Bereaved pet lovers across Britain are paying their last respects to their dead animals through expensive funerals.
The bodies of dead pets have up until now been treated as ordinary waste, but increasingly Britons are looking to specialised pet funeral directors to give them a more dignified farewell.
A variety of services is available from cremation to burial in mausoleums, or dedicated 'pet cemeteries'. Customers have the option of double-walled coffins, floral tributes and hearses.
Services available elsewhere include taxidermy and cryogenic preservation.
Emma Ward, from family-run business Pet Funeral Services, says that some mourning the loss of their animal come to their graveside everyday for months or years afterwards.
"People can be absolutely devastated," she said. "With something so close to them it is the same as losing a family member."
Most organisations allow customers to run their own services, many of which are often of a religious nature.
Director of the Association of Private Pet Cemeteries and Crematoria Kevin Spurgeon said that there have been Christian and Hindu services at the Dignity Pet Crematorium he jointly runs in Hampshire.
"Pets transcend all religions," Mr Spurgeon said. "It makes no sense to say a pet is Buddhist, Christian or Hindu. We let people express themselves in their own way."
Isn't this treating pets as though they were humans? "There are people who put their pets before humans," said Ms Ward. "That unconditional love you get from a pet—some people have never experienced that before."
It is said that pet owners experience a loss on losing their pet akin to losing a human relation. Up to 75 per cent experience difficulties and disruption in their lives after their pets die.
The Blue Cross, a pet charity, runs a Pet Bereavement Support Service and telephone helpline to help people overcome their grief. Its counselling on pet bereavement comes mainly through specially-trained Telephone Befrienders.
"A lot of people said that it is as hard as when their parents died," Mr Spurgeon said. "But it is certainly a different kind of loss."
A cremation at a vets may take place with 15 other bodies in the chamber at once, but specialist firms often incinerate one body at a time, to authenticate the remains. They give the option then of what should be done with the ashes.
One family had the ashes of their dog interred in a picture frame, which was then proudly hung on their wall with a photograph of the animal in its prime.
Others however, take an altogether more radical option. One British taxidermist, David Leggett is currently working on a dead cat for a customer.
He said that the amount of fat on a domestic animal, coupled with the difficulty in giving customers an accurate replica of their pet, made the line of work often unpopular among taxidermists.
His starting price for a dog or cat is £1000; around the same price as a pet funeral.
He said that last year an old couple dug up a pair of dogs from the bottom of the garden for him to preserve. "It actually freaked me out a bit," he said. "You get a creepy feeling from them that you don't get in working with other animals."
"I brought the dog a bed to take it back to the couple, and the lady didn't stop crying," he said. Mr Leggett said that the woman had told him how wonderful it was to have the dog back, while her husband said he felt like offering him a biscuit as he lay stiff in his bed.
"I think it comes from not being able to deal with the pet being gone," Mr Leggett said.
Feeds