Oct. 19, 2002

"Centre Helps Pet Owners Deal With Painful Losses"
Mary Gordon
Staff Reporter

Nancy Graham came over just after Houston had died. The death was planned and so was her visit.

Christine Hughes, who had Enya music playing as she cried, showed Graham into the living room where her golden retriever lay, lifeless.

“I don't know what I would have done without her at a time like that,” Hughes says, crying as she remembers that day eight months ago. "It was like having an old friend I had known my whole life. She got down and held his paw. She looked through photo albums."

Graham runs the Thistledown Pet Loss Support Centre and Pet Memorial in Uxbridge. Hughes, a dental hygienist, first spoke to her after finding out her sick dog would have to be put down. She felt lost and scared. It was Graham who suggested that a veterinarian come to the house — a thought that hadn't occurred to Hughes.

After the death, Graham and her husband and business partner Colin sat on the floor where Houston lay, lit a candle, and talked for about an hour before they took Houston away to be cremated. Two days later, the ashes were returned in a wooden urn, which now sits in Hughes' house.

Many find mourning a pet as painful as mourning a person, which is why Graham decided to make a career in the pet loss field. Her own dog, a Great Pyrenees named Beau, died of bone cancer in 1996.

“We didn't have anyone to guide us through,” recalls Graham, who now has a malamute-shepherd cross named Gypsy, and two cats named Tess and Malcolm. “It wasn't even recognized or encouraged to talk about pet loss.”

Thistledown opened its doors in 1998. The centre, attached to the Graham household, is on a large rural property with walking trails. It has vaulted ceilings, a three-metre aquarium, animal sculptures and two indoor columbaria (walls that hold urns) with oak niches and brass plaques.

Graham will pick up a deceased pet and drive it to a crematorium in her station wagon. She says she can guarantee a private cremation. (Usually, several pets are cremated at a time.) Prices range from $125 for a small pet to $235 for a larger animal.

Graham also offers a pet exhumation service for owners who had buried a pet on their property and are now moving.

A new outdoor columbarium, scattering garden and urn burials will be introduced at an open house Nov. 2 and 3.

The most common deceased pets are dogs and cats, but clients bring Graham their late chinchillas, snakes, hamsters and fish.

When clients visit, they often leave letters, flowers or treats. Some, like Charles Wells, plan to memorialize other pets at the columbarium. It's the final resting place for his daughter's dog, a 13-year-old cockapoo named Snoopy. There are also niches that will one day hold his cat, Oscar, and his daughter’s cat, Molly.

Many pet owners say society doesn’t accept that the loss of a pet is painful. Brian Gray of Mississauga felt so strongly after the recent death of his dog that he put a six-inch death notice, complete with a photograph, in the front section of a local newspaper.

He says he wishes it could have run in the births and deaths pages. “He had just as much right to be in the deaths column than anyone else in it. In fact, I would argue that he's better than lots of people in there.”

The obituary of Ribs — née Kathgo’s Kanadian Klondike — was in the style of human ones. It documented his humble beginnings (abandoned at age 2, then adopted by the Gray family in 1991) and his rise to greatness (named by the Canadian Kennel Club in 1996 as third-smartest German shepherd in Canada).

Graham says it is important to acknowledge the grief that comes with the death of a pet.

“Before, people were suffering in silence. We're really encouraging people to pre-plan. They're making tough decisions.”