[verisimi]

Yes - but I agree with your dog story - kids can't really understand about a death. Its not a lie - its an attempt to explain at the level you were at when you were 3.

Its a different thing to go along with the social convention of tricking the younger generation, and allowing these external conventions to cleave the trust between a parent and child.

[TeMPOraL]

FWIW, we tried to explain my grandfather's passing to our then 3.5 year old without lying, and she herself crafted a story that "he's with the ants", and now, after listening to a truckload of astronomy songs, she says he's "in space" and "fell into black hole". We can see she pattern-matches the event to any other concept of "lost and not coming back" she comes across.