by Michael
(London, UK)
Photo by George Williams (Flickr)
I would like briefly to discuss cat cremation urns. Clearly this is a sensitive subject fraught with difficulty but one we all have to face - the passing of our beloved cat companion. Is it fair to say that the majority of cat keepers have their cat cremated on their passing? I am not sure. I believe that it is the preferred way as it is inline with current thoughts about the cremation of people, a more popular option over burial.
On the basis that cremation is the chosen option, a cat cremation urn is a way of keeping your cat near to you after his or her death. This may seem morbid to some, perhaps many people. For me, though, it is the preferred method of dealing with my cat's loss.
I have the ashes of my Missie in a wooden urn in the living room. When Binnie passes on - she is currently 18 years of age (at Jan 2011) - she will join her and when I go..I'll join them both!
One worrying aspect of pet cremation for me, and I would welcome some input on this, is ensuring that the ashes that we receive after the cremation are those of our cat. A simple desire but we cannot assume that the ashes are the remains of our cat companion. We have to make sure and that is another subject that is fraught with difficulty, I feel.
Personally, I would want to see my cat placed in the furnace and then removed after cremation; a one hundred percent certainty that the ashes are her ashes and not the ashes of literally anything else. In short I would hope that I would insist on seeing the whole process from start to finish or actually taking my cat from the vet (if euthanised) to the crematorium. That might seem unreasonable or too demanding but I feel it necessary on such an important matter. What do you think?
At the very least, there is the possibility (likelihood?) that the ashes will be mixed with those of other companion animals and at worst the ashes could be those from any object that can burn. Do we see the actually cremation? You can see that I have rather low levels of trust in service providers - years of experience I guess!
I think you will find that some pet cremation services in North America and Europe provide "genuine individual cremations". I would certainly insist on this if you wish to keep the ashes in a cat cremation urn. There is no point in doing it if the ashes are not those of your cat. And I believe that we need to know for sure that the ashes are the right ones. This service: Dignity Pet Crematorium in the UK says that they only provide genuine individual cremations. That's good but I would check and monitor. In fact they are based not that far from London so I could use this service and quite likely will.
If you want to search for these services using Google, I would search for "pet cremation services" using Google.com if searching for North American services and Google.co.uk for UK services or prefix the search with the country, "USA pet cremation services". Then look for "individual cremation" or "private cremation" a service in which the pet is cremated entirely alone. I can't see the point of doing it any other way. And it seems to me that we should be prepared in advance, meaning a crematorium has been selected in advance, for common sense reasons.
The business providing the cremation service will no doubt also provide a cat cremation urn but I would feel pretty confident in saying that the choice will be wider on the open market. That is why I have provided a selection on Amazon, which by the way have a good selection both for the USA and UK markets.
- A selecton on one page of Amazon.co.uk of Cat Cremation Urns for the UK market
- A selection of cat cremation urns on the North American market from Amazon.com
Here is just one example of an urn, chosen at random from the US market:
And finally a very nice one from the UK market:
Its really nice cremation urn and yeah nice way to show them how much we are missing them!!
Sadly yesterday our beloved cat Mischief passed away in my arms. She was 20 years old. We do intend to keep her ashes in a suitable container when we collect her from the vets next week. We have had her individually cremated so we know the remains will be her. In life Mischief would always sit pressed close to myself when I was sat in the living room and cried when I left the room. She hated being alone and loathed going outside. Because of this we know she would want to be near us at all times. We have another 5 cats and have decided that as each passes we will have them cremated and add them to the urn. When my time comes my husband or our children will add the cats to my own ashes and we will then be scattered together so we will always be together in death as we have been in life. My cats are my babies and are throughly spoilt and very loved. Their soul is free and I feel I’m only keeping the container of their spirit. I was a funeral director and really believe the body is just somewhere the soul is contained in life and once we die the soul is free. Some may think I’m being selfish by keeping Mischief, and in the future my other girls, in an urn but I know she is happy and free. I’m sorry if I’m rambling on but I’m still grieving for Mischief, 20 years is a very long time to live with a loving companion. R.I.P Mischief.
Hi Claire-louise. Thanks for sharing. Love your comment. We think alike. I would like to turn your comment into an article in memory of Mischief. If you have a picture you can upload it to a comment on the same page where you made this comment. You’ll see a button below the comment box. Then with your permission I’ll create the article.
This is another page on cat losing a cat and euthanasia.
Hello Michael. Here is a picture of Mischief. 17-06-1993 to 14-08-2013. I would be honoured if you published a memorial article. If you want to know anymore about her then please let me know.She was quite a character.
Claire-Louise.
She is beautiful. A beautiful tabby. She looks like a senior cat. I like senior cats.
What I will do, to make things easy, I’ll publish your picture and words as an article and you can then add a comment if you want to, to add some details or answer questions in comments, if there are any.
I’ll do this tonight (GMT – London, UK time)
Thanks for agreeing to do this. It is important.