The Story Behind Jasper: Carrying Love Forward After Pet Loss

After losing her soul dog, Britta Mulderrig created the kind of support platform she had been searching for, but couldn’t find: a community where pet loss grief is understood, acknowledged, and given space.

The Loss

I lost my soul dog, Jasper, in January 2024.

To say his loss was devastating feels like an understatement. At the time, so much in my life was already in transition. I had recently left my job, finished freezing my eggs (an emotional and lonely process), and found out my father had prostate cancer (he’s better now). So, I packed up my apartment and went to stay with family while I tried to figure out what came next.

Deep down, I knew what I needed most was time to process, grieve, and understand how to live in a world without Jasper physically in it. But I found that hard to do without support, so I started looking for it. I was in therapy, joined Facebook groups, searched Reddit threads and stacks at the library, and Googled everything I could think of. I found research papers on the human- animal bond and even reached out to PhD students who were studying the connection between people and their animals.

What I kept coming back to was that there needed to be one place where this kind of grief could be talked about openly and accepted fully. Because when you lose a pet, you’re not only grieving their absence and the life you created with them in it. You’re grieving the inability to express your sadness and to share it with others.

Our animals are woven into our days in such distinct and powerful ways. They decide when we wake up, when we come home, how long we stay out, what we worry about, and what makes the house feel full. They are there for the routines and the ruptures, and they witness our lives in ways no human companion will ever know or fully appreciate. Who else escorted me to the bathroom, demanded breakfast at the crack of dawn, refused to be left out of even the smallest moments, and somehow made the most ordinary parts of my day feel full?

After Jasper died, the routines that had structured my life disappeared almost overnight. No one was waiting for me to wake up or following me from room to room. No one needed breakfast, medicine, a walk, a check-in, or the thousand tiny acts of care that had become so automatic I barely realized they were holding my days together.

That is what makes this kind of grief so disorienting. Their body is no longer here, the caretaking stops, and their absence leaves what feels like a physical hole in your heart. But the bond is still very much alive, and you are left trying to understand what it means to keep loving them in a world that may not fully recognize the depth of what you lost.

And when the world refuses to recognize the role our pets played, it does not make the grief smaller. It makes the grief lonelier.

That loneliness is a big part of why Jasper exists.

Because while I eventually found support groups and a pet loss grief coach, it took work. And I knew I was exceptionally lucky. I had the luxury of time and the skillset to research and ask questions until I found something that helped. It should not have been that hard.

And so I decided to create the thing I had been searching for myself. In many ways, I was Jasper’s first customer and I was building what I needed in real time.

How Jasper Began

Having spent a good part of my career in startups and tech, I knew the best thing I could do was start small. Not wait until it was perfect and not assume I knew exactly what people needed before actually talking to them. I needed to put something into the world and see if people wanted it.

So I started by reaching out to people in the pet loss Facebook groups I was already part of and asking if they would want to join a community. Around that time, my friend Margaret, who knew what I was working on, got her pet loss grief certification and began leading our first groups. Shortly after, I met Grant, a pet loss grief coach based in Australia, and he started leading sessions too. Both became founding Jasper coaches, and you can read about them, and our other incredible coaches, here.

We launched using a white-labeled community platform called Mighty Networks. At the beginning, Jasper offered weekly support groups, chat rooms, and a few modalities of content, including affirmations, videos from coaches, and live streams on topics like building a new routine and sleep after loss. We experimented, listened, and learned what people needed. More started showing up, and they stayed.

Building Jasper Day to Day

Some days, it’s engaging directly with the community, talking to members, reading what they are sharing, and listening closely to what they need. Other days, it’s planning workshops, speaking with coaches, developing new content, meeting people who bring different modalities and perspectives to grief, or thinking about what technology can make this kind of support more accessible—like tools for the earliest days of grief, resources to help members feel less alone at midnight, and lessons to help members process guilt, anxiety, regret, or the emptiness that comes after losing an animal who shaped their daily life.

A lot of what we build comes directly from our members, many of whom are skilled in wellness themselves, like tapping, letter-writing, and vision boards. We offer meditations, sound baths, educational resources, expert-led conversations, and support groups. I’m looking forward to expanding into even more body-based and creative forms of support, including yoga.

There is always more to do. More people to meet, more resources to build, more content to create, more workshops to plan, more feedback to listen to, and more ways to help people feel seen. And yes, chasing around my 10-month-old rescue puppy adds another layer to it all, one I’m incredibly grateful for.

What Jasper Has Become

Since those early days, Jasper has grown in a way that has felt both beautiful and deeply intentional.

What began as a small community with weekly support groups and a few pieces of content has expanded into a much more layered support system for people navigating pet loss grief. We have brought in new coaches and incredible voices from the pet loss and grief space, including Dr. Sarah Hoggan, Christiana Saia, and Dr. Jenn, who focuses specifically on anticipatory grief.

