Bereavement Leave for Pet Loss: Should Employers Offer It?

No Law Requires It — But the Grief Is Real

No state or federal law in the United States mandates bereavement leave for the death of a pet. California's AB 1949, Illinois's Family Bereavement Leave Act, and Oregon's OFLA all define covered relationships in human terms — spouses, children, parents, siblings. Pets don't appear.

For the roughly 67% of American households with pets, many of whom live alone or are aging, that bond can represent a primary attachment. Dismissing it as "just a pet" can invalidate a real experience of grief and, from a management perspective, be counterproductive.

What Some Companies Already Do

A growing number of employers have added pet bereavement to their leave policies, typically offering one to three days of paid or unpaid leave:

• Several major tech companies include pet bereavement in their broader bereavement policies
• Some veterinary and pet-industry employers offer three to five days, recognizing the obvious alignment
• Smaller companies often handle it informally — a manager approving a personal day without requiring justification

The most common structure among companies that do offer it is one paid day, with the option to use PTO for additional time. This is enough for a euthanasia appointment and the immediate aftermath, though it doesn't cover the adjustment period that follows.

The Manager's Real Problem

Whether your company offers pet bereavement leave or not, the situation will land on your desk. An employee's dog dies. They're visibly distressed. They ask for a day off — or they don't ask and just perform poorly for a week.

The question isn't whether the grief is legitimate. It is. The question is how you handle it without a formal policy:

If your company has flexible PTO: This is the simplest path. The employee takes a personal day or two without needing to disclose the reason. No policy needed, no special exception.

If your company tracks leave by category: Consider allowing employees to use sick leave for pet bereavement. Several companies have adopted "wellness day" language that covers mental health broadly enough to include grief of any kind.

If an employee is reluctant to ask: Some people feel embarrassed requesting time off for a pet, anticipating that coworkers or managers won't take it seriously. Creating a culture where grief is acknowledged — not ranked by whether it's "serious enough" — solves this problem before it starts.

When to Worry About Performance

Pet-loss grief has no single timetable. If an employee's grief is affecting work, check in and offer support. Situations to pay particular attention to include:

• The pet was a service animal or emotional support animal tied to the employee's mental health treatment
• The employee lives alone and the pet was their primary companion — the loneliness component can compound grief significantly
• The death was sudden or traumatic (an accident, an emergency euthanasia) rather than expected

In these cases, the grief curve looks more like the loss of a close family member, and the same management principles apply: check in, offer flexibility, avoid loading them with high-stakes work for a week or two.

Should You Formalize a Policy?

If you're building or updating your bereavement policy, adding one to two days for pet loss is low-cost and high-signal. It communicates to employees that you understand grief as a human experience rather than a checkbox exercise. The employees most likely to need it — people who live alone, remote workers, older employees — are often the same people whose traditional bereavement needs are least visible to managers.

A sample policy addition: "Employees may take up to two days of paid bereavement leave for the death of a household pet. Additional time may be taken using PTO or as unpaid leave with manager approval."

For managers who want a structured approach to supporting employees through grief — whether the loss is a parent, a spouse, or a companion animal — the Supporting a Grieving Employee guide provides conversation scripts, check-in frameworks, and accommodation templates that adapt to any type of loss.

The Bottom Line for Managers

You don't need a formal policy to handle this well. What you need is the willingness to treat the grief as real, offer a day or two of flexibility, and not make the employee feel they have to justify their attachment. The cost of a day off is trivial. The cost of an employee who learns their manager doesn't take their pain seriously is a resignation letter three months later.