A woman grieving the death of her boyfriend almost two years ago has shared the “gutwrenching” moment she realized just how much his dog was still missing him too.
Jodie Priddey, 23 and from Gloucestershire in England, lost her boyfriend Jack Jordan, in August 2023 in a road traffic accident, which devastated her, his family, his friends—and his beloved dog, Ted.
“He was the most uplifting person I’d ever met. Someone who was genuinely happy to see others succeeding, always wanted the best for other people and would do absolutely anything for the people he loved,” Priddey told Newsweek.
And that included his teacup chihuahua, Ted, with Jordan warning Priddey they couldn’t make their relationship official before she met the dog, “because he was his best friend and he valued his opinion so much.
“If Ted didn’t like me, it was game over,” she laughed—but thankfully, Ted immediately formed a bond with Priddey, and “Jack said that in that moment it confirmed what he already knew. I was the one for him—and for Ted!”
“Me and Ted were the best of friends, but he was always Jack’s baby,” she said. “They adored each other and it was obvious.”
Since Jordan’s tragic death, Priddey and Jordan’s father have been “co-parenting” Ted, each taking him for days at a time to allow him to keep his bond with them both, and his connection to Jordan. And it was obvious, Priddey said, that he was grieving his owner, even losing fur for no other explanation than “stress and grief.”
“We always had a good bond, but [Ted] has become so much more attached to me since losing Jack and I truly believe this is because he is comforted by having our grief in common,” she said. “He has been one of the only things that has made me get out of bed on the tough days, and taking care of him has given me so much purpose.”
In a recent video to her TikTok account @jodiepriddey, Priddey—who also hosts a podcast about grief, The Grieving Girlies, shared a tearful clip where she spoke about how Ted had had a visceral reaction to smelling Jack’s old dressing gown.
In the clip, viewed close to a million times, she explained how she keeps Jordan’s dressing gown hanging on the back of her door, but on this night wore it and then placed it on her bed.
And Ted, she said, “got on the bed and snuggled straight into Jack’s dressing gown.”
“I went over to him and went to give him a little kiss, and I swear to God, he was crying. His eyes were wet, and he was sighing and deep breathing and shaking a little bit. I felt all these emotions coming off him.”
As Priddey began crying, Ted left the gown and went to comfort her, with the pair cuddling for several minutes—before Ted again returned to his late owner’s clothing, and “slept there for the whole night.”
“It broke my heart to see how he is clearly hurting in the same way that I am,” Priddey told Newsweek.
She revealed that, for the previous several nights, Ted had woken up multiple times having what appeared to be nightmares—”but this night, that he had been cuddling up in Jack’s dressing gown smelling him, he had slept right through without a nightmare.”
TikTok users flooded the video with messages of support and shared their own stories of animals grieving a loved one, one writing: “When my dad died in 2011 our perfectly healthy family cat deteriorated so severely, 3 weeks after his death the vet was advising we put our cat down. He was my dad’s shadow and couldn’t be without him.”
“5 years after my dad dying his dog still goes to the gate and waits for him at 5pm, he waits for over an hour and we have to pull him inside otherwise he would still be still waiting outside,” another shared.
And as another put it: “Dogs grieve us much as we do. He definitely was crying.”
Dogs do grieve the loss of a person they have bonded with, with a change in routine or the absence of their owner’s presence or smell indicating that something is wrong, according to the American Kennel Club (AKC). In some dogs, this may emerge in symptoms including a loss o appetite, lack of energy, weight loss or clinginess.
As Priddey told Newsweek: “This loss has been the toughest, most complex and painful thing I have ever experienced, and watching Ted hurting too is the most heartbreaking thing. I wish I could take that pain away from him but he loved Jack so much. He’s grieving.
“I now give him the dressing gown on his pillow every night that he stays with me, so that he can smell Jack and still cuddle up to me. He hasn’t had another nightmare since he’s been sleeping like this.”
Priddey added: “We miss Jack every second of every day, but I am so grateful that we have each other.”
“I honestly don’t know where I’d be right now if I hadn’t had him in my life. He means more to me than I could ever put into words.
“He’s Jack’s baby and best friend, and he is mine too.”
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