We just had to make this decision and having changed my mind twice, I wondered what other Dopers do. In the end, we donated her body for study, followed by an individual cremation where we get her ashes back. What did/will you do with Fido? Or Sylvester? Or whatever?
If you chose to get the ashes back, I’d be interested to know what you did with them. Urn? Scatter? Planted a tree on top? Um, …cremation diamond?
Our boy cat Max’s ashes came back in a little sealed box which we keep with his collar and his favorite toy on a shelf on my desk.
So far all of our pets but one have been buried on our property (we have nine semi-wooded acres). Up on a back hill we have our own private pet cemetery.
The exception was our first springer, Miss Emily Kimberly, who was Mr. S’s best dog. We had her cremated, and her urn (a brass cube, really), engraved with her name and dates, sits on our piano. Mr. S would like to be cremated and have her ashes scattered with his when he goes. (Hm, wonder if I get to join them?)
We’ll probably cremate our current springers when they go. Springers just always have a special place in our hearts, and it’s a hard task to bury your own dog. I dunno about having a whole row of urns on the piano, though; that could get morbid real quick. Maybe we’ll scatter them here. Gotta talk to the mister about that someday.
I live in NYC and when we put our cat to sleep recently, we had the vet cremate in a mass cremation. Truthfully, from my point of view when the “them” that is “them” is gone (the mind, the living force, however you want to think of it) , the body is just a “thing.” It makes no difference what happens to it, as long as it isn’t defiled. I can understand others wanting to keep the remains, it just isn’t something that has meaning to me.
When my horse died she was buried where she lay on the farm (with the landowners permission). I did not attend the burial; it involved a backhoe. I kept a lock from her tail.
All of the pets were cremated. The cats came home in decorative boxes because cwPartner was there when when we did the paperwork for the euthanasia, and he really didn’t want to let them go. Two of the cats still rest quietly in their urns on the bookshelf in cwPartner’s room. The other cat ended up sprinkled in the yard as a memorial. She was always an escape artist, and I liked the idea of letting her spend eternity outside, where she always wanted to be. Now we keep dog biscuits in her urn.*
The Wonder Beagle didn’t come back because cwPartner wasn’t there when he was euthanized (the dog was suffering, and wasn’t about to keep him suffering overnight for cwPartner’s sake). I’m happy with pictures and memories, and cwPartner was not as attached to the dog as he was to the cats.
*Yeah, it’s morbid. But I liked being able to wave the tin of biscuits at the dog, saying, “You’re next, Wonder Beagle, if you don’t behave.”
I’ve only had fish and rats die on me. Rats were buried and fish were flushed.
Cremation and we paid extra for a real nice cheery wood box with their name inscribed.
That’s what I did as well. For a pet that you were especially close to, I really recommend it.
Sorry for your loss.
City law here actually prohibits burying animals in our back yard, so we’ve taken our animals up to my in-laws who live out in the country, and buried them under ‘the tree’ with all of the previous pets the family had.
But when one of our cats got hit by a car late one night a couple years ago, I did go into the back yard and dig a grave for him.
I thought I felt exactly like you do, Hello Again. In fact, when I think I’m being entirely rational about it, that is how I feel.
er, …except I guess it isn’t because, for reasons inexplicable, I am weirdly comforted by knowing exactly where two of my late dogs (ashes) are and a little wistful about the ones I didn’t get back. I’m not sure if resolving this vague sense of unease is worth the extra $125 price tag, but FWIW, I’m relieved that I changed my mind while I still could. Y (and Everyone’s) MMV, of course.
We had Boomer cremated but we didn’t keep the ashes. My husband and I are in our mid 60’s, and we’re starting to think about what we’ll be leaving behind for others to deal with. I don’t think any of the kids would want the ashes, but they’d feel guilty for tossing them, so we made that decision. We have a nice framed photo of Boomer on a shelf in the living room but it was months before we put it out, because it hurt too much to look at it.
I’m sorry for your loss. I’d vote for putting the ashes in a special container, maybe fashioned after something Daisy enjoyed.
ETA: I still have my brother’s ashes in the cardboard box from the crematorium, sitting in a kitchen cupboard. I still have no idea what to do with them, and he died in 2002. He would have wanted to be sprinkled on a stripper pole.
My former cat of 17 years died ( a few years ago ) on an operating table and I was never actually asked about what I wanted to do with her remains. Turned out she was cremated and the ashes sent to me in a nice wooden box, which probably wouldn’t have been my choice. Though I think I still have them around somewhere, I’m not actually sentimental about those sorts of mementos. I’m sentimental about my memories of my pet of course, but not about the actual remains.
Given my druthers I’d just want them cremated and disposed of. Which is pretty much how I feel about my eventual remains as well.
I got a dog last October and she has totally stolen my heart - but when she passes I don’t want her remains around. I’ll ask the vet to dispose of her body.
When my husband was alive, we got ashes back. Now that I’m making the decisions by myself, I go with cremation but no ashes back.
Cremation, ashes back, and interred in a special area of our farm, which now holds two dogs and a cat.
The cat didn’t get cremated, though. Just interred, after wintering in the auxiliary freezer.
Thanks, AuntiePam. Maybe I could cobble something together out of leftovers, or squeeze her into the bottom of my ice cream cone.
By the way, I see no one has gone for the [del]Stephen King[/del] Gates of Heaven option.
How about something like this?
Well… actually…
Some of my dogs are buried in a very nice pet cemetary. It was owned by a young couple, who divorced several years ago. The wife was the one that took care of the cemetary, but the land was owned by the husband before they were married. So he basically closed it. 
You can still go visit your pets’ graves but no more will be buried there.
I have had 2 dogs die since then and both werte cremated and their cremains are in nice wooden boxes.
One of our cats, Ronnie, who my wife had raised from a kitten, was buried in our back yard; this was probably against local law, but we didn’t care. Felicia, who used to lie on top of Ronnie’s grave whenever we let her out into the yard, was cremated and some of her ashes scattered over Ronnie’s grave.
When my wife died, I scattered some of her ashes over Ronnie’s grave so they could be together again.
Most of my ferrets were communally cremated at a local pet cemetery (sent there via the vet’s office) and scattered on their grounds. We had one ferret die on a Sunday, and rather than wait until we could go to the vet, my husband dug a hole in a flower bed, and we interred the ferret out there, putting a flagstone down right above him, and then on the very top of the filled-in hole. I’m a little sad that he was buried there and our last little one, his buddy, ended up at the cemetery, but no more than a little sad about it.