Backyard burials or no?
 

Do you do it the old-fashioned way, bury your pets in your backyard, or do you not bring them home from that final trip to the vet?

Do you find a pet grave in your backyard comforting? Creepy? A sad reminder every time you look out the window?

Are you concerned that you might move away, or that a critter might disturb the spot? Or do you simply say, Hey, it was just a cat/dog, get over it?

Wondering about your thoughts on this.

All of our pets (cats and two gerbils) a raccoon and a squirrel
are buried in our yard.
I realize some people would not have the room. Our yard is part civilized and part woods.

I find it comforting. The ones that had to be euthanized we took an old pillowcase to the vet to bring them home. I will confess I couldn't face this task --the burial. So my husband did it. I took two of the cats at their time, to the vet. So he did the burial part. All 3 cats loved our yard, so it seemed like a better place for them than leaving them to a furnace.

We had a bare spot in the yard where nothing would grow.
Now it is ivy, lily of the valley and spring bulbs. Trout lilies showed up and Spring Beauties. The growth around their plots somehow makes me feel better. We are not very mobile, and are living in a family house owned since 1917. 4 generations. My husband and I may be the last however, since the trend here is to knock down old homes and build castles. The cemetery is out back under some trees and probably wouldn't be touched...but who knows? All of my gardens would be gone, before the cemetery. I did think about that a bit.

I put in two statues also. Here is one of them:

Oh Mrs D I love the statue!

ALL of my pets (including squirrels, etc., my sister and I would find dead around the neighborhood, lol) are buried in my parent's back yard. Every single one, and believe me, it's a ton of animals.

I figure someday that home will not be there. There isn't anybody after me, that I can think of, that would want to live there. A certain realtor is drooling at the prospect of getting the property so he can put up more student apartments.

Those sweeties are all gone and in a better place.

Tiger-Puff is buried in the yard. We have a small yard though and since I grow veggies etc... I didn't bring Sweet Pea home for burial. Their souls are in heaven with family anyway.

As a child all our pets were buried in the pasture. As an adult I have creamated all my pets. I have many urns and memorials around my house.

It is costly, but it comforts me somehow.

While I have never had any large pets, I have had many hamsters since we moved into this house. Most of them passed away when my DD was old enough to understand. We now have a hamster cemetary in our backyard. When the guinea pig dies, that's where she'll go as well. In fact right now I am starting to get myself and my DD prepared that one of our little chinese dwarf hamsters will be going soon. In a few more years, there won't be any more room around that big old pine tree to bury all our hamsters that died.

Our cat, Ivy, that we've had for 14 years, is on her way out. :(
We'll be making that decision very soon, sadly. Here she is:

Oh, I am sorry, about Ivy.

You know our vet told me 5 yrs ago that Sheba was on the way out... then 2 yrs ago told me she had 4/5 (level 5 being the worst) cardiomyopathy, and was really on the way out, and she is still here... 22 yrs old!

She doesn't do much.. but she does go outside for catnip plants and to sit in a sun pool. And she sleeps with me for part of the night. She limps some. Over the winter my hubby wanted to dig her hole "in advance" of the ground freezing, and I wouldn't let him. I thought it would jinx her. I have a couple of pictures of her in my album.

I'd like to think Ivy had a reprieve, but she hasn't eaten for about 5 days, hasn't had water since yesterday morning, and can't get up. She "wet the bed" and was mortified. She has just been fading over the past week, and as long as she doesn't seem to be in pain, we decided to keep her comfy and just let her stop ticking.

(I sound very matter of fact, but haven't been able to stop crying for two days. My eyeballs look like a Halloween disguise. And if anybody sends me "the Rainbow Bridge", I'll get even somehow.)

Thanks for letting me vent.

I'm very sorry about Ivy. :( :hug: It's so hard to lose our pets, I think for most of us, we think of them as babies.