Companion Animal Care Articles used with permission from All-Creatures.org

The National Link Coalition discusses a Japanese study that examined the prevalence of murder-suicides that include a companion animal victim.

Japanese Study Examines Domestic Violence “Peticides”
From October 2025 LINK-Letter, The National Link Coalition
October 2025

Images from Canva

Because pets are often regarded by perpetrators of domestic violence as members of the family, they may become victims of murder-suicide alongside human household members.

That’s the conclusion of a Japanese forensic study investigating the co-occurrence of homicides/suicides with the death of companion animals, a phenomenon we’ve called “peticide” and which we’re beginning to see with some frequency (See the August 2025, December 2024, June-July 2024, December 2022, November 2022, October 2022, and September 2022 LINK-Letters). The study examined three cases in Japan in which pets were found dead alongside human victims in suspected domestic murder-suicide incidents. In all three cases, both the human and animal victims died from the same cause, suggesting a tendency for perpetrators to kill pets using the same methods as those used on human victims.

The authors called the study – the first of its kind in Japan – a component of One Health/One Welfare research exploring the interconnectedness of human wellbeing and animal welfare. They emphasized that murder-suicide is the most extreme form of domestic violence and abuse.

They pinpointed the fact that none of the media articles covering these three cases mentioned the killing of the dogs. “Given that murder-suicide cases involving humans often attract considerable media attention and are frequently reported in Japan, the lack of public awareness regarding murder-suicide-peticide incidents may reflect a broader social invisibility of such events,” they wrote. They called for ongoing interdisciplinary research to develop effective intervention strategies to protect vulnerable human and non-human individuals within the household.

-- Kihara, Y., Makino, Y., Torimitsu, S., & Chiba, F., et al. (2025). Characteristics of three forensic veterinary cases involving pet deaths in domestic murder-suicide incidents. Animals, 15(17), 2504. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15172504

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: October 30, 2025
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