externalized continuing bonds, and disenfranchised grief. Using a
thematic analysis, 544 candid online comments from social media
where people shared their supernatural experiences were studied.
These comments fell into two major themes with six subthemes:
physical experiences (hearing, seeing, and touching the ghost of
a dog) and interpreted experiences (seeing signs in nature,
receiving visits from the deceased dog in dreams, and attributing
feelings and phenomena to the spirit of the dog). How people
described the feelings associated with these supernatural visits
were also studied; three themes were found: Positive Feelings,
Mixed to Sad Feelings, and Messages. The vast majority of
reported feelings (74.6%) were positive, bringing people comfort,
reassurance, and a sense of protection. While psychology largely
characterizes externalized continuing bonds – particularly seeing
ghosts – as negative and even maladaptive, this is in conflict with
the findings. These supernatural experiences may serve a
different role for grieving dog guardians. Given that
disenfranchised grief is common due to the lack of cultural
support for people mourning their dogs, and grief over
companion animals is often complicated by guilt, these
supernatural experiences may serve as an important source of
comfort and a way for the bereaved to engage with loss.

The vast majority of dog guardians (85%) consider their dogs to be members of the family
or a best friend (Geller, 2002). After a dog’s death, humans experience loss and grief in
much the same way as they do for other close friends and family (Archer & Winchester,
1994; Cohen, 2002; Compitus, 2019), and that grief can be profound (Gosse & Barnes,
1994; Sharkin & Knox, 2003). The typical grieving period lasts from six months to a
year, with an average of 10 months (Wrobel & Dye, 2003). The grief begins to abate
after around six months, with a decline in symptoms like crying, guilt, and anger. Still,

CONTACT Jennifer Golbeck jgolbeck@umd.edu College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College
Park, MD 20742, USA
© 2024 International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ)
2 J. GOLBECK

after one year, approximately 22% of people still have some symptoms of grief. Because
society does not often validate grief over the loss of a pet, this can lead to disenfranchised
grief (Doka, 1999): grief that is not acknowledged as valid by social norms. The disen­
franchisement of grief among people mourning dogs is well established in the literature
(Cordaro, 2012; Hughes & Lewis Harkin, 2022; Packman et al., 2014; Park et al., 2023; Spain
et al., 2019).
So called “sensory experiences with the deceased” – feeling, seeing, or sensing ghosts –
is a fairly standard experience after loss. These will be referred to as “supernatural experi­
ences” throughout the paper. In their review, Kamp et al. (2020) report that they happen
in all age groups, across cultures, regardless of the type of death or the relationship with
the deceased.
These experiences are understood by psychologists as one type of externalized conti­
nuing bonds. Continuing bonds (CB) are an ongoing relationship the living have with
the dead (Eisma & Nguyen, 2023; Klass et al., 1996). They take the forms of perceptions,
beliefs, hallucinations, and experiences. For example, visiting the grave of a deceased
loved one, celebrating their birthday, talking to them, or seeing them in a dream, are
all types of CB. Field and Filanosky (2009) separate CB into externalized and internalized
types. Externalized CB include experiences of the dead in the world of the living, including
feeling the spirit of the departed and “illusions and hallucinations” (like seeing ghosts),
while internalized CB encompass reflection and contemplation.
CB are not restricted to grief over human loss; they have been documented between
people and their companion animals (Habarth et al., 2017). However, these studies gen­
erally have not considered supernatural interactions with companion animals as a CB
experience, even though this is widely studied in the loss of human companions.
Packman et al. (2011) surveyed 33 grieving companion-animal guardians in a study of
CB, and noted 48% sensed the presence of the deceased, 39% experienced “intrusion”
(mistaking other sounds or sights for deceased), and 52% had dreams of the deceased
– all externalized CB that could correspond to self-identified supernatural experiences.
However, they did not specifically address these supernatural elements in their analysis
of the impact of CB on mourners.
This reveals an open space in the literature. Supernatural experiences have been
studied in grief and grief has been well-studied in dog guardians, yet there is almost
no research on supernatural experiences among grieving dog guardians. Ghostly experi­
ences are sometimes mentioned as part of a broader discussion of externalized CB but are
not addressed directly. One small study of 11 Reddit posts (Knox, 2018) suggests that
reports of ghostly visits from companion animals are similar to those of human loved
ones. The goal of the present study was to take a deeper look at these experiences,
their characteristics, and their meaning to those who experience them.
A thematic analysis of 544 social media comments from dog guardians about their
supernatural experiences after the loss of a companion animal was conducted. The experi­
ences fell into two major themes with six subthemes: physical experiences (hearing,
seeing, and touching the ghost of a dog) and interpreted experiences (seeing signs in
nature, receiving visits from the deceased dog in dreams, and attributing feelings and
phenomena to the deceased dog). The emotional responses to these supernatural
encounters were also analyzed, and nearly 75% were considered positive. I will discuss
 ANTHROZOÖS 3

