So this is the saddest thing ever. From the NYT:A video of a dog apparently mourning the death of his owner at a funeral has gone viral, prompting an outpouring from viewers around the world.
The footage was captured by a woman whose cousin Jon Tumilson, a member of a Navy Seal team, was killed in Afghanistan when his Chinook helicopter was hit by enemy fire on Aug. 6. A funeral service was held for Mr. Tumilson in Rockford, Iowa, last week and attended by 1,500 people. But also in attendance was Mr. Tumilson’s loyal Labrador retriever, Hawkeye. The dog wandered over to his owner’s flag-draped casket and lay beside it throughout the service. Struck by the gripping image, Mr. Tumilson’s cousin Lisa Pembleton took a picture and shared it with relatives. The image was published in local newspapers and quickly went viral on the Internet, capturing intense interest around the globe. A video of Hawkeye beside the casket was also shown on nightly newscasts. Ms. Pembleton told one media outlet, Home Post, a blog about military life, that Hawkeye was her cousin’s “loyal son.” I hadn’t planned on taking any pictures other than with family. However, from my seat at the funeral, I felt compelled to take one photo to share with family members that couldn’t make it or couldn’t see what I could from the aisle. This is that photo. Stephanie LaFarge, a psychologist and senior director of counseling at the A.S.P.C.A., said that while no one can know for sure simply by looking at the image, she believed that the dog was aware that his owner was in the casket. Many dogs go through a grieving process similar to what humans experience after the death of a spouse or friend but with some differences, she said. Some dogs have been known, for example, to stay near or return to the places where they last saw their owners, in many cases their grave sites. “There are famous stories of dogs returning to a grave site every day for five years, and you can’t account for that by saying he can smell the body there,” she said. “In fact, dogs return to the grave sites of their companion dogs and animals that they grow up with.”
