A slight hijack here for one of my favourite kid stories.
One of Bing Crosby’s kids had a pet hamster that died and the child was inconsolable - wracked with grief. So Bing suggested a funeral for the hamster in the backyard. He made a coffin from a shoebox, they dug a small grave. Bing sang a couple of typical hamster funeral songs. Before interring the hamster he asked his son if he wanted one last look. He opened the box to show his son the hamster lying peacefully on a handkerchief. And the hamster moved.
His son looked up at Bing and said, “Ah, let’s bury it anyway.”
We have a regular pet cemetary (correctly spelled with no resuscitating powers associated with it) that includes cats, lizards, rats, and assorted critters.
I try to get down 3 feet, but there have been a couple of nights in sleet with the ground nearly frozen when I settled for “under the sod” for a smaller beastie. I have never had a scavenger pull up a body (and I know we have skunks in the woods out back and coyotes in the county). The plot is over 200 feet behind the house, (near the goat barns), so I know that it is not proximity to the house that keeps scavengers away.
I would not want to make broad declarations about conditions in the Southeast or Southwest, but I am fairly sure that the Great Lakes and New England will tolerate my method of burial without attracting undue attention from scavengers. (I can’t promise about dogs, but I don’t think one would dig very deep.)
I would guess that letting an animal get cold would simply be a way to ensure that there was no chance you were mistaken about its death. (WAG)
(From experience, I would say that if you find an apparently deceased pet that is not cold (and stiff), it is a good idea to fold it into a fetal or curled napping position before rigor mortis does set in. It is (unfortunately) much easier to bury a compact, curled form than a body with limbs spayed out in different directions.)
I would guess the advice on waiting until the body is cold, is just incase you were wrong about it’s death. Remember that it will stink, so don’t burry it shallow or near a neighbors window or in a place that might have utilies. They make rock carnes over graves for a reason. It will help to put a large heavy item over the grave until the smell won’t bring in the scavengers.
We’ve got that, too. Plus, I have two vets who will put your pet down at home. A travelling euthanasia team. It’s very convenient, particularly if you have a large animal. They load him into the van after the deed is done, and send you the ashes with a little condolence card. It’s really very nice.
My cat Whitey was put to sleep early in the morning. I spent the largest part of the day just holding him. In the afternoon, I wrapped him in a lace pillowcase and buried him in the back yard. To date, that was the worst day of my life.
As Adoptamom mentioned, I was torn when we moved from the house a few years later. I gave serious consideration to bringing Whitey with me, but eventually decided that he should stay in the place where he lived his happy life.
Depends on what you mean by “back yard.” I would never bury a pet in the yard of a home that was in town and that I expected to sell any time soon. On the other hand, we live on 3 acres of land that, as far as we know, will stay in the family for several generationos. We have staked out a little pet cemetery in one corner of the property; Estes the Cat already occupies it. Because we’re out in the country, and because I don’t care to dig a 6-foot pit to bury a cat, I did build a plywood coffin for Estes – it keeps coyotes and other animals from digging up the corpse. There’s a little more than a foot of soil over the coffin.
I’ve buried many pets over the years and have only had one grave disturbed at all. It was a neighbor’s cat that had been abandoned and run over by a car, then left along the extremely rural road that runs up to our property. My brother and I decided to give the cat a proper burial, and so moved the body into a cardboard box and took it to our land. The ground was extremely sandy in the spot we’d selected and we hit a tangle of roots about two feet down, so couldn’t go any deeper. We buried the cat there and put some stones over the top of the grave.
We think a small bear that we’d seen lumbering around on our property a few days before got to the grave. It wasn’t dug out all the way, but it was dug down until you could see the cardboard. We reburied it and didn’t have any more disturbances.
Other pets have been typically buried three feet or so and have never been troubled in any way. They have been wrapped in cloth or put in cardboard boxes, but nothing more elaborate than that has ever been needed. If this is enough to deter bears, foxes, raccoons, and whatever else might be interested in scavenging out here, I’m sure it’s enough for dogs.
As for apartment dwellers, when I was living at home in grad school my apartmented friend lost a gerbil or a hamster or something, and I let her bury it in my parents’ yard. (Heh.) We wanted to get it in the ground right away, so there we were in the dark with flashlights digging a little hole for a gerbil stuck in one of those boxes your checks come in. God knows what the neighbors thought.
My uncle had a beloved dog that passed on. My uncle is a carpenter, so when the dog died, he build a beautiful oak casket for him - the dog was a German Shepard, so you can imagine the size. He was renting at the time, so he buried it in the access lot next to my parents (owned by the city and contains a stormwater ditch that runs into the lake), under a large oak.
A decade or so later the ditch needed to be dredged, and, not surprisingly, the dredger dug up the coffin. Fortunately, the remains where immediately apparent as a non-human once the casket was open - or there may have been an issue for my Dad (and I understand there were a few tense moments - it was OBVIOUSLY a casket). The crewchef reburied the whole thing with no one from the city being the wiser.
My two kitty’s are buried out back of my house, having lasted 17 1/2 yrs and 18 1/2 yrs.
I would caution everyone, though, to be aware that it’s probably not legal w/in city limits, and to be careful to not let the nosy neighbors see you.