what these themes tell us about the grief of dog guardians and argue that, given the lack
of cultural support for people mourning their companion animals, these supernatural
experiences are an important source of comfort and a way for the bereaved to engage
with accepted cultural grieving experiences.

Methods
For this study, a thematic analysis of social media posts collected as part of a
student project in a supernatural anthropology class was conducted. The posts that
comprise this dataset were collected from Twitter and Instagram in response to the
prompt: “If you’ve lost a dog, have you had an experience like seeing their ghost, receiving
a sign, did they communicate with you?” The post was made on July 19, 2023 and data
were collected for seven days. This time point coincided with a natural drop off in
responses. Because this research does not study the social media users who replied,
and the original post was not intended as a research project, the Maryland University
IRB determined this research was Not Human Subjects research and approved the
analysis.
After filtering out replies that were not stories about supernatural events or dogs, 544
stories remained. A thematic analysis of the replies to this post (Braun & Clarke, 2012) was
conducted. This began with becoming familiar with the replies, reading all, and taking
notes. From that, we created codes, identifying important ideas, feelings, and experiences
in the text. The coding was separated into two categories: the type of supernatural experi­
ence (e.g., seeing the ghost of a dog, seeing a sign in nature, being visited by the spirit of a
dog in a dream) and the emotional response (e.g., creepy, comforting) The codes were
condensed into themes and subthemes, after which they went through a round of struc­
tural coding, applying the themes to the replies (Saldaña, 2021). I conducted the analysis,
theme development, and coding. The codebook and themes were reviewed by two col­
leagues before structural coding. After discussion and refinement, there was 100% agree­
ment on the themes and codebook descriptions.

Results
Reported supernatural experiences fell into two themes and six sub-themes: Physical
Interactions, which include hearing the sounds of a ghost dog, seeing the ghost of a
dog, and sensations of physical touch; and Interpreted Interactions, which include
phantom interactions, dream visitations, and seeing signs from their dogs in nature.
The Physical Interactions include an actual sensory experience of the spirit of the dead.
Interpreted Interactions do not involve direct perception of the ghost; rather, they
include interpreting events or thoughts as something that comes from the dog’s spirit.
Codes and themes are shown in Figure 1.
Some people reported multiple types of interactions (e.g., seeing the ghost of their dog
and also feeling like they saw a sign in nature). In these cases, each interaction was coded
individually, so some posts had multiple codes. Figure 2 shows the distribution of themes
and subthemes. Physical Interactions were 54.4% of coded experiences (n = 315); Inter­
preted Interactions were 45.6% (n = 264).
4 J. GOLBECK

Figure 1. Themes, subthemes (in blue on top) and codes (in green on the lower layers) from the the­
matic analysis of social media posts.

Experience Theme 1: Physical Interaction

This theme describes physical experiences of the ghost of a departed dog. It includes
feeling the touch of the dog (e.g., feeling the dog lying in the bed with them or feeling
their nose touch them); seeing the ghost of the dog (e.g., looking down and seeing the

Figure 2. Distribution of themes. Orange wedges with dots indicate physical interactions and solid
green indicate interpreted interactions.
 ANTHROZOÖS 5

dog curled up in their usual spot or seeing them walk down the hall); and hearing dog
sounds, like the jingle of their collar or their nails tapping on the floor as they walk:
I’ve heard my late pup bark from his chair in my office. Clear as day; I know it was him.

This was me with Hopper – I saw her sleeping next to our bed in the dark. I had to miss step­
ping on her. I guess I was seeing her with my heart.

The morning after our Rose, 15.5 year old Golden, passed, I walked out to living room. I saw
her curled up on the floor next to the couch; where she would sleep near the end. Then, after
5–7 seconds, she slowly faded. I firmly believe she was letting me know she was ok.

Malkin died in 2016. My other dog, Beans, died in 2017. For 3 months, I had no dogs. But I’d
hear tags jingling & the specific cadence of Malkin walking around. I’d sometimes see his
giant shadow on the wall.

