The cost of living crisis has not only caused an increase in the number of people struggling to pay for veterinary treatment, pet food and animal day care. In addition, many pet owners are faced with a cruel and expensive dilemma when their beloved animal dies.
The death of a pet can now be one of the most expensive moments for bereaved owners, especially if they live in an apartment without a garden or a rental property.
When my beloved hamster Maisie died, I was faced with the trauma of figuring out what to do with her body.
The experience was an excruciating mess. Yet it’s certainly not one I face alone. Online fundraising sites are full of grieving pet owners relying on the kindness of strangers.
Freya Liberty from Manchester had her dog cremated and was able to receive his ashes after raising £600 on JustGiving.
Mabel was the oldest resident at Manchester and Cheshire Dogs Home when Freya decided to adopt her. She knew Mabel’s seniority would lead to additional health care costs, but that was something Freya had prepared for financially.
Six months later, however, her pet insurance company canceled Mabel’s policy, saying it did not insure American Akitas. Other insurers have quoted Freya premiums at around £120 a month due to Mabel’s age. It was cheaper for Freya to pay Mabel’s medical bills out of her own pocket.
Freya Liberty’s insurer told her it no longer covers American Akitas like her rescue dog Mabel. Photo: Freya Liberty
Yet Freya could not have foreseen the cost-of-living crisis coinciding with Mabel’s slumber. “We wouldn’t have done the fundraising if it wasn’t for the increase in energy bills in April,” she says.
Costs include a £250 cremation plus a £190 vet bill and a few smaller charges for keepsakes such as paw prints.
Freya put as much as she could on a credit card but was £100 short. She decided to set up a JustGiving page to see if family and friends would contribute.
“Right before I set up the page, I felt like I had personally failed my amazing dog who had supported me throughout the pandemic. She was my absolute comfort. I felt terrible sitting there thinking about whether we could cremate her,” she says.
In the end, the page raised six times the planned amount. The £100 Freya used from the fundraising campaign enabled her to bring Mabel’s ashes home. It gives Freya time to mourn her pet before spreading his ashes on the Welsh coast, a place Mabel is particularly fond of. The other £500 went to Manchester and Cheshire Dogs Home.
My hamster, Maisie, came into my life as an affordable pet. I bought her from a local pet shop in Hackney, East London for £12.
Her living expenses were never a concern. Yet when she took her last breath at the end of last year, I was struck by the potential costs of disposing of her body. I was living in a two-bedroom rented flat in London with no garden.
Molly Raycraft bought her hamster Maisie from a local pet shop in Hackney for £12. Photo: Molly Raycraft
A tour of local vets indicated that cremating an animal weighing less than 1kg, such as Maisie, would cost upwards of £125. Burial in one of London’s pet cemeteries was another option, but would cost upwards of £320. Taxidermy – not an option I wanted to consider – was no cheaper, £175 upwards in total.
Burying a dead pet in a public park or forest was a common conclusion among many people on internet forums facing the same dilemma. However, this is illegal and carries the risk of a £5,000 fine.
A more excruciating option was to simply trash the body, which is worth nothing but conjures up a cruel image of foxes tearing apart the corpse of a beloved family member.
A cheap and time-sensitive solution had to be made. Maisie was placed in an iPhone case next to her favorite patterned old bathrobe. I said my goodbyes and placed her coffin, wrapped in Sainsbury’s bags, into my food-free freezer-turned-morgue. This gave me time to make cheaper arrangements.
Maisie was eventually transported to my mother’s house where she was laid to rest in a picturesque Kentish garden with a corpse count of about 30 rodents.
My freezer and delayed burial approach is a less practical option for people with larger pets, forcing them to pay cremation fees.
Mabel’s story is one of the rare fundraisers that has a positive outcome.
Many pet cremation donation pages have no contributions. Owners are unable to collect the ashes, leaving them with the painful feeling that they have failed their pet as a result of the current crisis.
“We’ve seen an increase in this area recently,” says Diane James, manager of the Pet Bereavement Support Service at Blue Cross. The pet charity has set up several pet food banks and offers low-cost and free veterinary treatment at its animal hospitals, which includes cremation if the pet has been treated locally.
The world of vets is also feeling the strain. “The veterinary business isn’t very profitable and there’s a lot of stress involved, which is why larger corporations are taking over practices rather than going it alone,” says Anna Foreman, in-house veterinarian at Everypaw Pet Insurance.
Amidst this general rise in prices in the industry there were cases of exploitative overcharging and negligence. Some owners have reported that after paying for cremations, the pets ended up being thrown into incinerators and the ashes returned containing a mixture of remains.
However, even the majority of crematoriums, which are doing everything in their power to minimize their profit margins to help their lost customers, have been forced to increase their prices to stay afloat. of skyrocketing energy bills.
Owners have fallen into financial difficulties that could not have been foreseen at the beginning of their pets’ lives
“My fuel prices have doubled,” says Sue Hemmings, entrepreneur at Pets At Rest on the Isle of Wight and a member of the Association of Private Pet Cemeteries and Crematoriums. “Obviously our biggest expense is the cost of gasoline because that’s how we cremate animals. All my suppliers everywhere have raised their prices, from flowers and cardboard boxes to fabrics, caskets and delivery fees. Not one thing has stayed the same price as it was this time last year.”
Hemmings offers payment plans which have resulted in people paying as little as £5 a week from their Universal Credit to pay for an individual cremation. This allows them to bring their beloved pet home. General cremation is a cheaper option, but fewer choose it because the ashes are not returned.
The reality is that many pet owners have been plunged into financial difficulties that could not have been predicted at the beginning of their pets’ lives.
Demand for pet-friendly rental properties increased by 120% between July 2020 and July 2021, reflecting a surge in pet ownership during the coronavirus pandemic, according to data from property website Rightmove.
The government has responded by issuing a model tenancy agreement that discourages outright pet bans. It is expected to be supported by more mandatory measures in the Tenant Reform Bill in spring 2023, which should mean more pets for rent.
However, a combination of reduced access to affordable burial and cremation options and the rising cost of living means that the death of a pet can for some cause mounting debt and some difficult decisions.
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