People will tell you it was only a rabbit. They will not mean to be unkind, and it will still land badly, because the animal in question was a member of your household and the size of them has nothing to do with it. Heavenly Pastures provides pet cremations for families throughout Leigh and the surrounding towns, and small animals make up a good share of what we are asked to care for. We should say plainly that there is nowhere in Leigh you could visit us. There is no local branch in the town and never has been. One crematorium exists, at Burscough near Ormskirk, and everything happens there.
The Loss That Gets Dismissed
Grief for a small animal is routinely underestimated by everyone except the person feeling it. Colleagues who would understand about a dog will not quite know what to say about a guinea pig. This leaves people grieving quietly and slightly embarrassed, which is a miserable combination and entirely unnecessary. You are under no obligation to explain yourself to anybody.
Why It Hits Harder Than People Expect
Small animals are frequently the most intensely tended pets in a household. A rabbit with dental problems or a guinea pig needing daily medication involves a level of hands-on care that a healthy labrador never demands. Housebound owners, and people who cannot manage a dog, often form their closest attachment to an animal that fits in two hands. Children usually have their first real relationship with a creature of exactly this size. And because these animals are so often kept indoors and handled daily, the absence is immediately obvious in a way it is not with an animal who came and went.
Rabbits Are Not Simple Animals
Anyone who has kept rabbits properly knows they are complicated, territorial and startlingly particular about who they like. They live for the best part of a decade when well kept. They form intense bonds with each other, and a surviving rabbit who loses a bonded companion will frequently go off food and become withdrawn in a way that needs watching, sometimes seriously enough to need a vet. Letting the survivor see the body genuinely does seem to help, more visibly than in most species. A single rabbit left after a bonded pair is a situation worth taking seriously rather than assuming they will adjust, and your vet is the person to ask about whether and when to introduce a new companion.
What Is Possible With a Very Small Animal
The question we are asked most is whether ashes can be returned at all, and the answer is yes. An individual cremation service works exactly the same way for a hamster as for a dog, with your animal alone from beginning to end and their ashes handed back afterwards. There is less of it, naturally, but it is theirs, and the container it comes back in is a choice like any other rather than something decided for you. Families are sometimes braced to be told that an individual cremation is not offered below a certain size, and it is not something we have ever done. A communal cremation service is the other route, where animals are cremated together and nothing is returned. Our small pets individual cremation service page goes through this in more detail, and costs sit on the pet cremation price list.
When It Is a Child Who Has Lost Them
A hamster or a rabbit is very often a child’s first death of any kind. How the adults treat it teaches the child what grief is permitted to look like, which is a large amount of weight for a small animal to carry. Taking it seriously costs nothing, and doing the opposite is remembered. Adults who were told as children that a pet was replaceable, or who came home from school to find one quietly disposed of, tend to recall it with startling precision decades later. Letting a child come along, or choose where the ashes go, or put something in the Remembrance section of this website, gives the loss a shape they can hold on to.
Birds, Reptiles and the Rest
We also care for birds, tortoises, lizards and the various other animals that share people’s homes. A parrot may have lived with a family for thirty years and be grieved like a sibling. Whatever the animal, nobody here will be taken aback by the call, and it is worth asking rather than assuming the answer is no. People occasionally apologise for the animal being unusual before they have even described it, which is never necessary.
Coming to You in Leigh
Collection comes to houses right across Leigh and the neighbouring villages, and to your veterinary practice if that is where things happened. Some families with small animals prefer to bring them over themselves, which is entirely welcome and often feels more fitting when the animal is easily carried. Collection is charged according to travel time out from Burscough, and you can see how those bands fall on the areas we cover page before you ring.
You Are Allowed to Mind
If you take one thing from this page, let it be that. Ring 01704 776976 and you will not have to justify grieving for an animal somebody has told you was replaceable. If writing is easier than speaking, the contact form comes straight to us.