What losing my dog taught me about the emotional side of change

Addie died in October.

She was a Lab and Great Dane mix. Big. Convinced she was a lap dog. And she leaned. If you’ve ever had a Dane cross lean on you, you know it isn’t subtle. It’s her whole body saying I’m here, you’re mine.

I’ve been a social worker for more than thirty-five years. I’ve sat with people through divorce, job loss, illness, and the deaths of parents and children. I know the language of grief. I teach it. None of that helped much when I stood in my kitchen a few days after she was gone, holding her leash, with no idea what to do with my hands.

She wasn’t a person. I know that. It still hurts. A lot.

What she gave me

Addie didn’t care what kind of day I’d had. A rough session, a bad month for the business, a phone call I didn’t want to make. She was at the door anyway. Every single time.

That’s rare. Most of the support we get from people comes with strings, even from good people who love us. A dog doesn’t keep score. She shows up and puts her head on your knee.

She also ran my schedule. Up early, out in the cold, walk, feed, walk again. When that structure disappears you find out how much of your day was quietly built around somebody else.

The part nobody likes

My brain keeps reaching for her. I come home and listen for her nails on the floor. I drop a piece of toast and wait for it to vanish. The old map is still running, and it doesn’t match the ground anymore.

So I’m in between. The life I had with her is over. Whatever comes next hasn’t shown up yet, and the space between the two is uncomfortable. I don’t like not knowing. Nobody does.

I’m taking small steps. Some days are fine. Some days I find a clump of her hair under the couch and that’s the afternoon gone.

It is getting better. Slowly, and not in a straight line.

There’s a name for this

William Bridges spent his career on this problem. His books Transitions and Managing Transitions gave organizations and ordinary people a framework for what happens to us when things change. His central point is one a lot of people miss: change and transition are not the same thing.

Change is the event. The dog dies. The job ends. The company restructures. It happens on a date you can circle.

Transition is what goes on inside you afterward. It’s the emotional side of change, and it runs on its own clock.

Bridges laid it out in stages. It starts with an ending. You have to let go of what was, and that means grieving it, even when the change was your idea. Then comes what he called the neutral zone, where the old way is gone and the new way isn’t solid yet. It’s foggy and it’s stressful. It’s also where most of the real rebuilding happens. Eventually you reach a new beginning: a new rhythm, a new sense of who you are.

Standing in the middle of it now, what hits me is the order. The beginning comes last. You don’t get to skip ahead. You say goodbye first.

Same thing, different setting

Most of my career transition work lives right here.

Picture a 58-year-old let go after twenty-two years with one employer. Everybody tells him to update his résumé and get back out there. He can’t, and it isn’t because he’s lazy. He lost his routine, his title, the crew he ate lunch with, and his answer to “what do you do?” Nobody gave him room to grieve any of it. Treating that like a paperwork problem goes nowhere.

Business owners hit the same wall. You close a location, drop a service, part ways with a partner. On paper it’s a strategy call. Inside, it’s a goodbye.

Then the neutral zone. People hate it. They want certainty, so they grab the first offer or the first shiny idea just to get out of the fog. Sometimes it works out. Often they land somewhere that doesn’t fit, because they never gave themselves time to figure out what they needed next.

Even the new beginning carries some fear. A new job is exciting and it’s scary. You don’t know the culture yet and you’re not sure you’ll be any good. That’s normal. Give it time and the new thing becomes the routine. And someday you’ll have to say goodbye to that one too.

Where I am now

I’m not rushing it. I let myself miss her. I talk about her. I still walk every day, because my body needs the structure even when my heart isn’t in it.

I’ve started thinking about another dog. Not a replacement, because there isn’t one. But I can feel the edge of something new out there, and I’m letting it come when it comes.

If you’re in an ending right now, whether it’s a job, a business, a marriage, a pet or an old version of yourself, don’t skip the grief because it looks small next to someone else’s. Don’t panic in the fog. It’s supposed to feel like this. The emotional side of change is real work and it takes as long as it takes.

I still brace for the lean when I walk in the door.

Jeffrey Baldock, BA, BSW, MA, MSW, RSW is a Registered Social Worker and the founder of Framework Counselling in Timmins, Ontario. He has more than thirty-five years of experience in counselling and career transition work, and offers mental health counselling, career and transition counselling, and workshops, in person and online. If you’re stuck in the in-between, in your career, your business or your life, call 705-406-3430, email counsellorjeff@gmail.com, or visit frameworkcounselling.com.