Inspired by the recent euthanasia and subsequent burial of my dear old kitty, I was wondering what you did with your last deceased animal’s remains?
I loved my little Westie so much that when he died in October I had him individually cremated and got his ashes back in a cedar box with brass hinges and lock. I’m not sure it was the right decision, because it cost something like $350, but it was a decision made out of love.
Last night a friend showed me a dog-shaped locket she had made that includes some of her dog’s ashes.
I had my kitty individually cremated, and she’s now in a beautiful dragon urn on my coffee table. She was my favorite kitty, she was only five when she died, and I loved her dearly. I felt like she deserved special treatment.
Technically, my last bunch of pets have been fish, who have been unceremoniously flushed upon passing. My last pets of the sort you mean were my childhood gerbils, buried in the backyard of the home we then lived in. My brother and I made little clay headstones for them in my mother’s pottery studio.
The last three cats of ours that have died, have done so during the time we’ve had a backyard to bury them in. (That turns out to have been three different backyards, but such is life. And death.)
I’m sure this will either freak out or gross someone out, but the last three deceased parrots have been placed in the freezer. We hope one day to have sufficient means to purchase cremation services and urn, but right now I’m more concerned with buying adequate food for the live ones than final placement of the deceased.
No, they’re not just lying there in ziplock bags next to the hamburger and drumsticks. They are in, uh, temporary caskets I guess you’d call them. A sealed cardboard box. Fortunately, they are not large animals. And it was my husband’s idea.
I work for a vet and I’ve always had mine group cremated with no ashes returned. I don’t personally see the value of ashes returned or expensive urns. My SO and I are dog-crazy (and I love my cats) but I see far more value in pictures, clay paws and that sort of tribute than the actual physical remains. My 16 year old, GREAT cow dog that recently died - I don’t need her remains when I’ve got a stunning pen and ink drawing done of her working a cow on one of the best days of my life.
What really distresses me time and time again is seeing clients come in with a medically neglected pet that hasn’t seen a vet for years. Wouldn’t bring their pet in to ease their quality of life, but some will turn around and buck up $200 for a nice urn. Personally, I’d rather spend the money on the pet when it can still make their lives better. Not that I judge those who choose differently when they’ve taken good care of their pet, it’s just not for me.
It’s about thirty-five years ago now: a stray cat that got adopted into the family. It carked it one night and we found its body in the backyard the next morning. It happened to be garbage day, and I’m pretty sure that Dad just put the body out with the rest of the rubbish.
:: imagines pulling parrot out of box, whacking it against counter ::
klunk klunk
This …is an ex-parrot!
Every hamster is placed in a shoebox filled with fluff and a few yummy treats. Then we say a few words in the laundry room and its down the trash chute. It’s a bit like burial at sea.
After the vet put our 20-year-old cat to sleep, she offered to dispose of the remains. We said yes. The whole process was painful enough already - we didn’t want to extend it.
When I was 22 I had to make the decision to have the family’s 16-year-old cat put down - everyone else in my family was away. It was a big deal for a young man. I brought her body back from the vet, dug a hole in the back yard in the rain and buried her there, with tears streaming down my face.
Winter before last I came out to start my car and found a tiny kitten frozen to death under the rear axle. I buried it in the front yard, having mournful flashbacks to the above incident.
Merlyn passed away unexpectedly Dec. 30. I’m pagan, so returning him to the earth was really important to me; however I don’t have a yard and the ground was frozen anyway. The vet offered cremation services through a suburban company, but I’d already done some research and chose a funeral home that was literally up the street from where I live, and who does an individual cremation for less than half of what a group cremation at the other place would have been.
I carried him from the vet office to the funeral home myself. I got his ashes back about a week later, along with a pretty cardboard scattering urn and a whole bunch of freebies (pens, a coffee mug (?!), some brochures on grieving, a laminated Rainbow Bridge poem, and a small silver frame with a fur clipping, all of which were included in the service fee).
I’d received a tiny glass vial with a cork stopper, about an inch high, in a previous ritual. I put a tiny amount of his ashes in the vial and a part of him resides permanently on my home altar.
A friend of mine is a priest, and I’d arranged with him to help me and say a few words. We gave Merlyn back underneath a willow tree in a nearby park. We tied Merlyn’s shoelaces in amongst the dangling willow branches – they were his favorite toys. One of the laces disappeared recently, but the rest of them are still there.
Merlyn wasn’t just a pet, he was also my familiar, so it has been an incredibly hard loss. I also think the intimacy of physically handling him and handling much of the difficult arrangements myself was really crucial in saying good-bye to him.
Last summer the cat didn’t come home one night. After looking for the cat all the next day, we found him dead at about 8:30pm. What with the heat, the fact he’d been dead for at least the whole day and with less than half an hour of daylight left, we took a quick decision to bury him in the backyard. Wrapped him in a towel, placed him inside a gift box that I used to use for storing Christmas decorations and buried him with love and tears near the chestnut tree.
Not sure what we would have done if we’d had more time to consider our options.
Cats, buried in the backyard with a large rock on top to prevent the dog from excavating.
All of the ferrets I’ve owned, except for one who died on a Sunday (vet’s office was closed), were cremated through the vet’s office in a group cremation, with their ashes scattered at a lovely pet cemetery near where we live. The other one was buried in our backyard; my husband dug a hole next to a flowerbed and we laid him in the bottom. I put some dirt in, then laid in a decent-sized flagstone, and covered with more dirt and another flagstone on top. As far as I could tell, nothing disturbed the area.
He’s pining for the fjords!
My last dog was mass cremated since I was broke. My roommate’s 80lbs Shepard was cremated and returned(and stored in my station wagon till the vet opened the next morning).
All of the SuperKitties over the years are in urns on the bookshelf in my home office - with the exception of Murphy, my favorite, who now resides in a little black cat-shaped urn on my nightstand.
Doesn’t everybody have their cat’s ashes on their nightstand? 
We had a local potter make a custom urn. He is on a shelf in our living room. I have stopped saying hello to him when I come in the door, but I still say it in my mind sometimes.
When my sweet baby boy and girl go, we will do the same. And I wish I could justify the price of one of these, and maybe I will do anyway.
It was sent to the County for a necropsy to inspect for rabies.