Woman whose dog died moved by kind act after trying to return dog food

A pet owner has gone viral for revealing the heartwarming events that occurred when she tried to return a bag of unopened pet food after her beloved dog died.

Anna Brose took to Twitter on 15 June to share an interaction with online pet food retailer Chewy after inquiring whether she could return a bag of food after the death of Gus.

The Wisconsin-based artist explained that Chewy’s customer service recommended she donate the unopened bag to a shelter, rather than returning it.

On top of that, Ms Brose received a delivery of flowers with a note signed by the customer service representative she had spoken to earlier.

Her tweet immediately went viral, with more than 43,000 retweets and 735,000 likes from fellow dog-lovers.

And Ms Brose was not alone in sharing her love for Chewy. The sweet interaction prompted a number of users to share their own positive experiences with the pet food retailer.

Over the years, customers said they’ve received flowers, letters, and even hand-painted portraits of their pets from the company, a courtesy after learning a customer’s furry friend has died.

Since its founding in 2011, Chewy has dominated the pet supply industry, and in 2020, the company says it added five million new customers alone.

For some pet owners, cancelling their subscription after the death of a beloved animal was soon followed by heartfelt gifts from Chewy in the mail.

“I work at an animal shelter. This is legit,” one person tweeted. “We often have people reaching out to donate because Chewy told them to reach out to a local shelter. I can’t express what this means to shelters like mine. Truly a gift.”

Another person shared how their wife had ordered the wrong food for their cat Maximus. When Chewy “credited it against the order for the right food,” the company also made her promise she’d donate the incorrect food order to a shelter. “Taking it this week to the shelter we adopted sweet handsome Maximus from!” they wrote.

“We had to put our dog Daisy down in January,” said someone else. “We didn’t contact Chewy at all because we still had 4 other dogs. About a week after, we received this painting of her. It had us all weeping. The painting is beautiful and we look at it every single day.”

Back in January 2021, Chewy’s had another viral moment after it was reported that the company had been sending 1,000 free oil paintings to select customers each week, even during the pandemic.

The portraits instantly became a hit on social media, with people sharing the handmade paintings they received in the mail. Others begged for their pets to be turned into works of art too.

“It’s the least we could do, Anna,” the company replied to Brose’s viral tweet. “We hope these flowers will help to keep your spirits up.

The Independent has contacted Chewy for comment.