Paying Respects to Fido
As Kodiak was dying from a rare form of cancer, Bonnie Weintraub vowed never to forget the black standard poodle with the dark soulful eyes that sensed when she needed companionship, conveyed by a paw on Weintraub’s hand, a head on her lap or a wag of the tail.
She began memorializing Kodiak shortly after his death in July 1999 at nearly 9 years old. A gold heart locket with Kodiak’s picture and a strand of his fur remind her of how stunning he looked--and how he seemed to know it, freshly groomed, strutting along Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, his fluffy head held high.
More than 50 sympathy cards recall Kodiak’s gentleness, which attracted friends, including a mail carrier who sobbed when the dog died, and a neighborhood girl who learned to walk while holding onto the poodle for support. A framed ad from Poodle Variety magazine shows Kodiak hiking near Coldwater Canyon, a place he enjoyed for its trees, bushes and chirping birds, Weintraub said.
Weintraub, a Valley Glen resident, keeps Kodiak’s hand-painted portrait on a rock and his cremated remains in a sealed cedar box on a night stand. “Kodiak touched so many lives,” said Weintraub, the married mother of two adult children, who has a new poodle named Crispin. “We had a magical relationship. Remembering Kodiak helps me with my grief.”
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Such grief has fueled a burgeoning pet-loss industry that earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a year handling the embalming, burial, cremation and memorializing of pets. With more than half the nation’s families owning at least one pet, experts say the status of a domestic animal has been elevated from a secondary companion to a bona fide family member, in some cases serving as surrogate child, sibling, friend or mate.
Pet owners driven to anthropomorphizing their furry friends will lay down plenty of cash at their deaths, buying pine caskets at an average of $245 a pop, granite urns at $124 apiece and custom-designed burial markers for $130.
Yet critics say treating an animal’s death like a human’s is excessive and eccentric. Although grief over the loss of a pet is natural, the reaction becomes unhealthy when people pay for an elaborate funeral service that they cannot afford or take an extended amount of time off work to mourn, said Alan Entin, a clinical psychologist based in Richmond, Va., and past president of the division of family psychology for the American Psychological Assn.
Many of these people relate better to pets than humans, Entin said. “That’s kind of scary. It says to me, ‘What’s wrong with these people that they can’t have a good, healthy relationship with humans?’ . . . The grief is not about the pet but about some other loss. The pet is symbolic of other unresolved issues.”
Still, most people feel their deceased pets deserve more than being made into fertilizer or buried in their backyard, which is illegal in the city of Los Angeles. To meet the growing demand, the 85-year-old Rose Hills Memorial Park & Mortuary in Whittier plans to acquire eight adjoining acres for a full-service pet funeral parlor and cemetery, said Bruce Lazenby, vice president and chief engineer.
“The pet funeral industry is growing by leaps and bounds,” said Stephen Drown, executive director of the International Assn. of Pet Cemeteries, which is based in northern New York state. There are at least 700 pet cemeteries nationwide, about half again as many as a decade ago, according to the association.
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With the help of Californians, home to a scattering of pet cemeteries, business is bustling at Forever Pets Inc., a St. Paul, Minn., wholesale supplier and Internet retailer (Foreverpets.com) of more than 300 figurine urns for cremated remains that feature breeds of cats and dogs, cedar boxes to hold photos, as well as an assortment of burial markers. “The industry is still in its infancy,” said owner Jamie Minea, whose company is growing 40% a year. “I am the future trend in selling pet memorials.”
In Sun Valley, Cal Pet Crematory Inc., which cremated Kodiak, has doubled its business in the last eight years.
After Kodiak’s death, Weintraub said she felt surprised by the intensity of her grief. “I’m a strong person,” said the former teacher and co-author of a 1998 book on animal communication called “Conversations With Animals.” “I kept asking myself, ‘Why am I not able to pull myself together?’ ”
That question frequently arises at a free pet-loss support group that Weintraub attended in Los Angeles. The bereaved express confusion and guilt over grief for a pet, said Kathleen Pantea, a psychotherapist who runs the monthly, 90-minute sessions affiliated with the Animal Specialty Group in Los Angeles.
Other groups are forming throughout Southern California. “There is a need,” said Belinda Swartzman, a marriage and family therapist who is starting a group in Westlake Village. “A lot of people minimize the loss. Veterinarians don’t know where to send people who become basket cases when their pets die.”
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Veterinarians--and the colleges that train them--are becoming more sensitive. Like a growing number of practices, Valencia Animal Hospital sends bereaved pet owners condolence cards and offers referrals to support groups and mental health specialists. Social workers are being brought in to train veterinarians in private practices and at colleges.
The University of Missouri, Columbia, plans to open a sort of hospice care for families traveling for extensive pet treatments, such as radiation, at the College of Veterinary Medicine.
“The animals are family members,” said Carolyn Henry, a veterinarian at the college. “Pets usually do better when they can interact with [owners].”
Weintraub believes a legacy of Kodiak’s death is that it allows her to use her grief to help others. She fields calls from Maryland to Norway from bereaved pet owners who have heard about her help with support groups. She encourages them to attend groups themselves. “I want them to know that things get better,” she said. “I listen. I understand.”
When a pet dies, she makes a donation to animal protection groups in the animal’s memory. She sends sympathy cards and notes, including one to a 7-year-old boy saddened after his pet rat died.
Grateful that someone understood, the boy wrote Weintraub: “Thank you for sending me the card about my pet. It made me feel a lot better. It is nice to know that someone cares.”
