Neil Patrick Harris Pens Moving Tribute in Memory of His 'Beautiful' Golden Retriever Ella

Neil Patrick Harris is mourning the death of Ella, one of his beloved family dogs. 

On Wednesday, July 17, the How I Met Your Mother alum, 51, who is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Wondercade, opened up about the “terrible” loss in his newsletter. 

Prefacing the tribute by letting readers know Wondercade doesn’t typically post such heavy-hearted content, he noted that he simply wasn’t sure how to process his grief other than by sharing. 

“Something terrible happened,” Harris wrote. 

The actor explained that “late last week,” he and his husband David Burtka were vacationing in New Hampshire while their 13-year-old twins Harper and Gideon were away at summer camp. Michael, a close friend, was watching the family’s four dogs.

According to Harris, he got a very early phone call one morning during his trip with three gut-wrenching words from Michael. 

“Ella is dead.”

He was told the 4-year-old golden retriever died in a freak accident involving a tree branch. 

“I found her in the front yard, lying 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 said. “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.” 

Harris went on, recalling how the canine got her name. 

Eleanor Menopee Burtka-Harris, better known as Ella, was named after Burtka’s maternal grandmother, Eleanor Zajas. Her middle name was picked out by Harris’ father, who thought saying it with her nickname (Ella Menopee) was funny. 

Ella joined the family in December 2020 as a Christmas gift “from Santa Claus himself,” the Emmy Award winner wrote.

"Oh Santa, what have you done??" Harris captioned an Instagram post at the time. "On Christmas morning, @dbelicious and I watched Gideon and Harper open a box filled with... a golden retriever puppy. Her name is Ella, and she has pretty much taken over our lives."

He announced her arrival with a group photo of himself and his twins, dressed in their Christmas long Johns, gathered around the pup.

“It was a morning I’ll never forget — we were almost living in a Norman Rockwell painting. I’ve rarely been happier,” the actor said on Wednesday. “And now she’s dead. And I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know how to make space for it.”

Harris described Ella as “the single most beautiful golden retriever puppy that has ever existed into our family.”

Ella was Burtka’s “favorite,” and “Harper and Gideon loved Ella deeply," Harris wrote.

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The Series of Unfortunate Events talent explained that he didn’t plan to share news of Ella’s death on Instagram at this time because “I really have no interest in processing the hateful, uninformed, yet inevitable comments that would ensue.” 

“It’s too soon.”