Northpinellas: Sale of cemetery disturbs some pet owners

LARGO -- Marie Elliott was devastated when Champ, her 18-year-old Yorkshire terrier, was humanely destroyed in July after growing weak and crying from pain in his old age.

In her grief, the Palm Harbor resident paid about $430 to have her beloved dog buried at Green Mounds Pet Cemetery, 17103 U.S. 19 N, in Largo.

Elliott says cemetery owners Dale and Susie Potts promised perpetual care for Champ's grave, once he joined more than 6,000 animals buried here over the past 50 years.

But in October, Elliott visited and found Champ's grave overgrown. The head stone had not yet been laid. A notice said the cemetery's owners had moved from their home on site and could be reached by calling a telephone number at another pet cemetery where they work.

When Elliott called, she learned that Green Mounds, her dog's supposed final resting place, had been sold -- just months after she had Champ buried there -- to the motorcycle shop next door.

"I was really upset," she said. "He wasn't just a dog. He was like a member of our family."

Fletcher's Harley-Davidson on U.S. 19 purchased Green Mounds for $250,000 in September, county records show. The motorcycle dealership's owners have since been trying to assure Elliott and other upset pet lovers that they intend to keep Green Mounds' burials intact and well-kept.

The Harley store, a 35-year-old local business run by three sisters, plans to use some of the old cemetery's land for a drainage pond, new parking spaces and a 16,000-square-foot addition to their shop next year.

But the half of the cemetery where animals are buried will be left alone, with the grass cut periodically. The sisters will do that even though there are no state or county restrictions on the redevelopment of the land, they say.

"From there on, we're not touching anything," said Peggy McFarland, general manager of Fletcher's Harley-Davidson. "We only have good intentions."

McFarland said that she can imagine the shock for some pet owners who find out about the change in ownership. She said she has asked the Pottses for a list of buried pets' next of kin to try to notify them. She and her sisters also posted a letter at the cemetery to answer common questions and try to tell people they have the "utmost respect" for the graves.

McFarland said her sisters have buried two dogs at the cemetery, and her family always has loved animals, she said. Pictures of pampered pets are framed on desks throughout the Harley-Davidson dealership's office.

"They were really very nice, but I was still upset the cemetery was sold, and we weren't told anything about it," Elliott said of McFarland and her sisters. "And yes, right now they're not going to use the property. But what happens three or four years down the line?"

Dale Potts said he and his wife never guessed that selling the cemetery would cause anyone concern.

He said that they received no written agreement that the animals' graves would be preserved when they sold Green Mounds. They just trusted the Fletcher family to take care of the land, he said.

"We sold on the basis that nothing would be touched at the cemetery," Potts said. "I think they'll actually make it better than when we were there. We had other opportunities to sell, but since we've been neighbors for 20 years, those are the people we felt comfortable selling to."

Potts said that his business' promise of maintenance at the cemetery's graves would be upheld by the owners of the Harley-Davidson shop. He doesn't feel any promises to tend the graves indefinitely -- in exchange for payments over the years -- have been broken.

"You're asking me legal stuff I don't know anything about," he said.

As for trying to notify the owners of deceased pets of the cemetery sale, Potts said that he thought the note placed in the window of his former office was sufficient.

Green Mounds was founded by a local veterinarian in 1953 and then taken over by Mrs. Potts' family. Dale and Susie Potts ran it from the 1980s. Their yearly Christmas party -- a potluck dinner that brought together the owners of buried pets -- used to be a notable local event.

Green Mounds looks like any human cemetery, with grave markers laid in the ground and silk flowers in the newer mounds, a sign that some people visit their former pets. Older graves from the 1950s and 1960s lack flowers.

The graves are pet-sized, three feet apart, with colorful names engraved in their markers: Toodles, Princess, Pepe and Popeye lie buried there. This is also the resting place of Little Lucky, Spotty, Spooky, Trixie and Mr. Chips.

Buried animals range from Twinkles, a miniature pony, to Scotch, described on its gravestone as the only duck who was welcome in every bar. In addition to cats and dogs, there are rabbits, snakes, parrots and a kangaroo.

In a white shed that Dale Potts said used to hold urns of ashes, pet owners also left behind framed pictures of their pets and poems on the walls. The remains have been buried and the shed now will be knocked down, he said.

In addition to pets, the Pottses have said that as many as 40 to 50 people also have had their ashes laid to rest in the cemetery, next to the remains of their animals. The practice is legal, according to the Florida Division of Securities and Finance, which regulates cemeteries.

But if the pet cemetery had been a human cemetery where caskets were laid, its sale wouldn't have been so easy, according to state law. A board under the state's division of finance must approve the sale of such burial grounds.

Before a sale, human remains must be disinterred if the land is to be redeveloped. The next of kin of those buried also must be notified and can object and block the transaction.

Dawn Fisher, a St. Petersburg resident whose family has laid to rest at Green Mounds dogs named Muffin, Biscuit and Pepper, said she wished that the rules protected pet cemeteries as well.

Reached at home last week, Fisher said she had heard nothing of the sale of her pets' final resting place. She hopes the new owners respect it.

"It was the idea of having a perpetual resting place that led us there," Fisher said. "The reason we never buried our dogs in our backyard is because we wanted to know they'd be somewhere forever. We have always loved our dogs, and it's hard when you lose them, and that's why they spent the money to bury them."

The Pottses said anyone with questions about the cemetery can call them at the Pinellas Memorial Pet Cemetery in Pinellas Park at 544-1051.

- Christina Headrick can be reached at 445-4160.

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