Pet Crems

Re: Pet Crems

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:26:10 GMT

I would recomend Simon Jones of Pets in Peace-again family business, was very sympathetic to owners of giant breed when we arranged that I would meet him at the house, PTS the dog, and he then removed it immediately-and ALL the ashes, not merely a sample were returned-OK that's based on trust,but container sizes vary-and are appropriate to size of animal

Wynne

Re: Pet Crems

bob lehner — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:23:10 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]i remember the present owners mother telling me how embarrassed they had been when asked to cremate someone's parrot[/quote]

We were once asked to arrange a private crem and return of ashes for a budgie. One of the nurses said she would put some cigarette ash in a match box and see if that would do.....

(Of course we did the job properly).

Re: Pet Crems

Michael Woodhouse — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:40:37 GMT

I have personally been to ours, took the corpse of my dead miniature horse in my car trailer, and he charged me £50!

Very professional service, come out to collect horses, went out of their way to collect each body when our freezer broke down and we sourced a replacement. He gets down on his hands and knees with a dustpan and brush to clean out the incinerator between uses!

Would highly recommend David Sanderson

Re: Pet Crems

Richard Carter — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:33:38 GMT

Runs from the same argument of 'do everything, money is not a problem' (for the owner not intending to pay is true I suppose)

Re: Pet Crems

Martin Atkinson — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:29:56 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]

We have had several clients in the last couple of years, ashes not collected or paid for. Seems rather daft to request a private cremation then allow the ashes to go back for communal disposal. We were seriously out of pocket both times.

[/quote]

I like to think it is because they're too distressed to come back for the ashes rather than just that they don't want to pay. After about 6 months if theye still haven't collected the ashes (they're always advised when the ashes are back) we write saying that we will have no option but to dispose of them. As they're all paid up front then they're not bad debts. It does make you wonder about folk sometimes though: like those who have pets microchipped then are not contactable or deny ownership if they're lost and reported found. You'd think if they were responsible enough to pay for a chip they'd be responsible owners.

Re: Pet Crems

Bob Russell — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:36:31 GMT

Re: Pet Crems

Martin Atkinson — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:17:54 GMT

I notice no-one is mentioning names except Martin. One interesing aside I noted Bob suggested that he leaves his clients to pay the crematorium diectly - does anyone else do that? We've always charged the client a mark-up/handling fee on top of the crematorium's fee, billed the client and been invoiced ourselves. I now make sure that all fees are paid up front as a number of clients never claimed their ashes and never paid their bills.

Re: Pet Crems

Martin Jones — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:59:10 GMT

Ours is an absolute cracker - Penwith Crematorium. I've always gone out of my way to promote the ethical nature of their way of doing business to clients.

It doesn't stop some clients from being absolute @rses - one memorable divot a couple of years back, who wasn't even wanting individual cremation, suggested that we would be keeping the fee for ourselves and throwing the dog down a mineshaft (of which there are plenty in Cornwall). As this was a charity practice, he wasn't thrown out on his ear, but was requested - politely - to make his own arrangements for disposal. As I recall, he simply stiffed us for the whole bill. Such a charmer.

I'd imagine that this whole debacle is pretty rare, but that perhaps is easier to accept down here, where the crematoria are lower-throughput.

Re: Pet Crems

Bob Russell — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:50:03 GMT

I have known the owner (now part-owner) of our crematorium for years. The company do arrange tours but more importantly it has been family owned for about 20 years.

i remember the present owners mother telling me how embarrassed they had been when asked to cremate someone's parrot. They had not realised that at cremator temperatures the skeleton would be reduced to an almost invisible fine powder. She had to get a toothbrush to get the bits together! I am not sure what they sent the ashes home in!

A company that will take the trouble to use a toothbrush to ensure the owners got the right ashes back cannot be bad!

I am more than happy to recommend our pet crem but it still involves a lot of trust at a very delicate stage of pet ownership.

Re: Pet Crems

Utlendigur — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:45:12 GMT

Our local pet cemetery and crematorium has several times organised tours for the nurses and receptionists to visit and have a look around behind the scenes, and I've taken my own pets there for cremation. They've also been established for many years, and I can't remember a single complaint. So I'm quite happy to recommend them to clients.

Re: Pet Crems

Bob Russell — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:53:02 GMT

This case is appalling. Pet cremation is based on trust, especially for individual cremation. The standard question we are asked is 'will they be my pets ashes?'.

I gather that some crematoria run on a conveyor belt system that ensures 'most' of the ashes are your pets! Our crematorium has individual cremators that we trust are used in all cases.

This will do nothing for our professional image, perhaps we need to 'vet' our crematoria!

Re: Pet Crems

Peter Ding — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:22:15 GMT

When you indicate "not even of animal origin" were you including Homo sapiens within that category.

I sincerely hope you meant the ashes were of vegetable/mineral origin!