Writing for The Lady Magazine, Kevin Spurgeon (Partner at Dignity Pet Crematorium & Director of Association of Private Pet Cemeteries & Crematoria) discuses the history of Dignity and more.
For the past 22 years my family and I have run Dignity, a specialised individual pet crematorium based in North Hampshire. We started our service after my parents watched a documentary showing what normally happens at veterinary practices after the death of a pet.
We saw deceased pets being placed in body bags and stored in the veterinary deep freeze before being collected by the weekly company alongside the practice’s clinical waste.
This wasn’t what we wanted for our much loved pets so instead we based Dignity on a more personal and respectful ethos: a choice of a responsive collection where pets are gently laid into beds and transported in bespoke hearses or the option of same day or attended cremations where owners bring their pet direct to us and say goodbye in the privacy of one of our Farewell Rooms at our multi-award winning crematorium.
On 29th June Allen Parton, former owner of world famous assistance dog Endal opened our new facilities with his current dog Endal Junior. The new Remembrance Walkway enables clients to mount a plaque in memory of their pet. We are donating £5 from each plaque to charity Hounds for Heroes, which Allen started to help injured service personnel by placing an assistance dog with them.
After individual cremation, owners can choose from a wide variety of caskets and keepsakes. Prices start from £130 and include cremation and a scatter tube. We also offer each and every client the choice of a snippet of fur (free) and a paw imprint (£10) which can be made into keepsake jewellery if desired.
Alternatively ashes can be scattered next to our Grade 2 listed Brick Kiln, in our Gardens of Remembrance or within our Natural Woodland. We are the first UK pet crematorium to scatter human ashes within our grounds and now have several families of pets and humans interred here.