A Loss Social Work Has Not Yet Named: Assistance Dog Partner Bereavement as a Current Practice Issue

Introduction

Social work practitioners across the globe encounter grief in many forms. Loss is woven into the profession’s practice across settings, populations, and theoretical traditions. Yet there is a form of grief that social workers are increasingly likely to encounter and that social work education has not yet systematically prepared them to address: the grief that follows the death or retirement of an assistance dog. Drawing on a program of qualitative research, this article makes the case that assistance dog partner bereavement represents a meaningful and timely opportunity for the social work profession, with implications for practitioners, educators, and researchers in countries where assistance dog partnerships are established.

The Assistance Dog Partnership: Understanding What Is Lost

Although assistance dogs may also be deeply valued companions, their role extends beyond that of a companion animal. The distinction carries important implications for social work practice. Assistance dogs, also referred to as service dogs, guide dogs, hearing dogs, or medical alert dogs, are trained over approximately two years to perform specific tasks that mitigate the functional effects of their human partner’s disability. They may guide a person who is blind through a city street, alert a partner with a seizure disorder before a neurological event, or support a veteran living with post-traumatic stress disorder through daily functions that the disability makes difficult. In many countries, including the United States under the Americans with Disabilities Act (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020) and numerous nations with comparable legislation (Assistance Dogs International, n.d.-a), assistance dog partners and their dogs are granted access to public accommodations, allowing the partnership to extend across virtually all aspects of daily life. The result is a relationship of unusual depth and functional significance. Research characterizes the human-assistance dog bond as qualitatively distinct from conventional companion animal relationships, defined by mutual dependence, continuous cohabitation, and a relational investment that partners frequently describe in terms of evoking family membership and bodily extension (Kwong & Bartholomew, 2011; Yamamoto & Hart, 2019). The average working life of an assistance dog is approximately eight years (Ng & Fine, 2019). When that partnership ends, whether through the dog’s death or retirement due to age or declining health, the partner loses both a profound relational bond and a critical disability accommodation (Kogan et al., 2021). The grief that follows is proportionate to the multidimensional nature of this loss.

Research has documented the breadth and severity of this grief response. As early as 1995, researchers found that 71% of bereaved assistance dog partners described the loss as comparable to losing a friend or close relative (Nicholson et al., 1995). More recent research has confirmed that attachment level significantly predicts grief severity regardless of the circumstances under which the partnership ends (Kogan et al., 2021), and that grief encompasses not only the emotional loss of the bond but also the functional disruption associated with losing an accommodation that supported independence, safety, and social participation (Currin-McCulloch et al., 2022; Miller, 2019).

What the Research Reveals: Evidence on Assistance Dog Partner Bereavement

A program of research conducted at the University of Alabama has examined assistance dog partner bereavement through interviews with representatives of assistance dog organizations. Assistance Dogs International (ADI) is the primary international accreditation body for the assistance dog industry, with accredited member organizations operating across North America, Europe, Australia, and beyond (Assistance Dogs International, n.d.-b). A qualitative study drawing on semi-structured interviews with representatives from 21 ADI-accredited organizations in the United States documented the grief experiences of bereaved assistance dog partners and the ways in which their organizations work to support them (DeSantis & Hoy-Gerlach, 2025).

The findings from qualitative research examining assistance dog partner bereavement carry direct relevance for social work practitioners and educators. First, the grief associated with assistance dog loss meets Doka’s (1989) criteria for disenfranchised grief in a particularly profound way. Partners’ personal support networks frequently lack understanding of the functional significance of the assistance dog partnership, perceiving the loss through the lens of conventional companion animal loss, a form of grief that is itself commonly unacknowledged within many social and cultural contexts (Cordaro, 2012; Spain et al., 2019). The result is that bereaved partners often grieve without the social recognition and validation that can facilitate adaptation to loss. Participants in the study reported that clients expressed relief when their organizations acknowledged the loss. One client’s response to that acknowledgement captures what disenfranchised grief most needs and least receives: “Thank you so much. I really needed permission to feel this way” (DeSantis & Hoy-Gerlach, 2025). The organizations, in this account, became the relational context in which the legitimacy of their grief was first confirmed. That a client required explicit permission to grieve a loss of this magnitude speaks directly to the role that social workers can play in recognizing and validating losses that may otherwise remain unseen.

