Cat losses are consistently underrated by people who have never lived with one, and cat owners know it. Eighteen years is longer than many childhoods, and an animal that chose to sit on you is not a trivial loss.
This covers the practical side for cats, and then horses, which present an entirely different logistical problem and are rarely written about.
How Much Does Cat Cremation Cost
Cats sit at the lower end of the pet cremation range because of size.
Communal cremation, ashes not returned: 40 to 100 dollars.
Individual cremation with ashes returned: 100 to 200 dollars.
With extras such as home collection, a paw print, a fur clipping or an urn: 150 to 300.
Most veterinary practices arrange it and many include communal cremation in the cost of euthanasia. Be sure to request the ashes if you want them, because communal cremation is the default at most clinics and once it has happened it cannot be undone.
Ask One Question
Individual cremation is charged at a premium over communal, and there have been prosecutions in several states against services that charged for one and did not provide it.
Ask whether you can witness the cremation or see the facility. A reliable provider answers yes without hesitating. That question, politely asked, tells you what you need to know, and you are entitled to use a provider other than your vet's default option.
Cat Urns and Sizing
The rule is the same for any animal: roughly one cubic inch of capacity per pound of body weight.
An average cat of 8 to 12 pounds needs an urn of at least 10 to 15 cubic inches, and most cat urns are made in the 15 to 40 cubic inch range with room to spare.
That small size opens up options which are not practical for a large dog. Hand-thrown ceramic, blown glass, carved stone, small wooden boxes and figurative pieces are all available at cat scale and at reasonable cost.
Materials. Ceramic, wood and metal for indoors. Granite for anything going outdoors or being buried, because nothing else stands the weather without regular maintenance.
Photo urns with a frame set into the front are the most popular type, and cat urns for ashes are made in every material listed above.
Keepsake urns at 3 to 10 cubic inches, if ashes are being divided or if somebody wants a small portion to keep.
Prices run from around 40 dollars for a simple wooden box to 250 and upward for granite and artist-made pieces.
Cat Grave Markers and Memorial Stones
Cats are more often buried at home than at a pet cemetery, and more often marked in a garden than anywhere else.
Flat granite markers, 8 by 6 to 12 by 8 inches, engraved with the name and dates. From around 60 to 200 dollars. The standard choice, and the commonest form a cat grave marker takes.
Small upright markers for anybody who wants something that reads as a headstone.
Cat memorial stones in boulder form, a natural stone with one polished face. Set into a garden bed these look like part of the planting rather than a grave, which is what many families want.
Etched portraits. Black granite takes a laser-etched photograph at photographic quality, and cats etch particularly well, because the contrast in fur and the shape of the eyes come through clearly.
Three practical points for a garden stone. Set it on a compacted base rather than on soil, or it will settle unevenly within two seasons. Keep it out of the mowing line, because a strimmer chips granite edges permanently. And cut the lettering deep, because a horizontal stone collects leaves and grass that fill shallow engraving.
Avoid resin and painted concrete markers sold cheaply online. They chip and crumble within a season or two.
Wording for a Cat
The same principle as for any memorial: specific beats poetic, and cats reward it particularly well, because they were all so distinctly themselves.
Eighteen years on the same windowsill. She chose us. Not a lap cat, except on Sundays. The best of all possible cats. Wanted in at three every morning. Queen of the back garden.
Name and one true line is usually the whole inscription. Dates are optional.
Cat Memorial Gifts
If you are buying for somebody else.
A printed photograph of the cat that they have not seen. The most valued and least common gift there is.
An engraved garden stone with the cat's name on it.
A paw print, if one was taken. Vets will do this at the end if asked, and only then.
A donation to a shelter in the cat's name.
Cat memorial tattoos are a large category, and if that is the direction, the same advice applies as to any memorial tattoo: work from a real photograph of that specific cat rather than a generic silhouette, and use an actual paw print if you have one.
What not to say. Anything comparing this loss unfavourably to something else, and anything about getting another one. Not in the first months.
Horse Memorials, Which Are a Different Story
Very little is published on this and horse owners are frequently left to organise it themselves.
Disposal is the first constraint. A horse weighs 900 to 1,500 pounds and the options are few and tightly regulated. Depending on the state and county: burial on private land where permitted, rendering, composting at a licensed facility, or cremation.
Burial on private land is permitted in many rural jurisdictions with conditions on depth, distance from watercourses and wells, and acreage. It requires machinery and advance planning. Check what is permitted locally before making assumptions.
Horse cremation is available at a limited number of facilities and typically costs 1,000 dollars and upward, sometimes considerably more, plus transport. Individual cremation with ashes returned is offered by specialist equine crematoria, and the volume returned is substantial, typically 20 to 40 pounds.
Partial cremation is offered by some services, returning a portion.
Ashes from a horse require either a large urn or, more commonly, several. Many owners bury the majority and keep a keepsake amount.
Marking a Horse
Where a horse is buried on land the family owns, marking it is unrestricted, which is unusual in this trade.
Boulder markers are the most common and the most fitting. A natural stone taken from the property with a polished face carrying the name, set at the burial site or at a gate.
Granite markers at any size, since there is no cemetery specification to meet.
A shoe. Mounted, cast in bronze, or set into a stone. This is the single most requested horse memorial element and one of the few objects that is genuinely individual to the animal.
A tree planted at the site, with a plaque.
If the horse is at a livery yard rather than on private land, ask the yard owner early. Many will permit a plaque or a planted tree in the paddock or by the arena, and a great many yards already have several.
An animal that lived with you for fifteen or twenty years is a real bereavement, and it arrives without the structure a human death brings. If it is heavier than you expected, that is not out of proportion.
