This is the stage no one is ready for, because it arrives as admin. There's a decision about cremation to make within a day or two, usually at the vet, usually while you can barely speak. Then, weeks later, there's a box on a shelf and no obvious idea of what it is for. These pages take those decisions one at a time and say plainly what is involved. Where they quote a price it is somebody else's price, from a named source with the date we read it, because what a crematorium or a stonemason charges isn't ours to state.
The reading, in order
- Memorial ideas, including ones we don't make: The full range of ways to remember a pet, including the many things we do not make.
- The first Christmas without them: Getting through the first Christmas after a death, and helping someone else through theirs.
- What to do with the ashes: The options for the ashes, what each involves, and how families decide. There is no deadline.
- Burying a pet at home: What the official guidance in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland says about a garden burial, quoted in its own words.
- What pet cremation costs: What two named UK crematoria charge, by the size of the animal, and the questions to ask before you book.
- What putting a dog to sleep costs: What two named UK vets charge to put a dog to sleep, at the surgery and at home, and what changes the price.
- Grave markers: The kinds of marker, where to put one, and how much a name cut into stone or slate can hold.
- A stone in the garden: Choosing a stone for the garden, and the portrait some families hang indoors alongside it.
- A memorial garden: Planting, stones, benches and favourite spots: ideas for a corner of the garden that is theirs.
- Memorial ideas for a cat: Ways to remember a cat that fit how cats live in a house, indoors and out.
- Keepsakes: The keepsakes that last past the first year, including two that must be arranged before cremation or burial.
- Photobooks: What a photobook does well, what to watch for, and how it compares with a portrait. We do not make one.
- A frame for a cat photo: Framing a favourite photo of a cat, and a painted portrait as the other way to do it.
- A frame for a dog: A framed portrait of your dog from a favourite photo, delivered ready to hang.
- Taking a nose print: How to take a nose print at home, what you need, and how to keep it.
The two things that cannot wait
Almost everything on these pages can wait as long as you need. The ashes can sit on a shelf for a year, and a stone can go in the garden whenever it feels right. Two things are different. The two exceptions are a clipping of fur and a paw-print impression. Neither can be made after cremation or burial, so if you want one, mention it to the vet or nurse on the day. Keepsakes covers both, and what else tends to last.
And after that
The stage that follows this one is the portrait: The one thing we make: a portrait of your animal in a painted style, from your own photograph. Styles, formats, and what it costs.