Pet-Only Funeral Home Opens In Fla.

[The Straight Story]

Pet-Only Funeral Home Opens In Fla.
Viewing Areas, Space For Services Provided


PINELLAS PARK, Fla. -- The state's first pet-only funeral home has opened in Central Florida.

The Pet Angel Memorial Center offers human touches to help pet owners mourn their animals, including viewing areas and a space for services.

The service is part of a growing interest in pet loss services.

"We started the business because I don't have two-legged children," Pet Angel Memorial owner Colleen Ellis said. "All I have is four-legged children and I wanted her treated in the same way as the human funeral business, which is the business I come from."

A new poll shows more Americans believe animals go to heaven.

http://www.local6.com/family/16315025/detail.html

Heaven must be overrun with chickens and cows. Hopefully they are not in charge when I get there, or they be having a TSS steak dinner :rofl:

[Mind_your_head]

1. Pet-only .....no service men/women allowed? eom

[fortyfeetunder]

2. I think that is an OK idea...hmmm,

Pets are family too, and if someone wants to honor their pet's memory this way, I am all for it!

[KG]

3. heh. i live in Pinellas Park. there's a pet cemetary a few blocks away.

wonder if this is connected?

[CoffeeCat]

4. As long as it's not run...

...by Stephen King, I have no problem with it.

[BattyDem]

5. I lost my "furry child" in February.

He was my "baby" and just as important to me as every other member of my family. I have his ashes on my nightstand in a marble urn engraved with his name. I wouldn't have wanted a viewing, but I don't like the idea of viewings in general - people or pets. However, if it makes someone feel better, why not? :)

[Silent3]

6. I'm not crazy about the commercialization of human death...

...so seeing the same sorts of things extended to pets doesn't strike me as a step in the right direction.

I'm very sentimental about my pets, and I know how much the loss of a pet can hurt, so I certainly understanding how important giving people the space to mourn pets can be. But that's all about what the animal, and its memory, mean to the living, it's not about the physical shells the pets leave behind.

I'm not at all sentimental about the idea of what happens to my own bodily remains once I'm dead. Take whatever organs and tissue that remain, which are useful for helping out the living, and then you can toss what's left into a dumpster for all I care. Since I feel that way about my own body, I'm not very enthused about elaborate rituals, expensive coffins, and land for burial plots being used up by dead pets either.

[kestrel91316]

7. We have a pet cemetery here in the Valley.

My best friend has all his pets buried there IN CASKETS.

Most of my clients, BTW, opt for the far less creepy CREMATION through the local very busy pet crematory. They have been in business for decades. I have all my own kitties cremated and still have the cremains........it helps that they do mine gratis. Normally it's $100 for a cat, more if you get an urn.

Oh, and about Heaven. IMHO it's like the Garden of Eden. ALL the animals are there, in their Peaceable Kingdom. Whether or not a person gets in is dependent on, well, something OTHER than whether or not they said the Magic Jesus Words(TM). So I like to think all my kitties (and my Great Pyrenees) will be waiting for me there, restored to health and happy.