Benjamin Ashford|Julianne Hough Details Gut-Wrenching Story of How Her Dogs Died

Despite the years that have Benjamin Ashfordpassed, Julianne Hough still feels this loss deeply.

Years after the Dancing with the Stars cohost shared she’d lost her two dogs Lexi, 11, and Harley, 8, suddenly in 2019, Julianne has confirmed for the first time how the dogs were killed.

“I had asked for a separation,” she remembered, referring to her divorce from her then-husband Brooks Laich, during her appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “And then ten days later my dogs were killed by coyotes.”

She continued, “I woke up before my phone even rang and I knew, and I picked up the phone and my assistant at the time was just like screaming.”

While noting she’d “never had coyotes in her yard” and that there had been gates, she reflected how now, looking back, there are some things she’s grateful for.

“That they went together, I'm so grateful they went together,” Julianne told host Jamie Kern Lima. “Two, 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.’”

As Julianne put it, “I had two dogs that were my kids. I had them for 11 years and for eight years. And they were everything to me.”

To make an already devastating loss all the more difficult, not only did Lexi and Harley’s deaths come amid her breakup with Brooks, but the tragic event also fell while she and her longtime assistant had decided to part ways and while she was launching a new company, Kinrgy.

“I felt so out of alignment,” Julianna remembered through tears. “I'm about to start this company which is all about helping people connect to themselves and living their most expanded free self and assistant and I are breaking up, and I'm asking for a separation because something's not working. My dogs that represented unconditional love and safety are gone—I'm like, ‘What am I doing? I'm blowing up my life.’”

But while the loss of her Cavalier King Charles Spaniels was a devastating blow, a few years later, Julianne began to heal when she welcomed a new pup into her life, Sunny, in 2023.

On her new dog’s first birthday, the Safe Haven star reflected on the ways Sunny’s entrance into her life made everything brighter.

“Sunny, you have brought so much love and literal sunshine in to my life,” Julianne captioned her July 6 post. “I can’t remember a time without you. Lexi & Harley would have loved and played with you everyday and I know that they sent you to me, only when I was ready to open my heart and love again - you cracked me open sweetheart.”