What do you do with your pets' ashes?

[SkipHiLad4me]

I like the idea of spreading the ashes in a planting bed. I enjoy gardening and plan to have numerous planting areas around the new house. I wouldn’t have an issue spreading ashes in an area such as this. Our deceased pup loved to help me “survey the estate” (our 1/4 acre :lol:) and would sit with me while I worked in our flowerbeds and little garden so this might be a fitting tribute to her. I really have no special attachment to the ashes themselves… it’s not Roxy anymore… but would like to treat them with respect regardless.

The urn that we have is a very pretty silver vase shape. I don’t mind the way it looks sitting out… we actually have her leather collar draped around the urn and most people probably wouldn’t even know what it was.

[Houndhill]

Ditto on the bookshelves. I have two shelves’ worth of plastic containers, one wooden, and one tin, depends on where it was done. One is a whippet, that one is very lightweight compared to the wolfhound boxes. We keep meaning to do something with all the cremains but just haven’t yet. We also have two separate areas on the farm where dogs are buried. The current graveyard area is along a fence, and my husband has carved the deceaseds’ names on wooden plaques above each one. We bury them if they die or are euthanized here, cremate if they die or are euthanized at the vets’ or The vet school. We try to keep one grave ahead, so we just have to uncover it when it is needed. We have learned that it is better to do that so you can dig when conditions are good (the ground not frozen, too dry, etc.) as the wolfhounds’ graves are so large and deep.

Kind of morbid, but you have to be practical when you have multiple Irish Wolfhounds.

[irkenequine]

Because I have multiple dogs, and my previous ones have been rescued/elderly with special needs, I knew I wanted ashes but did NOT want the remains around. I saw myself building towers with urns; once you keep one, how can you get rid of the rest, etc.

So previously, mine have been spread where the dogs were happiest. My old sheepdog at the park, my old cattle dog at the barn. As sad as it sounds, I have made it clear to close dog friends where I’d like my current three to be spread it something happens-- the barn, dog park, and the river. Even though I’m not one to believe in the afterlife or caring too much about remains, its a nice way for me to say goodbye to them at their favorite place.

My roommate’s dog died and she received a carved portrait box from this company: it is beautiful.

https://www.facebook.com/byandbymemorials

[JanM]

Because I moved several times, I kept the ashes for my last two dogs, and directed that when I go that I be cremated and our ashes all scattered together in some nice spot.

[jsjumper]

[QUOTE=irkenequine;6543903]

My roommate’s dog died and she received a carved portrait box from this company: it is beautiful.

https://www.facebook.com/byandbymemorials[/QUOTE]

This woman does BEAUTIFUL work… I can’t say enough nice things about the urns that she creates…

[SonnysMom]

Mine either sit on the mantle or a bookcase. The cats are mostly in a tin box with a scene of some kind painted on it or a wooden box.
We have only buried one cat. We had only owned him for 3 months even though we had known him for a few years. We couldn’t afford the cremation after the amount of money we spent at the emergency vet clinic to try to save him. Poor Smudge. He has a nice azalea planted above him

[EquusArtist]

We’ve only lost one dog so far and we did have him cremated. We buried him at the base of one of our lace leaf Japanese Maples near our water garden. I got a nice, small rottweiler statue to mark it.

The two rottie boys we have currently love the ocean (one of them is even named Ocean.) We’ll probably scatter their ashes into the surf at the beach we always go to down the street when the time comes.

Why we didn’t go down that path with Sam’s ashes…he totally didn’t dig the water.

[Foxtrot_s]

We have been here 35 years so have a collection of remembrances. One is under what is now a large “Yellow Bird” magnolia because our yellow lab died while the trees were flowering, so she was buried under the tree. Around the tree are a number of carved rocks with names on them. Some are buried, some are cremated ashes, and the reason is that in the winter the water table is so high it is hard to dig a hole without it filing up. So it is essentially a garden of remembrance as we have a lot of animals…

There is a stump that is used as a step up to our deck which has four horse shoes on it from an event horse, too.

If I was going to move, I might do the brass plaque thing, along a shelf of our bookcase with all my horse books on it.

As it is we will probably go out feet first from here, maybe.

[GotGait]

My mother has a pair of Schnauzer bookends.

[Nezzy]

i don’t like the idea of them in a container. I want them to be free. i spread their ashes if the weather is nice. If the weather is miserable, i wait and spread the ashes later.

[Kryswyn]

In the china cupboard, right next to Mom Seriously.

I had two beloved dogs buried on my farm. I almost couldn’t sell the place knowing I was leaving them there. Seriously considered having their patch of earth dug up and brought to the new house. Ended up planting a tree over them and explaining the situation to the new owners who were dog lovers.

[PiaffePlease]

I had a clay urn made for my dog after she passed. I had saved some of her hair and it was burned onto the urn like the horse hair pottery that you see. Its really beautiful and it sits on my mantel.

[Ruth0552]

There was one day I was at my grandmother’s and I was sleeping in an “outbuilding” with a bunk. When I woke up, I was looking at the rafters and the framing on the inside of the walls and realized there was a box on a piece of framing that said “Cavendish” on it. I was slightly horrified. Cavendish was their dog.

On a different trip, we were cleaning out a shelf in the garage and there were two boxes with other dog names on them next to a stack of board games.

My parents have our dog on the floor of the mudroom next to the marker we bought when we finally bury him.

So it seems our plan it to leave them somewhere out of the way and impractical.

[laskiblue]

Their remains are in the pretty cedar boxes with their names on the bottom provided by the company who cremated them. It is my intention to have their ashes mixed with mine when I pass away (after I donate organs) and have our ashes spread in a favorite remote place.

[asb_own_me]

[QUOTE=PiaffePlease;6549138]
I had a clay urn made for my dog after she passed. I had saved some of her hair and it was burned onto the urn like the horse hair pottery that you see. Its really beautiful and it sits on my mantel.[/QUOTE]

I did that for my cat last spring. His ashes are in the urn, and the urn is in the china cabinet with a beautiful photo of him outdoors.

[BoysNightOut]

We put our beloved family cat down in 2007. I had gotten him when I was 8 years old, & he was 8 weeks old. Lived a long, happy life. But I couldn’t imagine burying him. His ashes came back to us in a beautiful little tin. I have that tin along with his collar & tags, and favorite cat toy in a small cedar box with his photo. It sits on a shelf in our house.