A great deal of advice about losing a pet quietly assumes you can get in a car. For anyone housebound, disabled, without transport or simply not well enough to be going anywhere, that assumption makes an already dreadful day feel like a logistical problem you are failing at. Heavenly Pastures arranges pet cremations for households across Skelmersdale and the surrounding estates, and none of what follows requires you to leave your home. To be clear about where we actually are, there is no branch in Skelmersdale. One crematorium exists, at Burscough near Ormskirk, and we travel out from it to you.
Nothing Here Depends on You Travelling
Collection from the home is our main service rather than an extra, and it is worth saying plainly that this is the ordinary way we work rather than a special arrangement made for people who ask. You do not need to explain why you cannot travel and nobody will ask you to.
What You Do Not Have to Do
You do not have to lift or move your pet. You do not have to wrap them in anything, find a box, or carry them to a door. If they are upstairs, in a back bedroom or somewhere awkward, that is our job to manage and we bring what we need for it. If you use a wheelchair or have limited mobility and are worrying about access, tell us on the phone and we will work around it rather than arriving and improvising. People apologise for their houses constantly and it is never necessary. Nobody coming through your door is looking at anything except the animal they have come for, and we have been into every kind of home there is.
If You Would Rather Not Answer the Door
Some people are having a bad enough day that meeting anybody at all feels beyond them. That can be arranged around. A neighbour or family member can let us in, or you can stay in another room entirely, and nothing about the arrangement changes. It is a common request and it will not be remarked upon. The same goes for wanting the whole thing done as quickly as possible, or conversely wanting a while beforehand. Say what you need when you ring and it will simply be built into the arrangement.
Arranging It Without a Phone Call
If speaking on the telephone is difficult, whether because of hearing, anxiety or simply the state you are in, the contact form will reach us and somebody will reply. You can set out everything in writing and never speak to anyone if that is what you need. Nobody will keep ringing you back to press for a decision.
When the Pet Was the Reason You Got Out
For a lot of people, particularly those living alone, the dog was the structure of the day. They were the reason for the morning walk, the reason to talk to somebody at the shop, the reason the house had a rhythm. Losing that animal takes the shape out of the week as well as taking the animal, and the silence afterwards is a very specific kind. If you are finding that harder than you expected, your own doctor is worth telling, because it is a real thing rather than an overreaction and they will not think it foolish. Losing the animal who set the shape of your day is a recognised thing rather than a private weakness, and people who mention it to a doctor are generally surprised by how readily it is taken seriously.
The Choice You Need to Make
There are two routes. An individual cremation service keeps your animal separate from beginning to end, and that is what makes it possible for their ashes to be brought back to you afterwards. A communal cremation service places several animals together, and no ashes go back to any of the families involved. Neither is the proper choice and neither is the lesser one. The figures for both appear on the pet cremation price list so that you can look at them privately rather than having to ask somebody about money.
Ashes Brought Back to Your Door
Where ashes are being returned, we bring them to you rather than posting them out. That matters here more than most places, because the alternative for somebody who cannot travel would be waiting on a courier, and an animal who lived in your house for a decade should not come home that way. Somebody will hand them over and answer any question you have while they are there.
If Your Pet Died Without Warning
Where an animal has died at home suddenly and you are unsure what to do in the meantime, there is no urgency imposed from our end and nothing goes wrong if a few hours pass. There is an account of what genuinely needs doing on our cremation service following natural death page, and it amounts to considerably less than people assume while panicking.
How Collection Is Costed
What we charge for coming out is based on travel time from Burscough rather than a flat fee, and Skelmersdale is close, which works in your favour. The bands are laid out on the areas we cover page. There is also an arrangement for collections outside ordinary weekday hours at additional cost, for the evenings and weekends when a good deal of this tends to happen.
Ringing Us
01704 776976 will get you a small family team rather than a call centre, and you will not be hurried. Where a cat is concerned there is further detail on the individual cat cremation service page, and asking a question commits you to nothing whatever.