In Japan, funerals offered for animals

TOKYO — With an increasing number of distraught pet lovers seeking to mark the passing of their cherished animal friends with a funeral service, the range of relevant services on offer has grown considerably.

Among the options available to bereaved pet owners are the dispatching of staff to their homes to cremate the bodies of the deceased pets, and the sending of Buddhist priests to read out sutras for the departed creatures.

Part of the reason for this trend seems to be the increasing identification of pets as family members who deserve a heartfelt send-off when they die.

Yoneko Tanaka, 58, a housewife in Sayama, Japan, lost her beloved 13-year-old golden retriever last spring.

On the evening of the day the dog died, she held a farewell ceremony for her pet with five other mourners, including her husband, daughter and son-in-law.

She placed a photo of the dog, flowers, fruit and candles on a table she used as an altar. She put a futon over the body of the dog, which had been placed to the side of the table-cum-altar. The six held hands and prayed in turn, offering words of gratitude to the departed dog and stroking its body.

Tanaka called on a mobile pet crematory to come to her home. "I wanted to have our dog cremated at a familiar place (to the pet)," she said.

Five members of Tanaka's family attended the cremation. They placed incense sticks in front of the incinerator and watched the dog's body being cremated. After the cremation, they picked up the bones and placed them in an urn. The cost of the cremation was about 40,000 yen (about $413), including the urn.

"Because I regarded our pet as one of the family, I had an individual cremation conducted like we would do for a human," Tanaka said.

According to the Tokyo-based Japan Pet Food Association, the number of pet dogs and cats in fiscal 1994, when the association began the survey, was 15.22 million, but this figure is now estimated to have reached 23.99 million in the last fiscal year, indicating that an increasing number of households are keeping pets.

Aiming to meeting the emotional needs of owners who have lost pets they dearly loved, an increasing number of businesses are providing funeral services for pets.

Masamitsu Fujimoto, head of the Pet Visiting Cremation Car Association of Japan, said: "The number of firms operating these kinds of services was around 10 in the Kanto region about five years ago, but today, the number has surged to about 100."