Pet Bereavement

As some of you know, last wednesday i had to have my beloved fudgie cat pts. she´d been with me for 16 years and spent practically every night of those 16 years sleeping on my pillow. her not being there now is a massive loss and i can´t quite believe i will never see her again :-(

What this has highlighted to me, however, is that the loss of a pet is something that none of us really want to think about but really should plan for so that our wishes can be carried out properly.

We had decided the week before fudgie was pts that the best thing for her would be to stop her medication and therefore i had an idea that the time would soon come when she would no longer be with me and i decided that that was the time to start looking in to my options, while i still had a fairly clear head and the ability to make important decisions. so i started to think about what i wanted for her, ie burial, cremation, ashes kept / scatterd, casket choices etc. I looked on line for crematoriums near to me as i decided i actually wanted to "be there" and take her to the crem rather than just leaving her with my vet and them arranging it all. There were a few options in my area but i soon realised that a lot of them did not do "same day" cremations and i really wanted to just get her home with me asap. The place i used in the end was called Chestnut Lodge (http://clpets.co.uk/default.aspx) and they are one of the founding members of the Association of Private Pet Cemeteries & Crematoria - which put my mind at rest that fudgie would be dealt with in a sympathetic way and that i would get the service from them that i would hope for. it seems to me that pet bereavement is handled quite baldy in a lot of cases and this association seems to have been put together to set down some guidleins to try to get some regulation in to the industry.

They were very sympathetic when we arrived and asked if we wanted to spend some time with her before the cremation. they had a little area put by where they laid her out for us and we sat in private with her. once we had said our goodbyes we went to the office to discuss options, ie if we wanted a specific casket etc. we decided to just have her ashes returned in a "scatter tin" as i was waiting for a necklace i had ordered to come from the USA to put some of her ashes in. they kindly said that once this arrived we could take the ashes back to them and they would fill the necklace for me so that i wouldn´t have to do this.

we got a call a few hours later to say we could collect her. we were given a lovely tin with fudgie´s name on it along with a condolence card and on the back of this is a small piece about how she was handles whilst in their care and a guarantee that the ashes returned to me were my pets. it was all quite tasteful. they confirmed that the ashes were in a bag inside the tin rather than just loose and when i looked they had placed a piece of tissue paper and a dried flower on top of the bag - which i thought was a nice touch too.

fudgie is now on the fireplace in the lounge until the arrival of my necklace, so that i can always have a small piece of her with me. i have also brought a nice casket for the remainder of the ashes.

the thing this has taught me is that although it is not a nice thing to think about, if you want something doing with your animal after it dies, then you really do need to thik about it prior to the event as chances are, your mind will be a bit all over the place afterwards. i had a few days to make arrangements and even then i messed it up by arranging the cremation at 9am saturday only to later realise that we would have to leave home by 7.30am to get there in time and the vets wouldn´t be open that early (they vets held on to her until we made arrangements for her) so we had to collect her the night before and had to keep her in the downstairs loo as its the coldest room in the house - not the most respectful thing to do! but again, this shows that things need thinking about in advance, i was adamant i wanted the ashes the same day and had not thought through the fact that the process takes a few hours - just things you don´t necessarily think about at the time when you are so upset.