We operate a completely transparent business. All our services are described in our brochure and on our website. Brochures are freely available at all veterinary surgeries that use our services and should be handed to every client who chooses a cremation service. The brochure and the website have full details of our charges and veterinary surgeries have display cards that detail the full charges to clients who arrange the cremation through the veterinary surgery. We are fully aware that the purchase of a pet cremation service is often made at an emotive time when your judgement may be clouded. If you have not considered the matter in advance then it is best to take details and think about it when you are a little calmer rather than rush into a distress purchase that you may not want or be able to afford. If you wish to discuss any details with us you only have to call or email and we will help.

However this may not be the case for surgeries that do not use our services. After the last Bank Holiday we had a call on behalf of a distressed owner who had just discovered her dog was still at the surgery a week and a half after it had died. When we collected the vet’s freezer was obviously full and there were highly pungent body bags laying around their store room. Obviously the crematorium in question did not arrange collections around the Bank Holidays and was being used by the vet because of low prices. The fact that the service to the pet owner was so poor was being overlooked.

At Chestnut Lodge Pet Crematorium we work with a select group of vets who truly care about their clients. All too often these days veterinary practices select a pet crematorium based on them taking away their waste cheaply and providing them with high profit margins for selling so-called cremation services to distressed clients. The high profits usually go hand in hand with poor quality of service for the pet owner. The reason it is so prevalent is that people are too distressed to think about the matter and trust their vet. We expect to be able to trust professional people, not to have them standing over our loved ones selling us cremations from a firm that is giving them the largest profit.

If you want either an individual pet cremation or a communal one then there is no need to leave your pets at the vet to await their normal collection. The chances are they will be squashed into a freezer and then piled into the back of a van anyway. Is that really what you want for the final service for your friend? Simply call us and you can either bring your pet over or we can collect quickly from your vet or home. Always remember that the final choice is yours.

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The first tells of rescue work in Japan and shows a video of two dogs that were both rescued. The devotion thast one dog shows to the other is particularly heartwarming.

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/pets/pawprintpost/post/2011/03/japans-pets-have-rescuers-too/147877/1

The second highlights the fact that people are being allowed to have their pets in the evacuation centres and shows a video of a lady going through the  remains of her house. Eventually she finds her cat peering round the corner of the stairs.

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/pets/pawprintpost/post/2011/03/tsunami-happy-ending-pet-comes-home/148024/1

More details of the measures being taken to rescue animals in the area can be found at the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support page on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Japan-Earthquake-Animal-Rescue-and-Support/207835229228979?ref=ts

The story may be seen here http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/397/305763.html

The vet who had sold the cremation service and who was also been the subject of the fraud is quoted as saying

“We’re very disappointed,”  He added the clinic “never questioned” Mr Cooper’s legitimacy.

“He was licensed so I assumed that was enough.”

This is where veterinary surgeries go wrong when they arrange pet cremations. They assume that because the pet crematorium is licensed that is good enough. Well it is not. Vets have to use a licensed operation but the licensing only covers the animal disposal aspect – the treatment of your pets as if they were waste. The pet cremation service is completely unregulated. This means the handling of your pets during transportation and cremation, the way the cremation is carried out, whether or not it is a genuine individual or communal cremation, whether or not you get all, some or even the correct ashes back – all this is completely unregulated. The only way pet owners may make a complaint is through Trading Standards. This is a very cumbersome process and altogether a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.

What can be done about it? The obvious answer is for vets to stop selling pet cremations. One person’s idea of a good cremation service may be very different from another person’s so it has to be down to the pet owner to decide what is right for them. Here at Chestnut Lodge Pet Crematorium we provide extensive information on the cremation process and also on our fees. A simple glance around other websites will show how rare we are in this respect. We have nothing to hide – how many of the others can say this? Unfortunately most pet cremations are arranged through veterinary surgeries who have no information as to how the services are carried out. This simply perpetuates the poor working practices that are so rife in the pet cremation sector.

We believe it is important for people to stop using their veterinary surgeries to arrange pet cremations. Contact the crematoriums in your area and ask the right questions to see if the service is right for you. We will go over these questions in future posts or for now you may go to our articles on pet cremation. Your vet is trained to look after your pets when they are alive. We are trained to perform your wishes for your pet after death. The two sectors should not be mixed.

Perhaps you appreciate that our options for the return of ashes are carefully selected to be of the highest quality we can obtain. There is a great deal of very shoddy workmanship in the market for urns and caskets. We only select quality goods. We can’t stock everything so we go by our experience in what most people want. However we also know that we can’t please everybody all the time.  If you do not like what we offer you are welcome to bring your own, have it sent to us or we can obtain a different option for you.

You may like the fact that we are members of The Association of Private Pet Cemeteries & Crematoria. It confirms our commitment to high standards and fair and honest trading.

If you don’t want, or perhaps can’t afford, an individual cremation but still would like your pet to be handled respectfully and for the ashes to have a permanent resting place in a memorial garden then you should look at our communal cremation service. Many crematoria only carry out individual cremations whilst others simply have a disposal service that is called a cremation. We think this denies at least half of pet owners the chance to have their pet cared for properly  without having to pay for a service they do not want. We don’t know of any other service to match it in the South of England.

There may be other reasons. We hope that you may even like us but at the end of the day your trust and confidence in us is our main priority. If we can do anything to help then we will.

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Vets have always been regarded as trusted professionals and although their clients will complain about the level of fees most are happy to pay for the training, experience and commitment that veterinary staff give them. Of course all veterinary practices have to be run as businesses but in order to maintain the trust of the clients the business decisions must be seen to be fair and in accordance with the general idea of professional practice. The rise of practice managers and corporate veterinary chains has introduced a blatant commercial aspect into the presentation of the work that does not sit easily with our image of the professional. However, pet owners as laymen have to trust vets to do what is right for their pets. If that trust disappears then the working relationship between vet and client becomes very difficult.

In my experience the vast majority of vets are very trustworthy which makes me think the BBC must have had advance information about this particular vet before they started the investigation. Either that or they were lucky in the company they picked to investigate.

Vets may generally be trusted to give you their expertise while your pet is alive. However, the majority fall short when providing a cremation service. Vets have no knowledge of this area and yet will pass pets’ bodies over to companies in the mistaken belief they are all the same. The decision to use a cremation company is usually based on the level of profit they make and the fact that the company will also take away all the veterinary waste from the practice. Pet crematoria are not all the same and most pet owners would be upset to find out the truth about what goes on behind the scenes. The majority of pet owners who request a cremation do not get the service they expect and pay for. This is far more common than the cases illustrated in the Panorama report.

The Association of Private Pet Cemeteries & Crematoria is the only organisation setting standards for this sector and has tried to get Veterinary Associations to issue guidelines to ensure services are correctly sold. Up to now the RCVS and BSVA have seemed reluctant to interfere in vets’ businesses. Perhaps the Panorama investigation will change that for the better.

The responses from the RCVS and the BSAVA about the programme can be seen on the links below.

http://www.rcvs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=7099280

http://www.bsava.com/News/AdviceNews/PanoramaBSAVAResponse/tabid/1002/Default.aspx

Go to our pet cremation service article to see details about how vets may be choosing a cremation service. Come to us or go to one of our fellow members of the APPCC to be sure of getting a genuine cremation service.

Stephen Mayles

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