A Tribute to Love Lost : Pet Cemetery Provides Solace for Owners Coping With Loss of Best Friend

Like a colorful blanket shimmering in the summer breeze, flowers cover the 3.5-acre plot on Beach Boulevard just south of Yorktown Avenue.

It is here that Baron is buried, a creature who, according to his epitaph, was “born a dog, died a gentleman.” John Wayne’s German shepherd lies here, as well as Richard and Karen Carpenter’s dogs and Jose Feliciano’s goat. And a host of animals owned by lesser-known people have been laid to rest here, including “my forever friend” Scruffy, “Annabelle; the hen we grew up with,” Rascal the skunk and “our baby angel bird Twinkie.”

“The animals were good to us,” said Thomas Pollaro, 73, whose two pet monkeys--Holly and Lisa--are buried here. “They made us so happy for so many years that we just couldn’t send them to the glue factory.”

Such are the sentiments surrounding the Sea Breeze Pet Cemetery, the only one of its kind in Orange County and a living testament to peoples’ powerful bonds with their pets. “Only pets offer complete loyalty and unconditional love,” said Terri Stiles, the cemetery’s manager. “You can do anything to a pet and it will still lick your hand.”

Founded in 1961, the cemetery holds the remains of more than 30,000 animals--a number increasing by 70 to 80 a month. While 75% of them are dogs and cats, Stiles said, there is also a smattering of parrots, rats, turtles, raccoons, hamsters, parakeets, chimpanzees and at least one iguana.

“We have a bird section, a miscellaneous section and an all-cat section,” Stiles said. “Some people are real particular about their cats--they don’t want any dog spirits around.”

Funerals range in cost from $382 to about $600, prices that include redwood or concrete caskets--often lined with satin--and burial plots that are perpetually maintained. For an additional $100 to $150, Stiles said, engraved granite headstones can be purchased. And for the economy-minded, cremations are available for $55 to $140, depending on the size of the pet.

Animal funerals, according to Stiles, can consist of anything from a simple burial done quickly by staff members to a full service officiated by clergy and attended by grieving family members. Once, she said, about 300 police officers and their dogs attended an elaborate funeral for Kim, a Huntington Beach police dog killed in the line of duty in 1991.

But most often, she said, pet funerals are quiet affairs that include time spent in a special viewing room where owners can say private goodbyes, followed by interment on the grounds, ritualized in whatever manner the bereaved deems appropriate.

Such behavior has inspired derision by some who consider it excessive, Stiles said. But counselors who work with the bereaved say the grief caused by the loss of a pet can be as intense as that associated with the death of a relative.

“Animals provide unconditional love and acceptance and, with very limited exceptions, most human relationships come with strings attached,” said Larry Lachman, a Laguna Hills pet behavior consultant who runs support groups for bereaved pet owners. “People will naturally and understandably have more of an intense grief reaction to the loss of a pet; animals are definitely integral members of the family (who take on) the roles of siblings, confidants or companions.”

One way of beginning to put closure on such grief is to memorialize a beloved pet in a cemetery such as Sea Breeze, Lachman said. Affording an animal companion the dignity of a full burial, he said, “can serve a tremendous purpose in ritualizing and validating the death of an animal who was an important family member.”

On a recent summer afternoon, several people were paying their respects to deceased pets amid the brightly colored flowers. One woman wearing sunglasses kneeled forlornly in the grass and watched in silence as a worker placed the last shovel-fulls of earth on the grave of her newly departed pet.

Some 50 yards away, a lone figure in black gazed intently at another spot on the well-manicured lawn. “I try to get here at least once a month,” said Lyn Kelley, a 40-year-old human resource manager from Irvine, referring to the graves of her two beloved dogs, Lady and Gretchen. When the animals--a terrier mutt and a German shorthair--died in 1988 and 1991, respectively, Kelley was devastated. To make herself feel better, she placed their leashes, collars and favorite toys in each of their coffins, yet she still feels the frequent need to come and pay her respects.

“For some reason I like them to know I still care,” she said. “They did so much for me when they were alive and asked for so little in return. It’s nice to be able to come back and say, ‘Hi, how you doing, you know I haven’t forgotten you.”

Nearby, another little ritual was taking place as Debra Querner, 36, of Buena Park sat polishing the gravestone of her late golden retriever, Shasta, while her best friend looked on. “I come here more often than I visit my dad’s grave,” said Querner, whose pet died in 1992. “I loved her too much to give her to the pound where they would have disposed of her like garbage.”

Why this intense attachment more than a year after Shasta’s death? “She was my best friend,” Querner explained simply. “She lasted longer than my husband.”