Good friends of mine just bought a house a couple years ago, and the sellers told them they needed to dig up to back yard, so they could take “Corky” w/ them…can’t imagine doing that, although I’m sure I’ll feel that twinge if and when I ever move from this house.
Mine is not really one of them. My appologies, but I believe it’s relevant.
We had a mixed breed dog who was on the large side of medium, or maybe the smaller end of large. I’m guessing somewhere around 75lbs.
My mother found him dead one day, and wanted to bury him before my pre-school aged brother saw the body. My dad was not home to help. She grabbed a shovel and started digging. She dug a hole that looked like it was about the right size, but it took a while because we have clay soil.
The dog had been lying on his side when he expired. He had been lying there for several hours by the time the hole was dug. Rigor mortis had set in.
With great effort, mom dragged Caesar over to the hole and sized up the situation. The hole was not wide enough. More digging. She enlisted the help of a neighbor/friend/man, and together they made the hole bigger. It was getting late.
Together, Mom and friend lifted the dog and tipped him into the hole. On his back. With his legs in the air. The hole was wide enough, it was long enough, but it was not deep enough. As they started to refill the hole, the realized that the legs were sticking out, and they would not bend. She had visions of finishing the job, leaving four paws sticking out of the ground. They pulled the body back out and dug some more. Finally they had a suitable grave for Caesar, and there he has stayed, feet and all safely tucked away.
I still imagine paws popping up in that corner of the yard.
Dog, about 15. Needed to be put down. Wife and young daughter opted out. I pulled the trigger and son and I wrapped dog in cloth, dug hole and buried. Put unmarked stone at ground level so I could mow over it.
City - don’t ask, don’t tell.
Good dog, hard to do, better than letting a stranger do it. I know what happened to her, not what someone else says happened to her. I know she is not in a trash dump.
It was in mid 80’s. Moved off in 89.
Went by about a year ago, peeked over fence, stone was still there.
She lived there, she played there. She died there and if anything physical is still holding together, it is still there.
We have 2 cats and a hamster buried in our back yard. All were buried in cardboard boxes, with the cats wrapped in small blankets. We put some treats and small toys in the boxes with the bodies. We also buried an old film cannister with each one. In them I had placed 2 coins, one from the year they were born and one from the year they died.
One of the cats died in March, which meant the ground was still frozen down to about 8-10 inches. That was some very hard digging.
That’s why we started doing cremation. Our last death was in January a few years back. No way in hell you can get through that. I much prefer cremation to burial.
I have buried two cats in my backyard. One (my beloved Pinhead) was 15 years old and was put down after a debilitating stroke. He went into the garden, very deeply, in a box. We have since had an addition put onto our house, so he now resides directly beneath on of my bookcases in the new room. The other cat (Ginger) died after 18 wonderful years and is now buried in the shade of the backyard apple tree. I have yet to get another cat because their deaths were so tough on me.
Two cats “came with” my house when I rented it. They were outdoor cats–although I later regretted not trying harder to make them live inside. One was hit by a car & killed. A neighbor put her in a garbage bag & I took her to the Humane Society. They said they’d cremate her when they cremated the animals they’d put down. Grim–but the City had recommended I just dump her in the garbage can & wait for pick up. (The other one disappeared.)
I inherited two inside cats & both of them lived about 20 years. They are safely at rest in the yard, wrapped in t-shirts.
I buried Nuke in the garden, he was run over a little way down from the house by someone who decided it would be a good idea to just toss his body over the nearest fence. Luckily the lady who found him saw his Petlog tag and found out from then where I lived.
So I was fortunate enough to get his remains back so that I could bury him. I wrapped him in his favourite towel, he used to sleep on it and often moved it around the house to whichever spot he wanted to have a snooze in. It just seemed right to wrap him up in it when it came time to put him in the ground.
Afterwards, I had to phone the vets and tell them he had passed away. They sent me a card and a pack of forget-me-not seeds which I planted over his grave.
The last cat that I lost, Orly, was found outside and taken to the vets. They said that she wasn’t in the kind of condition where it would be pleasant for us to see her so they handled everything for us. She was cremated at Prestwood and her ashes were returned to us in a little casket with her name on a gold plaque.
Losing a pet is hard enough but it’s good to know that there are people around who can make it easier for you.
My mother’s house in the semi-country has an entire pet cemetery on the hill. We’ve buried about three cats, a couple dogs and who knows how many birds, turtles, guinea pigs there. Last time a pet died (my poor Katie), we had to find a place that was “rock” free–a grave that hadn’t been marked by a flat rock. It was cold, very cold, and raining that was quickly turning into sleet as I dug the grave. Down about three feet until I hit a ball of roots. We put Katie in, wrapped in a towell, then covered her up and placed the grave with a flat rock.
Every now and then, the Hallkids will hike up the hill to place flowers.
For those unable to do the digging/excavation, There are a few companies that specialize in this. In Pittsburgh there is a company called Backyard Burials that can come to your location with equipment to dig a grave. Pricey, but nice.
For a big job, a backhoe sometimes is needed. Last year I put one of my GF’s horses down. No way were we gonna dig that hole. It only took an hour from the time we looked up “excavation” in the phone book for an excavator to arrive, dig, and refill the grave.