The night after my Mum’s dog, who we kinda shared, I “felt” her jump on my bed, walk up it &
settle her weight half on me as she’d done 100s of times before. I just kept my eyes closed,
knowing it was both impossible and real.

We lost our boy, Odin Jan 2022, and there have many times I have literally felt him laying beside
me exactly how he used to when he was alive. I also have moments where I have literally felt
him laying beside me in his favorite spots. It’s very weird, but it’s also very comforting.

These physical experiences are a type of externalized CB – experiences with the dead in
the world of the living.
These are the types of interactions that the CB grief literature refers to as “illusions” or
“hallucinations.” Many posts seemed to anticipate this characterization that the experi­
ence was not actually real. In the examples above, we can see “I know it was him,” “I
guess I was seeing her with my heart,” “ … knowing it was both impossible and real.”
Such disclaimers or assertions were common in these types of posts.
Field and Filanosky (2009) explain that externalized CB, which include supernatural
interactions, are “most often reported in situations involving reduced sensory stimulation,
such as when lying in bed at night.” Experiences in bed were one of the most common
supernatural experiences reported in the present study. Of the 315 Physical Interactions,
45 (14.3%) were people feeling their dog lying in bed with them, and 140 (44.4%)
occurred at night and/or in bed.

Experience Theme 2: Interpreted Interactions

This theme encompasses interactions where people interpreted events as being related
to the spirit of their dog. These include visitations in dreams, seeing signs in nature
(like rainbows), feeling the presence of the dog, or attributing phenomena – like
objects moving or a living companion animal acting a certain way – to the spirit of the
deceased dog. These were not classified as physical interactions with the other ghost
experiences because of the difference in experience. With Physical Interactions, people
saw, heard, or touched the ghost directly. In the Interpreted Interactions – Ghostly Activity
subtheme, people were attributing feelings or phenomena to the dog without directly
witnessing the ghost. In other subthemes, people were interpreting feelings or events
as related to the spirit of their dog, but the ghost was not present:
6 J. GOLBECK

My dog Randi has come to visit me a few times in my dreams. I don’t know how to explain the
difference between me dreaming about someone and them visiting me in my dreams. I just know.

When we lost our Ellie, a week to the day after she passed, at the exact time of her passing,
the smoke detector in our spare bedroom (her favorite place to relax) started beeping.

My Reece a rescued boxer passed on June 6 and later that day I found an imprint of a paw by
the fridge door. Wasn’t there before.

Hubby picked up the remains of our dog Lucy. I was in Ohio for a family vacation. I was crying
when he told me he had picked her up, and looked up to see this amazing rainbow. He saw a
rainbow walking our other dog that night. She let us know she was OTRB[Over The Rainbow
Bridge] and she was OK.

These Interpreted Interactions could be a mix of externalized and internalized CB, depend­
ing on people’s experience and interpretation of them. Feeling the presence of the spirit
of a dog of believing that the dog is manipulating items or haunting a place would be
considered externalized CB. The Ghostly Activity subtheme accounted for 20.0% (n =
53) of the Interpreted Interactions. Dreams can function as internalized or externalized
CB (Black et al., 2021). Those that are reflections or memories of the deceased could be
internalized CB. However, since these were reported as supernatural experiences or com­
munications with their dogs who had died, they could be considered externalized CB.

Significance Themes
People also offered explanations of the significance of these events to them. Of the 544
responses, 134 had some explicit description of the way it made the person feel. Thematic
analysis was again used to code the feelings from each experience.
Three major significance themes were identified: Positive Feelings, reflecting belief that
the supernatural experience was a comfort, a message of reassurance, an act of protec­
tion, or a gift; Mixed to Sad Feelings, which captured bittersweet, heartbreaking, and
spooky feelings; and Messages, where people said they felt the spirit of their dog was vis­
iting to say hello, to say goodbye, or to check in on them. Figure 3 shows the distribution
of themes and subthemes.
Examples of Positive Feelings include the following (emphasis added):
I hear mine at night – their different shakes and noises they’ve always made when going to
bed. It gives me comfort.

It wasn’t a dog, but I heard my cat, Tyson, in another room after he passed. Several times. I
hope it was him saying he’s okay now.

