Pet owners have been getting surprise gifts from Chewy, from refunds to flowers and even painted portraits of their pets after important milestones: 'We were shocked and super thankful'

• Pet products company Chewy was trending on Twitter after a customer tweeted about her experience.
• Anna Brose said that Chewy sent her flowers with a gift note after she told the company her dog died.

When Anna Br ose tweeted about her experience with Chewy, the pet products company went viral.

Brose wrote that she contacted Chewy about returning an unopened bag of her dog Gus's food after he died. She said the company gave her a full refund, told her to donate the food to a shelter, and delivered flowers to her with a gift note signed by the person at Chewy she was in contact with.

—Anna Brose, MSc (@alcesanna) June 15, 2022

Her tweet, which has over 740,000 likes, prompted thousands of replies and quote tweets from other pet owners who said Chewy had responded similarly to them after they lost a pet and on other occasions.

Jennifer Monteforte, who works at an animal shelter, said people often reach out to donate pet food because Chewy told them to.

"I can't express what this means to shelters like mine," Monteforte tweeted.

—jgrace (@jgmonte922) June 16, 2022

Monteforte told Insider she's never directly worked with anyone at Chewy, but donations range from pet supplies to food donations.

"My shelter runs only on food donations, so every donation makes a difference," she said.

Shawn Lamoreaux tweeted that Chewy sent him a hand-painted portrait of his dog after she died in February. Lamoreaux told Insider that Chewy found out when he removed her profile from Chewy's website and notified the company that he would no longer be buying her joint supplement pills.

"We were not expecting anything and were only notifying them so they knew not to send us the pills anymore, so we were shocked and super thankful to see a painting come to our doorstep a few weeks later with a hand-written card included," Lamoreaux said, adding that the painting now sits next to his dog's ashes.

—Shawn (@beepbeeplettuk) June 16, 2022

Andrew Stein, senior director of customer service at Chewy, told Insider the company has artists on its team who make the painted portraits that "absolutely nail it, and they are so fun to see."

"Showing up for our customers during important milestones in their pet parenting journey is core to our DNA," Stein said in the statement. "Since Chewy's very early days, empowering our incredible Chewtopians to personalize their interactions with customers, take an interest in their lives and go beyond with gestures like these has been essential to our culture."

Those milestones include happy ones too.

Jerry Cooke started using Chewy in September 2021 after he and his wife rescued two dogs, one of whom they named Princess Leia. Cooke shared a photo of the card and painting of Princess Leia that Chewy sent him on May 4th, informally known as Star Wars Day.

— (@thereallj915) June 16, 2022

"I was super surprised," Cooke told Insider. "I thought it was something my wife ordered for the dogs."

Miranda Strasburg said she's been a customer with Chewy since she got her two cats about 7 years ago. Strasburg shared a photo of two painted portraits of her cats that she said Chewy sent her after she posted a photo of her cats in a Chewy box.

A few months later, she received a package.

"I opened the card, and it said, 'Please enjoy the portraits of your furbabies,'" Strasburg told Insider. "I was definitely confused at first, but when I opened the package, I immediately knew the paintings were my cats because one of my cats has a unique smushed face."

—Miranda Strasburg (@strasbm3) June 15, 2022