We adapt to needs, creating new workshops, experiences, and resources to support members wherever they are in their grief. Our content library now includes expert-led videos, educational resources, creative writing exercises, meditations, sound baths, tapping, and other tools designed to help people process what they are feeling in a way that feels safe and supportive.

One of the greatest honors in building Jasper has been witnessing the growth of our members over time. I have seen people arrive in the community completely shattered and inconsolable. Over time, with support, validation, and space to grieve openly, I have watched many of them begin to understand their grief, build new ways to cope, and slowly find their footing again.

But the most rewarding outcome has been watching so many members pay it forward. People come to Jasper for help, and many of them stay to comfort the next person. They know what it means to hear "Yes, me too," "I've been there," or "I know exactly how you feel." To be met with validation in the saddest moments, instead of discomfort, judgment, or silence. Because there is something incredibly healing about service, about helping others, and about creating the kind of support you once needed most. And that's what makes it possible to watch members go back to work, welcome new animals into their homes, give back to their communities, chase new adventures, and rebuild their lives with the strength that comes from having a community behind them.

On my hardest days, I know I have this community behind me too. Because more than two years into my own grief journey, I am still learning, still growing, and still missing Jasper every day.

TESTIMONIAL

Finding the Jasper community truly saved my life. After losing my sweet boy Wrigley, I was completely lost and without a support system. Jasper gave me a safe, compassionate space to grieve at my own pace, validate my feelings, and connect with others who truly understood that our pets are family. Through support meetings, shared experiences, and so many healing resources, Jasper helped me grow, heal, and find hope again. Today, I can honor my beloved babies while continuing to move forward, and I’ll forever be grateful for this incredible community that has become part of my family.

- Trisha W.

Carrying Love Forward

Jasper is part of a much bigger shift in how we understand pet loss grief. It’s giving voice to people who have felt isolated, dismissed, or made to believe they were not allowed to grieve this deeply. It is acknowledging that grief over the loss of a pet can be just as powerful, just as painful, and just as lonely as the loss of a human.

There are a lot of paths people can take after losing someone they love. Sometimes we put our heads down and try to ignore the pain. Sometimes our only goal is to get back to baseline and survive. And sometimes, with the right support, something as awful as loss can lead to understanding our purpose, determining our priorities, and deciding how we want to spend our time and energy.

That’s what it did for me. There is a before and after version of who I am, and now, I cannot help but smile when I think about Jasper. He was the reason for everything. The reason I loved and the reason I lost. And Jasper, the community built in his honor, is the reason I’m healing today.

For anyone grieving a beloved animal, Jasper exists to remind you that you are not alone. Your grief does not need to be minimized, rushed, or explained away. It deserves care, community, and space. And your love deserves to be remembered. Learn more at jaspergrief.com.

Why Memorialization Matters

One of the things I learned after losing Jasper is that grief does not only ask us to let go. In many ways, it asks us to learn how to carry love differently.

After he died, I found myself looking for ways to keep him close. I looked into jewelry, artwork, and keepsakes. I kept so many of his things near me because they made him feel present in a way I still needed. His absence was physical, but the bond was not gone, and I needed to honor that.

That is part of what makes memorialization so meaningful. It gives love somewhere to go. It gives us something to touch, wear, look at, or return to when the grief feels too abstract or too big to hold.

For pet parents especially, so much of the relationship lives in daily rituals and physical closeness. They were beside us on the couch, under our feet in the kitchen, curled up in bed, waiting by the door, following us from room to room. When that physical presence is gone, having something tangible is a way to stay connected.

For me, the most meaningful memorial pieces are the ones that feel both personal and lasting. I want something impactful, but also something I will actually wear every day. Something beautiful enough to become part of my life, and meaningful enough to hold the weight of what it represents.

That is why Close By Me felt like such a natural fit. Their pieces are not about moving on or putting grief away. They are about keeping love close in a way that feels intentional, wearable, and enduring.

I think that matters because remembering is not the opposite of healing. Continuing to say their name, look at their photos, wear something that reminds us of them, tell their stories, or keep their belongings close does not mean we are stuck. It means the relationship still matters.

Jasper is no longer physically here, but he is still part of me. He is part of how I love, how I live, how I build, and how I understand grief. Memorialization gives shape to that truth. It helps us carry forward the animals who carried us for so long.

TESTIMONIAL:

Ivy was with me for 11.5 years. She learned my routines, sat with me through every hard year, and knew me better than most people did. When she died, I thought I was supposed to grieve quietly and then move on. Jasper showed me a different way. Here, I say her name out loud, and nobody flinches. I sometimes talk about her in the present tense, and that's okay too. I've found people who understand that loving her isn't finished just because she's gone. Almost eight months later, Ivy is still part of my daily life, and this community is the reason I stopped feeling like that was wrong.

- Geena M.