When Pottsie passed away, I saw him. I had waited a few months before getting a new
pupper, and one night MacKinley woke me up growling. He was facing out of the
bedroom towards the living room. I looked out and saw Pottsie with my house ghost
hanging out together. I told Mac, “don’t worry Mac, it’s only Pottsie watching over us.”

Examples of Mixed to Negative Sad feelings include:

I saw/ felt my dog rush past the armchair I was sitting in to go outside … only the door by the
chair was closed and my dog was dead. For sure just a physical memory of my dog doing that
action so many times, but it felt spooky.
 ANTHROZOÖS 7

Figure 3. Experiences with supernatural experiences. Positive are shown in solid blue, Mixed to Sad in
orange with dots, and Messages in green crosshatch.

I lost my golden in February this year, for months now I’ve been dreaming about her and I’ve
woken up super sad because it felt so real and I had to realize she isn’t here anymore, it felt
like I had my heart broken every morning. but I decided to do some research on what it
could mean and the first thing I read was that dogs who pass usually visit us in our dreams.

For about 10 yrs after my first dog died, he kept visiting me in my dreams, crossing back from
the great beyond to just stay with me a while. In the dreams, it used to break my heart
because I knew he’d have to go again each time.

Examples of Messages include:

I lost my best friend in March. I’ve dreamt about him almost every night since then. Even in
dreams where he wasn’t a key figure he’ll be there and say hi to me. I’m not religious but I like
to think it’s him saying hi and making sure I’m ok (I’m not, but I will be).

We had to put our 13 y/o golden to sleep last September. I was heartbroken and still am. I
couldn’t have her suffer any longer. When I got home I had the most beautiful monarch
butterfly approach me and then lift off. I know it was her saying goodbye.

My old dog Muzzy came to me in a dream a few years ago, I could feel his fur under my hand
and it felt so real! I have his collar on my bedside table and I think he came to check up on
me.

The majority of experiences were Positive Feelings, representing 74.6% (n = 103) of

responses. Mixed to Sad Feelings were 8.7% (n = 12), and Messages were 16.7% (n = 23).
The role of guilt should be considered in these feelings. Hughes and Lewis Harkin
(2022) found that externalized CB were positively associated with the feeling of respon­
sibility for the death. More than humans, responsibility for death is especially prominent
8 J. GOLBECK

for dog guardians. Nearly 80% of dogs die from euthanasia (Lewis et al., 2018), a choice
that their humans must make for them. There is rarely a perfect time to make this decision.
Even when euthanasia is the clear, correct choice, people often feel like they could have
done more to prevent the illness or accident that took their dogs’ lives, adding an
additional layer of responsibility (Davis et al., 2003; Golbeck & Colino, 2023). This respon­
sibility for the death of a dog may explain why the majority of supernatural experiences in
the present study were physical experiences, which map to externalized CB. Furthermore,
we see Reassurance accounting for 25% of reported feelings, and all of the Messages –
where a dog is checking in with the guardian – have a reassuring aspect to them.
These types of messages serve a clearer purpose when considered in the context of
guilt complicating the grieving process.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to understand the range of supernatural experiences
people have after the loss of a dog, what the subjective feelings of those experiences
are, and what that says about the grief process. In psychological studies of grief, superna­
tural experiences are considered externalized CB, and the vast majority of research on this
topic focuses on these as intrusive, negative, and maladaptive. These results show that
bereaved dog guardians experience a wide range of supernatural encounters with their
dogs and that they are considered positive by the vast majority. These results also high­
light a conflict between common descriptions of and results on externalized CB and the
experiences of bereaved dog guardians.
Externalized CB are largely considered to be negative. These connections are often
described as “intrusive,” where people are involuntarily reminded of the deceased
(Black et al., 2022). In fact, Black et al. (2022) explicitly argue that the internalized CB
tend to comfort people while externalized CB distress them: “ … given that internalized
bonds tend to be comforting and externalized bonds tend to be distressing … ” Externa­
lized CB are also linked to decreased posttraumatic growth. Paranormal experiences, like
seeing ghosts, are common in grief and a well-defined externalized CB. However, despite
the arguments in the literature – almost to the point of being definitional – that these are
distressing, unhelpful experiences, the results in the present study oppose this. Visitations
from the dead need not be distressing; the meaning of such interactions vary across cul­
tures and between individuals.
The vast majority of the memorates people shared had a tone of comfort and grati­
tude, occasionally mixed with sadness. Overall, 74.6% of these supernatural experiences
were considered positive. Within the Physical Interaction theme – representing the clear­
est, physical interactions with the supernatural – 77.0% of reported feelings about the
interaction were positive, and only 9.8% were Mixed to Negative (bittersweet, heartbreak­
ing, or spooky). Overwhelmingly, people considered their supernatural experiences with
their deceased dogs to be comforting or reassuring. The one other existing small study on
paranormal experiences after companion animal death also suggests that visitations from
“revenant pets” are a source of comfort to their guardians (Knox, 2018). Studies on end-of-
life visions also support the idea that visitations from the spirits of deceased pets can
bring comfort (Levy et al., 2020; Nosek et al., 2015).
 ANTHROZOÖS 9

