Pet parent loses beloved dog, memorializes him by getting tattoo using ink mixed with his ashes

It is heartbreaking to lose a beloved pet. But when the inevitable happens, every pet parent figures out their own way to honor and grieve their deceased friend. For Robyn Moscrop from Birmingham, England, this meant getting a commemorative tattoo of her beloved bull terrier, Bronson. Although this is a common enough way to memorialize a relationship, the 27-year-old went the extra mile with her gesture by having her late pet's ashes mixed in with the tattoo ink so he would be with her forever. "Having his ashes on me means that he's always going to be with me, no matter what," Moscrop told South West News Service, as reported by New York Post. "It's not something I could lose or misplace, it's always there. Seeing it when it was done was really emotional, I did have a cry."

"Sometimes I talk to [the tattoo] as though I talk to him," Moscrop revealed. "It sounds silly, really, but sometimes when we're at places, and say I'm just wearing a t-shirt, I just think, 'Oh, he's here with me seeing all this, too.'" She was inked by her tattooist boyfriend George Ricketts, who re-created Moscrop's favorite portrait of Bronson who she'd rescued in 2019 and "spoilt rotten" until he passed unexpectedly at 3 years old last year. Although the tattoo gives her "closure" that "he's always with his mum now" and will "never ever be forgotten," it wasn't enough to fill the Bronson-sized hole left in her life.

Moscrop has since adopted yet another bull terrier named Alabama, who is now 2. "If I didn't have my new dog, I'd find it really hard to speak about him," she said. "But since I've got Alabama, she's kind of filled that hole that he's left and made it a lot easier to heal because it is awful losing your dog." The life-long animal lover shared that she was instantly drawn to Bronson—who was deaf—when she met him. "He was a crazy dog. He made such an impression on everyone because he had such a personality," she said. "He just kept me really busy and I'd see other people with their really well-behaved dogs and I'd be thinking, 'Oh my god, why can my dog not be like that?'"

Despite all his quirks, Moscrop said, she "absolutely loved him" and spoiled him with a bed of sheepskin and Laura Ashley blankets. She even planned playdates for him, making sure his "social calendar" is always packed to create an "incredible life" for her "special" pup. "He'd sit on my lap like a baby and I'd cradle him, even though he was absolutely huge," she recalled. "He loved to be dressed up as well. I'd dress him up for Halloween and he'd have hats and crowns for his birthday." Therefore, it was incredibly difficult for Moscrop to cope when her four-legged best friend passed away on July 10, 2021.

"All my family and friends just couldn't believe it when it happened. He's always all over my social media so everyone knew him really well and he's met so many people," she said, adding that "everyone knew who he was. Even people who didn't know me personally would stop and say, 'there's Bronson' he was really well known in the area that we live in... I had him cremated and it was there where the woman who ran the cremation said, 'Oh, I'll take some of his paw prints and I've heard that you can have ashes put into a tattoo. The portrait I had of him is from my favorite photo of him—you can see on his expression that he's so happy and his eyes are sparkling. My boyfriend was like, 'This is serious pressure, I need to make sure I get it right,' but as you can see, he's done an absolutely fantastic job. I do think it's a really nice way for people who like tattoos to remember someone by having the ashes mixed in, it's really special. It's like having a part of them in you and with you."