Neil Patrick Harris’ has revealed one of his family’s beloved dogs has died in a ‘terrible’ way while they were away from home.
Yesterday (17 July), the 51-year-old Emmy winner opened up about the death of his four-year-old golden retriever in his newsletter for Wondercade.
Eleanor Menopee Burtka-Harris - better known by her moniker Ella - was named after Harris’ husband David Burtka’s maternal grandmother, Eleanor Zajas.
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The pooch joined Harris and 49-year-old Burtka’s family on Christmas Day in 2020, much to the delight of their two children, twins Harper Grace and Gideon Scott, both 13.
However, on Wednesday, Harris let readers of Wondercade know that he was grieving following a ‘freak accident’ which had taken Ella’s life.
Writing in the site’s official newsletter, the How I Met Your Mother actor began: “Something terrible happened.”
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He explained that ‘late last week’ he and his husband of almost ten years had been on holiday in New Hampshire.
The pair had packed their children off to summer camp and they’d employed a close friend called Michael to watch over Ella and the family’s other three canines.
However, according to the Doctor Who star, he received a tragic phone call one morning from Michael who uttered three words.
“Ella is dead.”
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Michael told his friend that he had ventured into the ‘front yard’ and discovered Ella lying motionless in the grass.
“It seems like a tree branch had somehow gotten caught in her collar, and in trying to get it free, she rolled around on the ground and it wrapped around her neck,” the family friend told Harris.
“She must have choked or been strangled or something. Part of the branch is stuck in her mouth. But she’s dead. Ella’s dead.”
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Posting in tribute to Ella’s life, Harris explained how the dog was ‘absolutely brimming with life’ and ‘barely four years old’.
“We've had dogs die before, but they were old and blind and incontinent, so for them it was only a matter of time. Sad, yes, but inevitable,” he continued.
“But Ella was so young. She lived to play. She never stopped smiling. And now she's gone. Just like that.
'It was the freakest of accidents. Self-strangulation? By a felled tree branch?? I've never heard of anything like it before in my life.”
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He continued to say that sometimes terrible events ‘just happen’ and that now it was time to process Ella’s death ‘as authentically and effectively as possible’.
“And then, somehow, move on,” he continued to type. “There's no other option, really — to somehow try and make sense of it, well, makes no sense. It's senseless.
“The best I can do is just feel, ideally without judgment, and then let those feelings pass. And to try and model grief in an effective way for my family.”
Interestingly, Harris plans to keep Ella’s death off of social media for now.
The Series of Unfortunate Events superstar claimed he had ‘no interest’ in receiving ‘hateful, uninformed, yet inevitable comments’ that the dog’s death would draw on Instagram.
“It’s too soon. I also thought about not saying anything to anyone, just calling a few close friends and family members who spent time with Ella. But that seemed strange and sad and wrong, as if her life was inconsequential, her story something to forget.”
He added that just being able to type about Ella made him feel ‘slightly better’ and ‘lighter’.
Ella Scott