Hurling the remains into toll booths on the highway is fun.
(I have actually done the backyard burial thing, along with planting memorial trees).
Hi all,
I’ve worked for vets for over 14 years now, and it’s been interesting to see the change from my first job, where clients would have had to ask us if it it was an option, to now, where most clients pick the cremation w/ urn option when we offer it to them. For myself, who has literally thrown client’s cherished pets into the designated city landfill (because that used to be the usual option), find the mass cremation opiton to be adequate enough. I love my pets, I’ve made a career out of my love for pets, but I depend on photos and artwork to maintain their memory, not a urn. We currently have six dogs and two cats, recently lost one dog who was communally cremated. I can’t imagine having a shelf of dead pets, ewwwww. I can imagine having a wall of clay paws, photos and my cherished pen-and-ink of my best cow dog (who is still doing well at 16). In my pet owning history, I’ve lost two very much loved cats, who I have clay paws of and the one dog, who I have pictures of (and honestly, she was a sixteen year old headache!!) Two of my dogs and one of my cats are really “heart” pets, so maybe I’ll feel differently when they pass. But I really do care for all of them, even the headache dog, but I don’t see the value in cremains/urns for my pets.
What really gets me, as a veterinary employee, is the COUNTLESS people who won’t pay for a test or treatment that will possible save their pet or at least improve their quality of life but when it comes time to pay the cremation service, suddenly they have to spend $100-$200 on a fancy memorial urn. Money far better spent, IMHO, while the pet was alive.
I feel the same way. Tammy was cremated, and that was that.
I was going to write up a whole big thing about it (short version: I was far away at school, the dog was in fairly good health when I last saw her in August; she died about two weeks before I got home for winter break), but I started to tear up, and then I felt ridiculous because it’s been over two years, so you don’t get to hear the details. But the experience definitely convinced me that Tammy the lovably-stupid mutt was in fact gone even before that last trip to the vet, and any remains would just be a shell. A dog’s essence isn’t their body; it’s their heart and spirit and mind and love.
(Fish just got flushed, though.)
I had a dog, Cookie, who was cremated and we got the ashes back from the vet. Instead of keeping or spreading them somewhere, we put them in a big vanilla milkshake because my family really likes Cookies and Cream.
But seriously, we never got the ashes back. Still miss her sometimes, 2 years later (Oh, and her name was Goldie, not Cookie FWIW).
I haven’t had a pet since I was a child. We just left it with the vet when it was sick. I don’t know what happened to the remains. I presume it was cremated as part of a job lot with other pet corpses.
I’ve had my last few individually cremated and kept the ashes. It makes me feel better to know that they’re close. I didn’t cremate my horse, that was not really an option, financially, and I still feel terrible about what happened to her body. Calling a rendering company was my only feasible option, since it was February, the ground was frozen solid, and I boarded her and don’t own any land to bury a horse.
I bought nice wooden urns that take a photo online for like $30 and keep them on top my armoire. I also keep a small keepsake urn with my father’s ashes, too.
I did this with my “heart” cat who died at 20.
Our dogs run on the large side and we have mostly done cremation, but the last dog (a 155 lb mastiff) we did bury in the backyard, I actually think it’s legal here, and I planted two climbing white roses on his grave.
I know that the physical remains don’t mean all that much, but it’s funny, as I get older such tactile things tend to comfort me. Of course, we save the collars and tags.
If a vet mentioned donating my pet’s body to science, I certainly would consider that. But as I said before, our dogs tend to run large; I’m not sure we would ever be asked.
Our most recent dog is in a lovely custom urn on the mantel. I also have his picture with his tags next to it. His current brother and sister will be the same; may that day be far, far away.
My previous dog is “buried on a farm”; if I had been thinking straight, I would have had him cremated and gotten the ashes. I was too distraught, and had no family to discuss it with.
We currently have two cat bodies buried in the back yard. Well, not actually our back yard, but at the edge of the woods that our house backs up against. When I die I want my body to be cremated and the ashes buried next to the cats.