Second, and of particular significance for social work practice, bereaved assistance dog partners rarely initiate contact to request support following the loss, even when experiencing significant distress. When organizations reached out proactively, they consistently found clients who welcomed that contact and benefitted from it. The barriers to help-seeking identified in the research include stigma around acknowledging need, uncertainty about what support is available, and the compounding effect of disenfranchisement on bereaved partners’ sense of entitlement to seek help (DeSantis & Hoy-Gerlach, 2025). For social workers, this finding carries an important clinical implication: the absence of help-seeking should not be interpreted as an absence of need. Rather, proactive, relationship-centered engagement may be more responsive to the realities of assistance dog partner bereavement.

Why This Matters for Social Work: A Practice and Education Argument

Social workers across a range of practice settings, including disability services, mental health, medical and palliative care, rehabilitation, and community practice, may encounter clients who have experienced or are anticipating the loss of an assistance dog. The dynamics that this client experience presents are ones that social work’s foundational frameworks are well suited to address: disenfranchised grief, barriers to help-seeking, functional as well as relational dimensions of loss, and the intersection of disability and bereavement (International Federation of Social Workers, 2014; National Association of Social Workers, 2021). Social work education programs have an opportunity to develop curricula and field placement experiences that prepare graduates to engage with this population with the knowledge and sensitivity that the experience warrants.

The argument for this curricular development rests not only on the size of the population, though it is meaningful. In the United States alone, an estimated 500,000 individuals are partnered with an assistance dog (Trainer, 2016), and the assistance dog community is growing internationally as awareness of the functional and psychosocial benefits of these partnerships expands across disability communities globally (Audrestch et al., 2015). The argument rests equally on what this client experience illuminates about social work practice more broadly. Supporting a bereaved assistance dog partner well requires practitioners to hold simultaneously the emotional and the functional dimensions of loss, to engage proactively with clients whose distress may not surface through conventional help-seeking channels, and to validate experiences that the social environment has rendered invisible. These are capacities the profession cultivates across all its practice domains.

There are also meaningful implications for social work’s partnership with the organizations that serve assistance dog partners. The research found that the relationship between the client and the assistance dog organization is among the most significant protective factors in the bereaved partners’ grief outcomes (DeSantis & Hoy-Gerlach, 2025). Organizations that have invested in sustained, genuine connection with clients across the working life of the assistance dog partnership are well positioned to provide meaningful support at the time of loss. At the same time, the emotional demands placed on organizational staff as they accompany clients through these losses underscore the value of social work consultation, grief expertise, and organizational structures that support both bereaved partners an the professionals who walk alongside them. Social workers, whether as embedded professionals or as consultants to these organizations, can offer clinical knowledge of grief theory and practice, frameworks for proactive outreach, and organizational development expertise that strengthens and extends the support these organizations are already committed to providing.

International Relevance and the Road Ahead

Assistance dog partnerships exist within diverse legal, cultural, and service frameworks around the world. Although these contexts vary, the profound relational bond and functional interdependence that characterize assistance dog partnerships suggest that the ending of these relationships may involve complex experiences of loss that warrant attention from the global social work profession. As assistance dog programs continue to develop internationally, social workers have an opportunity to consider how disability, grief, and the human-animal bond intersect within their respective cultural and practice contexts.

At the same time, the ways in which assistance dog loss is understood, expressed, and supported are likely to be shaped by cultural beliefs about disability, animals, caregiving, and bereavement. The current evidence base remains largely situated within Western contexts, highlighting the need for additional research examining assistance dog partner bereavement across diverse cultural settings. Such work will be essential to ensuring that social work responses are culturally responsive and grounded in the lived experiences of assistance dog partners within different societies.

The profession’s foundational commitment to the dignity and worth of every person, and to engaging with the full complexity of the social environments in which people live, compels social work to attend to losses that social norms render invisible (International Federation of Social Workers, 2014; National Association of Social Workers, 2021). Assistance dog partner bereavement is one such loss. It represents a meaningful and understudied area in which the values, methods, and relational orientation of social work are well positioned to make a difference. Building the curricular, research, and practice infrastructure needed to respond to this loss is the next step in ensuring that social work can recognize, validate, and effectively support assistance dog partners experiencing bereavement.

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Acknowledgements

The author sincerely thanks the participants who contributed their time and experiences to this study. Their willingness to share made this work possible.