Packman et al. (2011) also found CB generally, which included experiencing and
sensing the deceased, were more comforting than distressing. This suggests there is
something different going on in the grieving process for dog guardians that makes super­
natural encounters operate differently than they do in more typical human mourning.
This may be because grief over companion animals differs from grief over people in
other ways: namely, that it is often disenfranchised. Because there are few socially
accepted rituals around companion animal deaths, no accepted mourning period, and
dog guardians’ grief is often minimized or even mocked, this leads to an experience of
disenfranchised grief, where the mourner is socially denied the grieving process.
The psychological research commonly refers to supernatural experiences with the
dead as “hallucinations” or “mistaken interpretations,” and that terminology alone can
be further invalidating to the grief over a departed companion animal. Indeed, there
were many comments in the present study where people pre-emptively defended
against an anticipated attack about whether their experiences were “real.” While a hallu­
cination or illusion may scientifically explain why someone sees the ghost of their lost
dog, it does not explain the subjective experience.
The importance of that subjective experience is of central importance in the study of
the supernatural in anthropology. Hufford’s Experience-Centered Theory of the Belief in
Spirits (Hufford, 1995) posits that some classes of supernatural experiences spontaneously
and independently arise across cultures – like the near-death experience or feeling like a
malevolent spirit is holding one down in bed. And while science can explain some of the
reasons for these feelings (e.g., sleep paralysis explains the malevolent bed spirit), science
does not explain the “consistent subjective pattern of the experience.” That subjective
experience is critical to the meaning people derive and their belief in the supernatural.
The universality of supernatural interactions with the dead among the grieving (Kamp
et al., 2020) suggests this is another area where Hufford’s theory should be considered.
Hufford’s theory would suggest that there is a rational reason for people to believe in
supernatural interactions with the spirits of departed dogs in the face of disenfranchised
grief. A seemingly magical visit by the ghost of a beloved lost dog offers a feeling of the
mystical, the special, and a signifier of the importance of the relationship. Messages of
reassurance may assuage guilt. Such experiences would reasonably be seen as validating
and comforting in the face of the invalidation of disenfranchised grief.

Future Research Directions and Conclusion

This research set out to understand the nature and subjective experience people have
with the supernatural in the context of their deceased dogs. The findings reveal that
people commonly report physical interactions with the ghost of their dogs in addition
to attributing phenomenon to their spirits. Overwhelmingly, people find comfort and
reassurance in these interactions. These results are somewhat in contrast with the way
externalized CB – which include supernatural interactions – are seen in the grief research
community, where they are generally classified as negative.
This suggests a number of areas for further research built on interviews with and reflec­
tions from companion-animal guardians that go deeper than what was found in this body
of social media comments. Could the supernatural offer a specific comfort in the face of
10 J. GOLBECK

disenfranchised grief or grief complicated by guilt? Are supernatural experiences properly

classified as part of externalized CB, which are generally considered negative and mala­
daptive? Does the disenfranchised nature of the grief make complicated grief more
common and, if so, does this impact the likelihood and impact of supernatural experi­
ences? The vast anthropological literature on the purposes that supernatural experiences
serve for individuals and cultures alongside the results in this study (and others) show that
supernatural experiences with departed dogs are mostly positive. This suggests that these
experiences – at least for dog guardians – should be studied in more depth to measure
outcomes and impacts. In particular, studies should investigate the link between super­
natural experiences and posttraumatic growth, an area where the results can be directly
contrasted with existing grief research. It may be that the supernatural should be separ­
ated from other externalized CB given that the impact of these experiences may be much
more positive for the bereaved. Furthermore, studying the phenomenon across cultures,
religions, gender, and personal backgrounds may shed additional light on the role these
experiences play in the lives of the bereaved.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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