Thinking about it in advance feels disloyal, as though preparing for the ending somehow hastens it. It does not, and the families who have done it almost universally say it was the single thing that made the day bearable. Heavenly Pastures looks after pet cremations for households in Northwich and the Cheshire villages around it, and a fair number of the arrangements we make are settled weeks before they are needed. To be clear about where we are, we operate nothing in Northwich. The crematorium is a single site at Burscough, near Ormskirk.
Why Deciding Early Helps
The alternative is deciding while you are least able to. Every part of this is easier to think about while your animal is still asleep on the rug than in a consulting room twenty minutes after the worst news. Nothing is binding, nothing is paid for in advance, and nothing about making an enquiry commits you to a thing.
What Is Worth Settling Beforehand
Really only three things. Whether you want ashes back or not. Whether you would want collection from home or would rather bring your pet over. And who in the household is going to make the phone call, because on the day itself people freeze, and knowing it is your job rather than your partner’s removes one small paralysing decision. Write the number somewhere. That is genuinely most of it. Everything else can be settled on the day without difficulty, and the reason those three matter is that each involves a preference rather than a fact, and preferences are precisely what people cannot access when they are distressed.
The Two Options, Decided Calmly
An individual cremation service means your animal is cremated by themselves, which is what makes it possible for their ashes to come home. A communal cremation service means several animals together, and in that case no ashes are returned to anyone. Deciding this in advance is worth more than almost anything else here, because it is the one choice that cannot be revisited afterwards, and it is the one most often made in a hurry. Costs for both are on the pet cremation price list, and our our standards page explains how the work is carried out.
Where a Vet Appointment Is Already Booked
If a date has been set, ring us before it rather than after. We can arrange to collect from the practice, or from your home afterwards if the vet is coming to you, which many Cheshire practices now will. That way the day contains no forms and no decisions, and there is nobody asking you anything while you are barely able to answer. Our page on planned euthanasia sets out how that tends to unfold.
The Long Slow Decline
Not every ending has an appointment. Where an animal is fading gradually rather than acutely, families live for months in a state of watchfulness that is exhausting in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who has not done it. Arranging things in advance takes one weight off that pile. It also means that if the animal dies at home at four in the morning, which is when a great many of them do, nobody is searching the internet in the dark. Families in that position often describe the practical scramble as the part that stayed with them longest afterwards, more than the loss itself, which seems unfair and is easily prevented.
Keeping the Time You Have
Having it arranged frees you to be present for the part that matters. Families who have settled the practicalities early describe the last weeks quite differently, because they were not simultaneously dreading the logistics. Take the photographs now rather than later, including the unflattering ones and the ones where they are asleep, because those turn out to be the ones people treasure. Get the paw print if you want one, which your vet can usually help with. Do the short walk they can still manage rather than mourning the long one they cannot.
If It Happens Sooner Than Expected
Sometimes an animal who was expected to have months goes overnight. Where that happens and nothing had been arranged, no harm has been done and nothing is more difficult as a result. Arranging ahead is a convenience rather than a requirement, and the service works precisely the same way for a family ringing us for the first time an hour after it happened. Our page on the cremation service following natural death deals with an unplanned death at home, and collections can be arranged beyond ordinary weekday hours at additional cost where waiting is not possible.
Reaching Northwich
Collection comes to homes across Northwich and the villages, or to your veterinary practice, at a time chosen to suit your household. What it costs follows travel time out from Burscough rather than a single flat charge, and those bands appear on the areas we cover page. You are equally welcome to drive over, where there is a chapel of rest and no clock running.
Asking Now Rather Than Later
Ring 01704 776976 while your animal is still with you if that is where you are. It is not a morbid call and we do not find it strange, and you will not be pressed into anything. The contact form is there if you would rather write it down.