Animals have no regard for the calendar, and a surprising number of them die on the days you would least choose. Heavenly Pastures arranges pet cremations for families in Standish and the villages around it, and the calls that come in over Christmas and on birthdays have a particular quality to them, because the household is full of people and nobody knows what to do with the day now. On the practical point, there is no branch of ours in Standish. One crematorium exists, at Burscough near Ormskirk.
The Days Nobody Plans For
It is not only Christmas. Birthdays, anniversaries, the day the family was due to travel, the week of a wedding. What these have in common is a house already full of expectation, and an event that does not fit anywhere in it.
What Is Actually Open
Veterinary practices maintain emergency cover throughout the holidays, so there is always somewhere to ring even on Christmas Day. Ordinary opening hours will be reduced and routine appointments will not be running. As for us, collections can be arranged outside standard weekday hours at additional cost, and the sensible first step is a phone call to find out what is possible rather than assuming nothing is. People frequently assume they are stuck until the new year and are relieved to discover otherwise. It is also worth knowing that if your own practice is closed, the emergency service covering them will still scan a chip and will still see an animal, and you do not need to be registered with whoever is on duty.
What Can Safely Wait
Almost everything, in fact. If your animal has died at home and the house is full of family, there is no harm in keeping them somewhere cool and quiet and dealing with it in a day or two. Nothing deteriorates in the meantime and no option closes off. Families sometimes force a decision at speed because it feels wrong to leave things unresolved, and then regret having rushed it. The only genuine reason to move quickly is if leaving things is distressing to the household, which is a perfectly good reason on its own. If there are children in the house who keep going to look, or another animal who is unsettled, that changes the calculation entirely and nobody would suggest you wait.
Telling the Children on the Day
Parents ask whether to postpone telling children until after Christmas, which is an understandable instinct and rarely works. Children notice an animal missing, they notice adults behaving oddly, and they generally conclude that something is being hidden from them, which frightens them more than the truth. Plain words on the day tend to work better than a preserved holiday and a revelation on the twenty-seventh. Children also tend to take their cue from how the adults handle it, so a household that says plainly what has happened and then carries on gently gives them something to copy.
Letting the Day Be Ruined
There is a strong pull toward carrying on for everyone else’s sake, particularly where there are guests or small children. It is worth saying that a Christmas dinner eaten by a family who are all quietly upset about the dog is not a rescued Christmas, and that a household which simply acknowledges the day has gone wrong usually does better than one performing normality at each other. Nobody remembers the year the dinner was slightly late. People do remember being told to cheer up on the day their dog died.
The Choice That Has to Be Made
Whenever you come to it, there are two routes. With an individual cremation service your animal stays on their own from start to finish, and that is the reason ashes can be handed back afterwards. A communal cremation service places several animals together and returns nothing to anybody. Both are carried out with the same care, and their costs are published on the pet cremation price list so that nobody has to raise the subject over a table full of relatives.
The Anniversary That Follows
The thing people are least prepared for is the following year. A date that already carries a great deal picks up something new, and the first Christmas afterwards catches families off guard even when they thought they had done their grieving. Some households mark it deliberately, with a photograph out or a walk to a particular place, and generally find that going toward it works better than pretending the date is ordinary. We have written separately about coping with pet loss during the darker winter months, which many families find speaks to exactly this.
The Empty Space in the Photographs
Small things ambush people afterwards. The stocking that does not get filled. A card arriving addressed to the whole household including the dog. If you want somewhere to put a photograph and a few words, the Remembrance section of this website is open to any family, and a number have posted their own.
Reaching You in Standish
Collection comes to your house at a time you pick, or to your veterinary practice if that is where things happened, and what it costs follows travel time out from Burscough and the areas we cover page shows how those bands fall across the borough. Driving over to us instead is equally possible if you would prefer. Where a dog has died at home and you are unsure what to do first, the page setting out what to do when your dog dies at home will help.
Ringing on an Awkward Day
Call 01704 776976 whatever the date. Nobody will make you feel you have chosen a bad moment. The contact form is there if a houseful of people makes a phone call impossible.