Pet Funeral

About Pet Funeral

While many people regard the pet funeral as a modern tradition, since ancient times people have memorialized their pets. While holding a pet funeral may not be for everyone, many experts believe that holding some kind of ceremony or ritual can help us cope with the loss of a precious animal friend.

Whether you choose burial or cremation for the final disposition of your pet, your approach to memorialization may be true to your religious or environmental concerns. Your ceremony may be as simple as saying a few words or as elaborate as a human funeral. What’s right for you will depend on your personal preferences.

You might even consider preplanning the funeral of your pet, just as many people do for themselves. This saves precious energy and time when you feel the most pain. Preplanning can also offer financial benefits. Before a loved one dies, preplanning funeral arrangements is easier to accomplish, the same applies to preplan a service for a loved pet.

How to Start Planning a Pet Funeral

When it comes to planning a pet funeral you have many options. You may hold a simple backyard ceremony, or you may engage the services of a pet funeral home and a pet cemetery, depending on the regulations in your area.

Funeral homes and cemeteries are run by people who understand the loss of pets can be as traumatic as the loss of a member of a human family. They provide funeral and cremation services and provide caskets, urns and grave markers specially designed for pets for a fee.

In order to plan the most meaningful event, consider people who have been significant in your pet’s life and invite them to participate. To choose the perfect location, think about your pet’s favorite places.

The Pet Funeral Ceremony

Planning the funeral can be cathartic for all those who are grieving the loss of a pet. Many children may find the process of designing a memorial service particularly helpful. Consider having the entire family involved in making the arrangements.

When it comes to designing a funeral or memorial service for a pet there are no hard and fast rules. There are common elements that include many people.

Such rituals are similar to those you see at funerals in humans but are typically much simpler. It’s up to you of course how formal you’d like your ceremony to be. Animal funerals are generally shorter and more informal than funerals performed by humans.

Final Farewell for Pets

Most people feel that giving a pet a dignified burial or cremation is a final, appropriate act of goodbyes. They feel it’s the last act of love they can offer a pet and it’s also an important act of closure, quite often.

In fact, being able to see, touch, and say goodbye to a pet’s body can help one accept that the pet is really dead, that it is not going to come back, and that it is not going to suffer in any way.

If it’s important for you to see that the remains of your pet are treated with the same care and concern you gave your pet during his lifetime, Then look at home burial, pet memorial garden, or cremation through the pet crematorium. Here’s a closer look at these options:

Home Burial

Many people choose to bury a pet at home as a way to keep it close — part of one’s world, even if it’s not part of one’s life. This can also provide a way for you and your family to celebrate a funeral and memorial service that can be powerful tools for coping. Home burial provides an opportunity to create a permanent memorial for one’s pet — a grave marker, a statue, or perhaps a tree planted above the pet’s grave to serve as a living memorial.

However, in some circumstances, burial at home may not be an appropriate option. The most obvious is if you don’t have a place to bury a pet. You must also be sure that you can dig a grave deep enough to ensure that the remains of your pet will not be disturbed or become a health hazard.

Most towns ban burials at home. If you rent, or if you are likely to move away from the property, you might not want to bury a pet at home, either.

Cremation

If you still want to keep your pet’s remains on your property, but don’t have a place to bury the actual body (especially that of a big pet), consider having your pet’s remains cremated and returned to you for burial. You can keep pet ashes in a decorative urn or container; you can find a wide range of such products in the classified ads of any pet magazine.

Many pet owners choose to disperse the pet’s ashes rather than preserve them. Some people choose to scatter the ashes in the pet’s own yard, where they lived and played; this is another way of bringing the pet “home” one last time. Others choose to scatter the ashes in a way that symbolizes setting the pet “free” for its final journey – such as in the woods or over a body of water, or just into the wind.

Memorial Garden

You’ll find pet cemeteries in nearly every state; some have literally dozens. For many, a formal cemetery burial seems a more fitting tribute than an informal “backyard burial”. Burial in a pet cemetery also ensures that your pet’s remains will remain undisturbed, and cared for, “in perpetuity.” You’re not going to have to worry about what’s going to happen to your pet if you have to leave the property where it is buried; it’s going to be cared for, no matter where you go or what happens to you.

Cemetery burial may be an expensive choice, but many consider it a comfortable safe way to treat the remains of a pet. Normally, a pet cemetery will be able to pick up your pet from your home or from a veterinarian’s office.