(CNN) — For several days, millions of people watched Simon — a 7-year-old Jindo-skewing mix — journey toward taking his final breath.
The internet-famous dog, described by Isabel Klee as her “soulmate,” died the way he lived, surrounded by love and attention. Known for being right by Klee’s side as she fostered dogs, Simon was seen by his followers as a patient, steady figure for the frightened animals who sometimes came into their home. After Klee announced his death on July 25, tributes flowed on social media for the little dog whose cancer diagnosis was revealed in May.
Some followers reflected on how influential Simon and Klee’s journey had been on their own lives. One person posted about being moved to also start fostering, while another pointed out that animals like Simon teach those who care for them “how to be a grownup.”
Klee was scheduled to speak with CNN for this story before Simon’s health took a turn for the worse. She announced on social media the next day that she and her fiancé, Jacob Zerhusen, had decided to let their beloved pup go.
Pet influencers bring a lot of joy to the internet, but Klee and Simon’s story is a reminder that this joy has its limits. Even famous animals don’t live nearly as long as their humans and the millions who adore them from afar wish they would.
Yet their deaths help bring their community of followers together, while making them more fluent in the devastating language of pet grief.
‘You’re not guaranteed much time’
For the humans behind pet influencer accounts, grief is not a private experience, but one that is shared by their followers, most of whom never got to meet the object of their affection in real life, but experience the loss like it is their own.
“I knew that the people were mourning this dog with me, then my close friends and the people who knew Noodle were able to actually mourn my pet,” said Jonathan Graziano whose geriatric pug Noodle was a major social media star before he died in 2022. “I was able to separate that.”
Noodle, who was adopted by Graziano when he was 7, shot to fame years later in 2021, thanks to a series of TikTok videos where the pug would decide whether he was going to get out of bed in the morning. In those videos, Graziano would ask Noodle if it was a “bones or no bones day.”
Graziano walked a similar path to the one Klee and Zerhusen did when they decided to end their dog’s suffering.
“That was a wild experience,” Graziano said, adding that he got “everything he wanted” when it came to letting Noodle go peacefully. “It was the combination of having to do the whole end-of-life experience with Noodle, go through that and come to terms with that on my own as just someone who loved him and took care of him.”
His friend, Thomas Shapiro, also knows exactly what Klee is going through. He and his husband, Louis, are already on the other side of it.
Their dog, Tika the Iggy — an Italian greyhound Vogue once called a “new fashion It girl,” with millions of fans that included Drew Barrymore and Celine Dion — died last year at 14. Shapiro remembers the moment the anticipatory grief set in, years before the loss itself.
“When she turned 10, that’s when you’re kind of hit with that reality that your dog is really a senior dog,” he said. “So I think ever since she was 10, I kind of treated each day very special — because you’re not really guaranteed much time after that milestone.”
The Shapiros tried to give Tika a soft landing.
Last September, with two young children and a second greyhound named Kala now part of the family, they pulled Tika from Fashion Week appearances and brand campaigns so she could simply live out whatever time she had left. It wasn’t enough. An aggressive cancer took her fast.
Shapiro waited three days to tell her followers. He now believes that wasn’t nearly long enough for him to grieve before he had to display his grief publicly.
“I didn’t know how to tell everyone, because I knew I had to — not only is that factually the truth, but part of what makes Tika’s Instagram so great for me is we built such a great community, and people genuinely really care about my dog and me, which is still quite unfathomable to me that people do care,” he said. “I knew I owed it to them to tell them.”
Grappling with the business end
Being a pet influencer can be lucrative.
Klee’s fame for her good works has led to her becoming the New York Times bestselling author of “Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About: A Memoir.” It also got one of her fosters adopted by “Sex and the City” star Kristin Davis and even helped a broken dog named Tiki become an adoptee and a social media star in his own right.
But there’s a downside.
The Shapiros were accused by some followers of bringing Kala into their family for financial gain.
Shapiro said he and his family know the truth.
“Our daughter had just been born, and our son was 18 months, so we were in the thick of diapers. Tika at that time had just turned 11, and while she loved our kids, she was also like, ‘No — I’m too old for this,’” he said. “So, we were like, you know what, let’s just rip the Band-Aid off. We’re already over our heads with these babies. Let’s get a puppy. And it was the best decision ever.”
After losing Noodle, Graziano spent some time fostering dogs before adopting his current pug, Milton. Some of Noodle’s followers said he was just doing it all to keep the cash flowing.
While acknowledging that the interest around Noodle allowed him to pay off his student loans early and have a new career that has included a line of children’s books (the next installment, “Milton Makes a Move,” arrives August 4), Graziano said he believes “people are allowed to be incorrect.”
“Oh my gosh Milton, are you my little cash cow?” he said, laughing, to his sleeping pup. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t adopt a dog knowing that I would get to continue to share him with people. I get joy from sharing.”
Both Shapiro and Graziano kept their original Instagram handles and changed the names to add their current dogs.
Varisiri Methachittiphan — known online as “Pookie” — is already looking ahead.
She has spent more than a decade managing the online life of Nala, the cat once recognized by Guinness World Records as the most-followed feline on Instagram, with more than four million followers.
Nala was adopted as a kitten in 2010, before “pet influencer” was a widely understood concept. Pookie remembers the early skepticism years later when she started posting her cat.
“Back then people would say, ‘You’re making money off your cat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’” she said. “And I’m just like — she does not think like that. She’s just being cute.”
What started as posting photos of her adorable kitty became a full-time career. But she said she dreads the day she will have to endure the pain that Klee, Shapiro and Graziano have already experienced.
When that day comes, she said, it won’t be her livelihood she mourns.
“It will be hard enough because she’s my soulmate and so many people love her,” she said. “I’m 39, and I’ve basically built my life around her. She’s guided me through so much of my life.”
The-CNN-Wire
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