The Agony of Adoring Online Dogs

When Norbert died last week, just shy of 16 years old, tens of thousands of comments and tributes poured in. “My family is heartbroken,” Steines wrote as part of a lengthy announcement.

Pet content remains one of the last bastions of joy on social media. Norbert and many other beloved online dogs — all blissfully unaware of their internet fame, or the internet at all — cut through a digital landscape growing less hospitable by the day. As petty fights and bizarre bots increasingly overwhelm online spaces, I find myself following more dogs and fewer people.

Instagram turns 15 years old this year, as will my oldest pup at home. When introduced, the platform, with its focus on photos and videos, elevated pet content to greater heights than any service that came before. It didn’t take long for Instagram to become populated with accounts dedicated to dogs — personal pages where the dogs were not the sidekicks but the stars, their humans the accessories. These accounts would often be verified, like those of celebrities and politicians.

There’s something distinct and humbling about forming a parasocial relationship with, and experiencing heartbreak from, an animal you’ve never met. Now that many of us have been on social media for a decade or more, it’s becoming impossible to not brace for the inevitable. And when these animals “cross the rainbow bridge,” as it’s said, I’ve scrambled to place my sadness as the families behind the pets come into focus, as does their grief, usually in a heart-wrenching caption.

When Henry the Colorado Dog died suddenly in 2022, leaving his best friend, a cat named Baloo, grief-stricken, I was inconsolable. Their page, with 2.3 million followers, had been a celebration of cinematic adventures: Henry and Baloo cuddling in a tent in the Rocky Mountains or floating in a boat on a river at sunset. With Henry gone, Baloo stopped eating and was floundering. Then I watched a triumphant story arc unfold as his family found Pan, a new canine companion who is as intrepid as Henry was and who’d go on to bond deeply with Baloo, softening the hurt but not replacing Henry, whose memory remains a strong presence on the page.