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Pet's final resting place is anything but

The moral of Craig Savage's experience is, as always, that the consumer should be aware.

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published May 3, 2006

Here is the story Craig Savage told me about pet cemeteries. Savage is an Air Force veteran who lives in Valrico in Hillsborough County and works in Tampa as a corporate credit and collection manager. He is 58 years old and has four sons and four grandchildren.

Savage's mother and stepfather, Sarah and Nelson Bean, retired from New Jersey to Ormond Beach on Florida's east coast, where they lived for 20 years. During those years they interred three family pets at a pet cemetery in Daytona Beach.

Sarah Bean put a lot of love and preparation into these rites of pet passage, holding funerals for each. The first to go was Sable, a "kind of terrier," Savage remembers, who died in the early 1980s. Jeanie, a shepherd mix, went in 1983.

Nelson Bean died of a heart attack in 1987. The next year the family cat Chrissy died and Sarah conducted one last pet funeral. As so often happens, within a year of Nelson's death, Sarah had joined him.

Sable, Jeanie and Chrissy were buried at a place called the Hush Puppy Pet Cemetery. Savage says the last time he was there was in the early 1990s.

About a year ago, Savage moved to Florida from New Jersey. One of his sons moved here, too. Once they were down here, Savage got the idea of making an expedition over to the east coast to see the family pets and reminisce.

But when they called, the number had been disconnected. The Hush Puppy Pet Cemetery was no longer there.

Instead, a fence company now occupied the site. Savage looked into matters and found out the cemetery property was sold last May.

He also found out the owners of the Hush Puppy Pet Cemetery had sent out letters to the known addresses of customers, giving them the opportunity to move their pets. But as Nelson and Sarah had been dead for years, and there was no forwarding address ... well, you know.

The site had been cleared of markers, but as far as Savage knows, Sable, Jeanie and Chrissy are still there somewhere, in the ground beneath the fence company. "I can't get to them," Savage said. "I've tried every legal means I can think of."

I could not contact the former cemetery owners, but I spoke with Carl Del Pizzo, who runs Carl's Fencing of Daytona. I could understand that he was not very happy to hear the subject. He bought the land fair and square. Besides, the cemetery had sent out registered letters. Is he now supposed to stop work and let people dig around his site for pets buried as long as 25 years ago?

But for Savage, the experience is an outrage. You would think, he believes, that buying a site in a pet cemetery would be a transaction of some permanence, something you could count on.

"There's something rotten about this whole thing," he says. "I have driven by the fence company and know that my pets are out back in a field somewhere. It's very upsetting." He has talked to lawyers and his state representative's office, but to no avail so far.

I spoke with Diana Evans, the director of the state Division of Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services. She assured me that these protections are in place in Florida for human cemeteries, but said that pet cemeteries are unregulated. Some states have rules, some don't.

There is a group called the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories based in New York. The group recommends that pet cemeteries be restricted by deed or other legal measures to protect them from development.

There are about 600 pet cemeteries in the U.S., according to the association. Most of them operate in conjunction with kennels, veterinary hospitals or even local humane societies. The oldest has been in operation since 1896.

In no way do I mean to impugn the integrity of any reputable pet cemetery, or to cause unnecessary alarm.

But the moral of Craig Savage's experience is, as always, that the consumer should be aware. Make sure on the front end whether long-term guarantees exist or all you are buying is a place that could change one day.

"Our pets gave us unconditional love for years," Savage says. "Animal cemeteries should be protected by law."

[Last modified May 3, 2006, 21:15:03]