We bury ours on the property. Gypsy, best dog of all, has an engraved stone marking the grave, but she is the only one we did that for. Mostly wanted to tell you what my friend does. One of her dogs died while her husband was away and so she put it in their big (functioning but otherwise empty) freezer in the barn, so that he could be there for and help with burial. Turned out he couldn’t emotionally cope with burying the dog so it stayed in the freezer. When the next one died…in the freezer it went. I hesitate to ask about this, but she recently referred to a new pet in the freezer so I assume she is still doing this, at least to some extent. In contrast, they bury their horses.
If they died at home, I’d bury them in the yard, if they’re put down a the vet, cremation w/no ashes back.
I’ve buried two cats since we moved from our apartment complex to a house. Before that I had to leave the remains to be cremated when we lost our dog and two ferrets.
Cremation, with the ashes returned to us in a little pine box with a plaque detailing the cat’s name. One particular cat, Orly, was very special to me and I plan to have her ashes in my coffin when I go, so we can finish up scattered together.
When we lost our last two cats, the vet arranged for the cremation and sent us a condolences card for each cat, with a packet of forget-me-not seeds to plant in the garden.
I’ve pretty much done all of the listed options over the years. The last pet loss was very sudden and I wasn’t ready to let him go so I had him cremated and returned. I ordered a ceramic urn that just looks like an ordinary dachshund figurine, but there’s a plug in the bottom. Boris is in there and Natasha will go in there when her time comes and I’ll permanently seal the plug. I have another larger dog, a collie, that I haven’t decided about yet, but we can’t bury her in the yard.
With me it varies. The Dog of my Heart (TC the Wonderpoodle) was cremated, as was Missy-the-bitch-cat-from-Hell. My barn cats are buried next to the hay barn, because that’s where they spent alot of time, loafing in the hay and watching for rodents.
My horses are buried in the lower pasture, because it’s just practical. And I can look out my kitchen window and see their final resting place. It comforts and saddens me at the same time.
When the next “passing” occurs, I’ll just take it as it happens. It does seem odd to “dust” my dead pets at times, as I keep their cremains on the bookshelf.
My first pet that died I buried late at night in the park across the street from where I lived.
My other 3 cats that have passed away are all buried together here, in the pet cemetary outside Boulder City. It’s just a few miles from where I live, and now Graham, Mao & Lucky are all in the same place (like, within 2 feet of each other), just like they used to live together.
I’m an atheist, so I have no real attachment to their corpses, but each time it has been good to put closure to the loss by interring the bodies, and yes, it does feel good knowing that the land they rest in has served a similar purpose for hundreds (thousands, prolly) of other people and their pets.
If I’m still living in Las Vegas when my newest furry overlords pass away, they’ll go as close as I can to the first trio. If not, I’ll find some other excellent place where I can pay my last respects.
I’m going to bury my Perciful at my sons because I’m renting and I want him to be with family. He is the best dog I have ever had. I don’t even like thinking about that fated day…
When my childhood pet died, my mom threw it in the garbage can. She said she was worried the cause of death was a disease or something 
The only thing I wanted to do with my Chisa-cat’s body was listen to make sure her heart wasn’t beating. If they’d offered me the opportunity to donate her body to science, I would’ve done it (after all, I’m an organ donor, and if that doesn’t work out I’d be happy to have my body donated to science too). They ended up charging me for a burial somewhere, which as far as I know could be the “sent to the landfill” charge.
I feel pretty strongly that it’s important not to confuse the body with the person who lives in it. I hate to think of people spending unnecessary time and money doing stuff to my body when I’m done with it, and I don’t want to do that for my cats’ bodies either, no matter how much I loved them.
I can understand the people who want to “mingle the ashes” but I don’t think I could emotionally deal with keeping up with half a dozen cats’ worth of ashes. If I change my mind later, I’ll just have to be comforted by the fact that even if I live to be 100 and they buy a new suit to bury me in, somehow, there will still be Chisa-hair on it. She was the most unrepentant shedder I have ever known.
Good point, and so true.
I was getting out a backpack about a month ago, and found a favorite former kitty’s fur in it, and it was comforting.