DB, I am so sorry for your loss. While I can't know exactly how you feel, I sympathize with you as a fellow "dog person" who has three dogs right now, and has had companion dogs all her life, along with bunnies, cats, turtles and more.

Besides our two Labradors, we have been adopting seniors, who were unlikely to be adopted by anyone else due to their advanced age and medical conditions. So we always have three dogs at any given time. We enjoy giving them love, security and care in the last years or months, or weeks, of their lives and we are richly loved in return. It is very rewarding to know they have love at the end and do not die alone, abandoned. It is also sad because we are so often saying good-bye to a beloved pet we have come to grow close to.

I am not going to quote you from any book, or recommend the words of anyone else. As one who has loved dogs, to another, I will write to you from my heart and tell you what I believe!

Our pets have consciousness and spirit as we do: They are intelligent, they have emotions, they feel a lot, they think, they love, they suffer. They communicate with us telepathically and through body language. In many ways, they are so much like we are. They do have souls. I believe anyone who spends a lot of time with animals inherently knows these things. On the plane we go to when we leave here, we will see them again. Since we all have freedom there, they may have their own things to do and their own choices to make, but they will visit us, comfort us, and spend time with us when they choose to. I believe this completely. We indeed will see them again and communication with them will be much easier next time. And the new relationships will be of mutual love and freedom, not of ownership and control as it is here sometimes. (and of course, on this plane of existence, we control them to keep them safe....that won't be necessary there!)

I would also like to add that many people who have crossed over and been brought back have mentioned seeing beloved pets on the other plane waiting there to welcome them. You will see your little dog again!

Hugs and sympathy to you and your family!

Animals have varying degrees of self-consciousness, as indeed people do. The consciousness that is within them is as valid and eternal as your own, however.

Consciousness both in the body and without finds its own range, its own level. A dog, then, is not limited to being a dog in other existences.

Source: Seth Speaks (A Seth Book)

Because of your love towards your pet, the question: “Where do pets go when they pass on?” is understandable. Yet I feel it is not an important question. There may be an answer,but it is kept as a surprise/mystery.—Ecclesiastes 3:21. Hence let it be as a surprise! I will tell you why the question is not so important! Because, spirituality means living as a spirit (because we are beings of consciousness, hece spirits in this costumes called bodies), minding our own spiritual advancement or unfolding of our inherent SPIRITual qualities, hence Jesus contrasted spirituality with undue concern for others. (Mathew 7:1-5) This will, by extension, include our concern for beings other than humans, all because of our attachment to them. Contrast Mathew 5:3 where you find the opening verse of the famous sermon on the mount: “Happy are those poor in spirit.” This means happy are those who have no sense of ownership or attachment! (which is actually the essence of Gita) According to Eastern wisdom, history repeats like day and night. DAY [also called Heaven on earth] means a period of 2500 years in which people live as spirits, finding joy inward. When people become extroverts, looking for happiness outside (treating others as objects of pleasure, believing one’s happiness depends on others and circumstances ..., becoming quick to blame others when something goes wrong) the NIGHT [also called Hell on earth] begins, and will last for 2500 years. When moral values reach its climax, God brings in DAY again. Again, Humans will be inward for 2500 years, and will turn outward, bringing Hell on earth. Thus cycle goes on and on, at the will of man; but hell is transformed again, back into Heaven at the will of God! This is why most of the religions have the concept of Trinity, which symbolically points to the three main roles of GOD—Generation, Operation and Destruction! God generates/creates Heaven on earth, operates/maintains His own residence (Heaven above), and destroyes the heaven-turned Hell on earth! This is what most of the religions/cultures allude when they say there was a time when things were like a paradise on earth, then it was deteriorated into hell, at man’s will, like the one we find ourselves in today! Interestingly, this truth, found in the scriptures, is also found hidden in certain words of some languages. Suppose, all the patients who were cured by Doctors were asked to coin a word for CURE; and they coined COMEDOCTOR for it! Because for them coming of doctor to them means cure for their diseases. Similarly, aaram, the Sanskrit [also in Hindi, Urdu and Persian] word for rest, ease, quiet, comfort, is a combination of two words (Aa = come, and Ram = God), thus implies the world will become a Heaven, only when God comes, or rules the earth! And the worthy ones (those who have purity, peace and contentment) will have the appropriate inheritance (asti), hence are called aastik, which is translated as theist; and the unworthy ones (those who did not bother to manifest those qualities) will have no inheritance (na asti), hence are called nastik, which is translated as atheist! Hence in Sanskrit, nastik means one who does not have an inheritance in the first part of Kalpa, but find himself in the second half of the Kalpa (also called NIGHT) “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” as the real rulers will be “LUST, ANGER and GREED” (Mathew 8:12; Gita 16:21) Hence, theists or atheists have nothing to do with belief in God, but do have to do with whether they have the above qualites or not! Hence Jesus could say: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mathew 8:11, 12; compare also Mathew 21:43) No wonder those who are familiar with Eastern wisdom understand what Jesus taught better!