Kenny Chesney is mourning the loss of the dog who taught him how to give and receive unconditional love. Poncho, his goldendoodle, has died at 15.
“We lost Poncho at 5:15 this morning and my heart is broken but yet so full ’cause I know he gave us all he had,” he wrote.
“We went down a lot of roads, lived a lot of life and saw a lot of sunsets together,” Chesney added.
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The star shared a lengthy tribute to Poncho, who also went by Da Ponch, on social media. He shared photos of the two of them surfing, boating and just hanging out by the water, as well as a snapshot of the time Poncho joined Chesney onstage at a Chicago stadium show in 2024.
Kenny Chesney Mourns the Loss of His Dog Poncho
Poncho entered Chesney’s life as a puppy, when a friend brought him to the singer’s house and said, “Here Kenny, you need to learn to attach to something.”
“I’ve heard a dog enters your life when you need it most. And not just any dog. A specific dog just for you,” he reflected in his post. “To help you, to heal you, to show you how to accept unconditional love and give it back.”
Chesney went on to say that Poncho was a “constant companion, very curious, had swagger and [was] smarter than the average human.”
He also wrote about the life they shared with Chesney’s longtime partner Mary Nolan, as well as Ruby, the rescue pit bull that Nolan brought into the family.
“[Poncho] brought so much joy, energy, light and fun into mine and Mary’s life,” Chesney said.
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Nolan, who was linked romantically to Chesney for many years, has mostly stayed out of the spotlight.
He wrote about her in his 2025 memoir Heart Life Music through the lens of their experience raising dogs. At the time he adopted Poncho, Chesney described Nolan as “the woman I’d been seeing.”
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When Ruby joined the family, she’d been traumatized from previous life experiences. Chesney wrote that he watched Nolan “love Da Ruba Girl back from all the bad things that had happened to her,” and that “Ruby needed saving, and Mary had the perfect heart for the task.”
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“Suddenly, it was me, Ponch, Ruby and Mary: We were a family,” Chesney added.
Chesney implies in his book that he and Nolan went through a romantic breakup at some point, but says that they still shared the dogs. They acted as a unit when a vet visit revealed devastating news: Ruby was “filled with tumors,” and did not have long to live. Ruby died in December 2022.
During an appearance on Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast in 2025, Chesney implied that, if he were to adopt another pet, he might do so with Nolan. He said he hadn’t thought about the idea because Nolan was still grieving the loss of Ruby.
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Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes
