After your beloved pet has crossed over the Rainbow Bridge, there are still many decisions that need to be made. If the pet is to be cremated, many people would like to have the ashes. You can contact local crematoriums directly, and Halifax Humane Society does offer services to coordinate your pet's cremation. Many different packages are available, ranging from a mass cremation to a communal cremation to only your pets’ ashes in various available urns. Crematoriums will offer these same options, and they vary in cost. If you use HHS, all proceeds go to support our community’s animals.

There are also pet cemeteries available if you wish to have your pet buried in a casket and the grave marked with a headstone. You can visit when you wish and lay flowers on the grave as you would at a traditional cemetery. I prefer the ashes in an urn, and I will eventually release most of the ashes in a place where my pet had the best times of its’ life. At the ocean, at the dog park, etc.

I would like to thank all the people who have sent me emails most recently. The stories of how you love your pets have been very touching. I answered an email from Bob with the following story of my own. 

“I have had to deal with losing many pets over the years, but my first dog was still the most difficult to handle. I received him as a Christmas puppy when I was just 10-years old. He was a miniature Schnauzer, and I named him Lucky because I thought I was so lucky to have a puppy. Fast forward 7-years, and in this period, I had lost my only brother and my parents to different illnesses. Fast forward again to when I turned 32-years old and needed to put Lucky down, for the now the 22-year old dog could barely see or hear and needed to wear a diaper but refused to die on his own. I had to take my most constant friend to the vet, and I never cried so hard in my entire life. Even after saying goodbye and watching him pass, I sat in the veterinarian's parking lot for an hour just balling. Until this day, I still have a statue of Lucky on my desk at home. I look so forward to be reunited with him again when I too pass on from this earth.”

Listen now.