My 12 year old Golden Retriever died about 3 weeks ago, and we had her remains sent to a “water cremation” place. Our other dog, a Basset Hound was basically raised by the Golden. The Golden was about 6 when we got the Basset, who was about 6 months old at the time… They were together 6 years as best friends until the older one got sick and we had to have her put to sleep.
We just went and picked up the Golden’s “ashes” - which from what they told me is her bones ground up - in a beautiful box with her paw print on a ceramic disk. When we got into the car, the Basset started going crazy… This is a dog who doesn’t usually get in the car and go nuts… But she kept sniffing the box and barking and howling and trying to sniff the box for at least 10 minutes…
Even when we moved the box out of the way, the Basset kept looking at it and barking… I have never seen her act this way - ever. It seems to me that somehow she knew that the Golden’s remains were in the box. My husband thinks there’s no way she could know.
I’d like to think that she could somehow tell, and was grieving for her best friend, like we’re still doing.
Has ever experienced anything similar? I know elephants sometimes grieve over the bones of other elephants… Maybe dogs to too?
Maybe trace elements on the box from the technician’s hands/gloves? Sure bet they don’t have to be as careful handling canine remains as humans.
Plus, I think Bassets have one of the most sensitive noses of dogs; I heard once that a Basset can detect an odor the size of a pinch of paint in an area of air the size of Manhattan.
Will you be storing the remains away from your surviving pet?
To your pet, you’re keeping a dead animal around. Now, I know its not like having a young child that you’ve raised suddenly discover that you’re perfectly fine with driving around while having a dead body in the trunk.
(“Mommy, what’s Wrong with you!? Dead bodies don’t go in trunk! No, they Really Don’t! Can’t you get Rid of that thing? Please? Please!?”)
Still, at a very basic level, I can understand how smelling a dead body / remains might trigger a ‘danger’ or a ‘flight’ response.
That’s what I thought, but found out that “aqua cremation” doesn’t actually burn anything… They dissolve everything except the bones and then grind up the bones and give them back to you…
About 6 years ago, our 8 year old Labrador had a brain tumour and we had her euthanised. Her body was cremated and we have the ashes in a box at home. Our other dog, who was about 3 years younger and had lived with the older since she was 3-4 months old never gave any sign of associating the ashes with her foster mother. She did show lots of signs of loneliness and wandered around the house for quite some time, apparently looking for her friend/mother.
After about 8 months we got a new dog. I don’t know about our dog, but we found the place too quiet with only one dog. So now there are two data points. Your Basset seemed to have a connection with the remains and our mixed breed mostly Labrador did not.
How are they not overwhelmed by everyday life? Wouldn’t a Bassett hound sense thousands of odors competing for attention simultaneously in that Manhattan-sized air volume?
I’ve watched a boat-load of documentaries about dogs over the last several years and haven’t gotten a decent answer for that. My WAG is dogs “live in the moment,” and the scent they were focused on one second ago carries over to second #2 shutting out other smells (lame, I know).
Plus, hold on to your hat, dogs have 2,000,000 receptors in those schnozzez of theirs; how they keep from going nuts is beyond me.
We figured after all the years the Basset had with the Golden, she’d need a new friend… and since we originally got her from a rescue organization, we went back to get her a sister!
I was just as freaked out when I found out where my dog had been sent, but by the time I found out, it was too late to change to something a little more “traditional”…
