Taking a phone call about your dog while standing in an airport is a specific kind of helplessness. You are hundreds of miles away, somebody else is dealing with it, and every instinct you have is useless. Heavenly Pastures provides pet cremations for households across Haydock and the surrounding area, and this happens more often than people imagine, because animals are frequently unsettled by a change in routine. To be clear about the geography, we keep no premises in Haydock. Everything is done from a single crematorium at Burscough, near Ormskirk.
What Has to Happen Now and What Can Wait
Almost nothing has to be decided while you are away. That is the most useful thing to know in the first ten minutes, because the pressure people feel to sort everything out immediately from a hotel room is enormous and largely imaginary.
Your Pet Can Be Held Until You Are Back
Whether your animal died at kennels, at a sitter’s house or at a veterinary practice, they can be kept properly until you return and can make decisions yourself. Practices do this routinely and so do we. If you want to see your pet before anything happens, say so on the phone and it will be arranged. Nobody will proceed with a cremation without your instruction, and if anybody suggests otherwise, that is worth questioning firmly.
Who Can Act on Your Behalf
If you would rather it were dealt with before you get home, somebody else can arrange it. A partner, a relative, or the kennel owner can ring us and we will take instructions from whoever you tell us is acting for you. There is no paperwork or authority required. What we would ask is that whoever rings knows which of the two options you want, because that is the one decision that cannot be revisited afterwards.
Coming Home to an Empty House
People consistently say this was harder than the phone call. You have had days of knowing while surrounded by other things, and then you open the door and it is real in a way it was not before. If somebody can be at the house when you get back, or can collect the bowls and bed beforehand, that is worth arranging. Equally some people want everything exactly as they left it, and that is fine too. There is no version of walking back into that house that is not difficult, and the choice is only about which kind of difficult you would rather have.
Whether It Was Your Fault for Going
Every single person in this situation has this thought. If we had not gone away. If they had been at home with us. It is worth saying plainly that animals die at home too, and that whatever took them was almost never caused by your absence. Older animals do sometimes decline when routine changes, and that is a genuine phenomenon, but it is not the same as having caused it by having a week in Spain after four years of not. Animals who are going to die are going to die, and the timing is rarely anything to do with where their owner happened to be standing.
When It Happened at Kennels
Good boarding establishments handle this well and are usually devastated themselves. They will have contacted a vet and they will tell you what happened. If something about the account does not sit right with you, you are entitled to ask questions and to ask for the vet’s own record. Most of the time there is nothing to find, and asking is not an accusation. It is simply how you satisfy yourself, and any reasonable kennel will understand that. What is worth avoiding is going over it repeatedly for months with no new information, which tends to stand in for the grief rather than resolve anything.
The Two Options
Whoever makes the arrangements, the same choice arises. An individual cremation service means yours is the only animal at any stage, which is the reason ashes can come back. A communal cremation service puts several together, and no family receives anything afterwards. If you are abroad and being asked to decide over a poor phone line, it is entirely reasonable to say you will confirm when you land. The costs are published on the pet cremation price list so that you can look before you ring.
Ashes When You Are Not There
Where ashes are being returned, they can be held until you are home rather than delivered to an empty house. Somebody brings them to you in person rather than posting them, and if you would like to come and collect them yourself once you are back, that can be arranged instead.
Reaching You in Haydock
Collection is from wherever your animal actually is, which may be a kennel, a sitter’s house or a veterinary practice rather than your own home. Costs follow travel time out from Burscough and the bands appear on the areas we cover page. If your pet was elderly and you are now thinking about the next trip, our page on planned euthanasia may be worth reading at some point, though not necessarily today.
Ringing From Anywhere
Call 01704 776976 from wherever you happen to be. Nobody will press you to decide anything on that call. Our contact form is there if the time difference or the phone signal makes speaking difficult.