People with pets dispose of their deceased animals¡¯ remains in different ways, but if they live in the city the options are obviously more limited. You can¡¯t just go in the woods and bury Pochi or Tama and set up a little memorial. Moreover, there are laws about disposing of dead animals.
About a year ago our cat died. We¡¯d lost two cats previously. With the first one, we called a local temple, which immediately sent someone over to take the body away. Several days later they called and we went to the temple where they said a little prayer and gave us the cremated remains in an urn, which we took home, even though the temple has a reliquary for pet remains. For the second cat we called a pet cremation service directly.
Most such services are associated with temples so as to make their work seem less commercial, but even when you take your pet¡¯s body to a temple they send it out to a commercial cremation facility anyway. These services will pick up the body at your home and later bring back the ashes; or, more precisely, the bones, since cremation in Japan¡ªeven for humans¡ªdoesn¡¯t usually get as far as ashes, which entails another, different cremation process.
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