Over the rainbow bridge
Pet Farewells brings comfort and closure to pet owners, offering a dignified alternative to traditional backyard burials.
words KARL PUSCHMANN | photos CRAIG BROWN
Lyn and Gavin Shepherd.
When it comes to our pets, we don’t usually think about the end until it comes. And it wasn’t too long ago that we’d simply grab a shovel, dig a hole in the backyard and then let the kids say a few teary words. However, with shrinking properties, increased urban density, renting being much more common and people moving homes more, a pet’s eternal resting spot can often be disturbed within a few years.
“It used to be accepted as normal, but now people don’t want to bury their cat in the garden,” Gavin Shepherd says. “They want it looked after properly.”
This is something Lyn and husband Gavin pride themselves on. As owners of crematorium Pet Farewells, they’ve been providing a compassionate service to pet owners for 17 years.
When they bought their first pet crematorium in Hamilton in 2007, the existing owner considered it a “lifestyle business”. Lyn, a college teacher, and Gavin, a veterinarian, initially thought it would be a good retirement business, but both quickly saw the dormant potential.
After upgrading the machinery, which is specialist equipment that has to be imported from the States, they began picking up more business. As well as the public they were also servicing all of Hamilton’s vet clinics, the SPCA and Hamilton’s Zoo. Seeing a gap in the market they then expanded to Wellington in 2011 and followed the same playbook. It was another success. This led them to purchase an existing pet crematorium in Mount Maunganui three years ago that they could see had not reached its full potential.
They went through the 18-month process of upgrading the cremator to “the latest and greatest,” and completing the paper trail of necessary consents, and say that business is now beginning to increase.
“We do the work for 60 percent of Tauranga’s vets, the Tauranga City Council and the SPCA Tauranga,” Gavin says.
Most of their work comes via the vets who, after euthanising a pet, will talk to the owner about their options. “It’s either take it home and bury or cremation,” Gavin says. “We have a number of ways that the ashes can be returned. The cheapest option is a cardboard box but there’s another six or seven vessels that we provide to return pets.”
Usually, someone from the team will then pick up the pet, cremate it and return it to the vet a couple of days later. But people are welcome to bring their pets in themselves.
“That happens more and more. But we can't allow them into the cremation zone. It runs at 900 degrees, so it’s hot and pretty dangerous, so they can’t watch that process. It’s just not possible,” he explains. “The cremation process takes probably six hours from start to finish. It’s not like getting a pizza, ordering it and then going to the other window and picking it up.”
As well as the basic cardboard box, which Lyn says is what most people who scatter the ashes opt for, there’s a range of options, including a variety of beautiful wooden boxes that are all crafted here in New Zealand, for people who want to keep them.
“All of the products that we return the pets in are New Zealand sourced or made,” Gavin says, explaining that supporting other local businesses was something he and Lyn both considered important. “We didn't want to say the vessels that we use come from China.”
As well as the expected cats and dogs, Pet Farewells has also cremated animals as small as goldfish and mice through to chimpanzees for the Zoo and, in one instance, an ostrich.
“That’s my favourite story,” Lyn says. “An ostrich is very big when its wings are outstretched and its head’s right up high so we didn’t know whether it would fit into the cremator. When we got it, it was like a coil of rope, because it had just collapsed into a ball and the neck was sort of swivelled around and compacted down on it, so we could cremate it quite easily.
“The poor ostrich had died of an obstruction. It had been scavenging around a construction site, and eaten everything shiny, like screws, nails, bolts and nuts. At the end of the cremation, they were all there. We not only had the bones and the stones, but we could also give the owner back everything else!”
The couple say that the death of a pet is an emotional time. For them, Pet Farewells isn’t just about offering a practical solution, it’s about giving people the opportunity to say farewell to their pets in a dignified and compassionate way. “People regard a pet as part of their family,” Gavin says. “And we’re pleased to be part of it.”
