Local pet crematorium offers more options for pet owners

When animal lover Adrienne Tuling was considering options after her dog, Joey, a shih tzu-poodle mix, passed away in 2019, she learned would have to wait for about two weeks to have him cremated.

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This also would require the pet being put in a freezer at the veterinarian’s office while awaiting pickup, which did not sit well with the woman who considers her pets as family.

“I was not OK with my family being treated that way,” she said, “so I looked for other options and there weren’t any.”

Two years later, when her second dog, Lucy, was about to die, she learned about aquamation, a process also known as water cremation or alkaline hydrolysis.

This alternative to fire cremation uses a combination of water, salt, potassium and sodium hydroxide to break down the animal’s body in a process that takes about 18 to 20 hours. Water cremation, Tuling noted, is more environmentally friendly than traditional flame cremation, given it takes a fraction of the energy and there are no carbon dioxide emissions involved.

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For Tuling, a pet owner for most of her life, it was a simply a better approach and inspired her decision to open her own business and offer this option to local pet owners.

“As long as I can remember, we had pets. We had cats and dogs, and they would follow us home and we would try and hide them from my mom and we would look after them. I was that little kid that would try and rescue the baby birds that fell out of their nest. When they passed, I would have little funerals for them in the backyard and I would dig a little hole and have a little ceremony for them,” Tuling said.

Aquamation has become increasingly popular in recent years for both pets and humans alike. In 2021, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a noted anti-apartheid activist, underwent the process after his death at 90 years of age. However, it’s still relativity unknown in Canada and, while pet aquamation is now legal across the country, use of it for humans has yet to be approved nationally.

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“It’s becoming more and more acceptable and is growing. . . . We’re in the midst of a climate crisis, and we need solutions now, and we can’t wait. So there are people who are making this technology available. Even though it might not necessarily be considered mainstream yet, it’s coming. There are pet and human systems all over the world, and more every day,” said Tuling, who has completed this process for hundreds of animals in the nearly three years she’s been open.

Tuling, who was previously a neonatal intensive care nurse and has two certificates in grievance support, also helps her clients cope with their loss.

“Grief support is something that naturally comes along with this sort of service. . . . I am not a counselor and, for people who need that level of support, I would recommend they do that. But for people who are just trying to work through some of the emotional challenges that come with losing a pet, (it’s an option),” she said.

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Beyond the alternative to burial and fire cremation, Tuling also offers a wide range of urns and pendants for people to remember their pets, including huggable pillow urns.

“I had a client whose dog had passed and she was an elderly woman, and she was gutted when I gave her the package with her pet’s remains. She just collapsed and she was just distracted. I just thought, ‘what if I could have given her pet remains back and something that was comforting to hold?’ Because she was sort of like hugging her bag of the box with the remains,” she said.

The huggable urns are also helpful for families with kids, as is the entire process, which can also include a tribute wall for pets, Tuling said

“Kids find it very therapeutic to come in and to be able to draw a picture of their pet or draw a picture for their pet. They do find it very, very helpful. And families with children are really grateful for this opportunity. . . . They can write their pet a note that will follow them through the system – through the water cycle – just the things that people want their pets to know,” she said.

Having gone through losing a pet twice in recent years, Tuling said would encourage pet owners to research their options before it happens instead of waiting until after the pet’s death. Although it doesn’t necessarily make the process easier to go through, it’s not am uncommon thing for people to think about, Tuling noted.

“People think a lot about end of life, but they don’t think about what happens to their pet’s body after they pass, and I think it’s an important thing for people to understand what happens and what their options are,” she said.

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