The Cumbrian Pet Bereavement Counsellor Who Showed Me Why Dog Photography Actually Matters
The Grief That Comes of Dogs' Lives Being So Brief
None of us like to think about even the idea of losing our dogs. Those intrusive thoughts sometimes enter our minds, but we push them away just as quickly and put them in a box, lock it and throw away the key. “They’ll be here forever,” we tell ourselves. I know I do. I tell people I have a contract with my dog Scout (my eldest) that she signed when I took her home for the first time: she’s not allowed to die.
Me and Indy back in the day
I’m fairly certain so many dog owners I meet, in Cumbria and beyond, feel the exact same way about their dogs. They’ll be here forever, and we don’t want to entertain the idea that they won’t. That’s often why things like professional photography sessions celebrating our dogs get put on hold. There’s always next season when the leaves turn a beautiful shade of brown, next year when we get in better shape, or one day we’ll take a proper trip to the Lake District with the dogs. This post is for anybody who has ever pushed those intrusive thoughts back into their box, and wondered whether now might finally be the right time to open it.
Earlier this month, I found myself sat at the vets - not for an unhappy reason, thankfully - my then 12-week old puppy was having his final round of vaccinations. We had quite some time to wait, so I started looking through all of the leaflets and information on display. I even flicked through the A-Z guide to health conditions faced by dogs, cats and other pets. I found nothing that helped prepare animal owners for the inevitable: nothing about saying goodbye. The closest thing I found was a leaflet for a pet crematorium. “That escalated quickly,” I thought to myself. Only me, Frankie, could be sat at the vets with a youthful effervescent bundle of energy and start thinking about death.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because it got me thinking about how I could contribute to filling this information gap, so I spoke to other dog owners past and present for advice and one thing united us all: when we found out our dogs had terminal illnesses none of us had the tools to cope properly. My partner lost his dog Barney only about a month before we met, and even now he still struggles to talk about him without getting immensely emotional. I asked him if I could talk to him about his experience when he was told it was his time, and he agreed. It wasn’t the first time I had heard the story save for a few particulars differing: animal shows symptoms, owner takes to vet, diagnosis is made, prognosis is poor, factual information is delivered, difficult decisions have to be made in a heartbeat, and a week or so later a human overcome with unimaginable grief is presented with their pet’s remains in a gift bag.
I knew I had to find someone who understood this world properly, and that’s when my frantic Googling led me to Elaine Richmond. I couldn’t quite believe it when I found out she’s local to me in Cumbria, has a dog walking business ‘Walkies with Elaine’ in Carlisle and offers pet bereavement counselling through her business ‘Elaine Richmond Pet Bereavement’ in-person throughout Cumbria and online. I read through her website and thought this is exactly the type of service that so many people I know, myself included, would benefit hugely from, so I immediately fired off an email to her to find out more.
Elaine and her two four-year old labradors, photographed by me.
Just a few days later, Elaine and I got together on a video call and she told me all about her background: she'd worked as a midwife, specialising in bereavement midwifery, supporting families through some of the most unimaginable losses a person can face. Alongside that, she'd been working with pet owners through her dog walking business in Carlisle since 2022. In the overlap of those two worlds, she found her calling: helping pet owners with their grief.
The additional difficulty facing those who have lost a pet is a lack of understanding from friends and family members who simply don’t get it. And that’s not necessarily their fault: someone who has never had a companion animal would find it very difficult to comprehend just how big a hole they can leave in our lives once they have passed on, or just how much of a shock to the system it can be when we’re told our animal has a terminal illness. To many of us, our animals are our whole world, so a service like Elaine’s can be a real lifeline if we’re trying to reconcile a life without them. I told her I wished I’d known her 7 years ago, when I had to say goodbye to Indy.
Elaine is also an accredited member of the Association of Pet Bereavement counsellors and is completing an Advanced Diploma in Pet Bereavement Counselling as she is so dedicated to offering pet owners the highest standard of counselling and support. She’s been formally assessed in her role by the association, which for an unregulated industry (just like pet photography, technically anyone can say they are pet bereavement counsellor) carries real weight. Elaine isn’t just anybody - she has verified skills that have been assessed, and from my time spend talking with her about my own experiences, she made me feel completely seen.
More and more people are now seeking support when they lose a pet, with there being more acceptance and validation that this grief is very real. Oftentimes, this grief begins to take a grip before the pet has died. It’s actually my eldest dog Scout’s 7th birthday today as I sit here writing this (June 29th 2026) and even though that’s not exactly old, I find myself watching her sleep sometimes and think I wish she would never age. I’ve even started comparing her face now to her face as a 2 year old and thinking (most likely imagining) there are more grey hairs. There’s nothing even wrong with her healthwise, but the intrusive thoughts often find a way in.
Elaine told me that anticipatory grief like this is very real, and pet guardians often need a huge amount of support over preparing themselves for the inevitable, sometimes even long before their pet is diagnosed with anything at all. If and when a pet owner is told some heartbreaking news from their vet, difficult decisions such as euthanising a pet is one fraught with emotional turmoil and intense guilt. I know from my own experience I really struggled to accept that it was an act of kindness for Indy, who was only going to face more pain had her condition been allowed to get worse.
Elaine, perhaps better than anyone, understood exactly why I was about to suggest what I suggested next. A couple of weeks after our call, I met up with Elaine in a local woodland to photograph her and her two beautiful black labradors: Ralph and Ada. They are both just 4 years old, at the height of energy and youthful exuberance, and I wanted Elaine to experience what my photography sessions are all about and understand how I immortalise people’s dogs in artwork: it doesn’t matter how young or old they are. I am sometimes asked to photograph Golden Years sessions (how I refer to ‘celebration of life’ sessions), but in a way, I think of all sessions as ‘celebrations of life’ as my whole photography business aims to celebrate the lives of the animals we love the most. Today, I was simply celebrating Ralph and Ada in the prime of their lives.
It was pouring with rain as I met Elaine in the car park, and I found my apology on the weather’s behalf was unnecessary. “This is my favourite weather,” she told me, and I knew immediately that Elaine was speaking my language. Plus, two black labs in wet weather? The dogs were in their absolute element. During my time with Elaine, Ralph and Ada, I photographed them as a family, and ensured I could capture Elaine individually with each dog. I do feel a pang of sadness when a client shies away from joining their animal in the image, because all I can think about is the one phone image I can find of Indy and me. I am sure I have some others somewhere, but that’s the real downside of the digital age: if you leave everything on hard drives and USBs, it’s a real job to find what you’re looking for again.
All I have left to memorialise Indy. I have phone images on a harddrive somewhere too, but what I wouldn’t give to have some sort of wall art or printed images to be able to pick up and look at quickly.
Driving home from our portrait session, I kept thinking about how Elaine and I have very complementary jobs. We both must confront the harsh realities and unspoken parts of pet ownership, but sadly neither of us can change the outcome. Very recently, I had to hide my tears on a session when photographing a senior dog with his human, and I haven’t brought myself to start the retouching yet because I know I’m going to get extremely emotional doing it. If that happens to me, when it’s not even my dog, I can only imagine the impact of these final images will mean to their human one day.
I wish nothing but happiness and health for you and your pets, but should you or anybody you know be in the heartbreaking situation of coping with news of an illness, or grief over a lost pet, do reach out to Elaine or share this post with somebody. Elaine offers exactly the kind of support I wish had existed when I lost Indy, and I know she can offer invaluable comfort to anybody coping with loss:
https://elainerichmondpetbereavementsu.godaddysites.com/
And if you'd like to celebrate your own dog while you can, I'd love to help. You can find out more about my photography sessions here.