DWTS’ Julianne Hough Gives Heartbreaking Update: ‘Unconditional Love and Safety — Gone’

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Julianne Hough is opening up about a heartbreaking loss, five years later. The Dancing With the Stars co-host has recently opened up about some of the hardest moments of her life, including her divorce and the end of her relationship with Ryan Seacrest. So, it feels fitting that she has now decided to discuss the devastating loss of two members of her family

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Hough, who has never talked about the tragic deaths of her beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniels Lexi and Harley, finally shared the whole story during an August 27 interview on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, telling the host that she lost her dogs just ten days after she separated from then-husband Brooks Laich. “I woke up before my phone even rang and I knew,” Hough recalled. “And I picked up the phone, and my assistant at the time was just like screaming,” she said on the podcast, explaining that the dogs were killed by coyotes. “I’ve never had coyotes in my yard, I have gates and everything,” Hough added.

The dancer posted an emotional tribute to her dogs on Instagram in a post whose caption read “Pure love is real, it existed through us. My heart expanded and felt the truth of what is possible. I am forever grateful.”

The caption also read “Thank you for being the most consistent and constant being in my life. I miss you, I love you forever. Now You Are Free Lexi July 21 2008 – September 28 2019, Harley March 28 2011 – September 28 2019.”

In the podcast, Hough spoke about the loss of the loss of her dogs as losing a member of her family. “I had two dogs that were my kids. I had them for 11 years and for eight years. And they were everything to me,” she said. “My dogs that represented unconditional love and safety — gone.”

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The only comfort for Hough, she said, was that her dogs were together when they died. “I’m grateful that usually how it happens is very quick and that we got their bodies. But at that time, I was like, ‘Oh that was the unraveling of the absolute safety of like unconditional love.’”

The loss came at a very hard moment for Hough, as she’d just separated from her husband Brooks Laich. On the Monday, August 12 episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast, Hough spoke about that separation, sharing that “It wasn’t right. That can be a hard thing to fully accept.” Moreover, the dancer added “I feel like our relationship and our marriage was exactly right, and the end of it is right, too. We both have regrets that it didn’t work out because I don’t think we had the maturity to come together. He was contracting while I was expanding. We just couldn’t find each other in that.”

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