Our cats and dogs become close members of the family during their time with us.
Therefore, of course it’s normal to feel the need to memorialise them when they pass away.
We’ve been making gravestones and plaques for 200 years and understand just how essential a memorial can be to the grieving process.
Whilst there are a few pet cemeteries, they aren’t well known or widespread compared to the number of pets in the UK.
At Rest Easy Pet Memorials, we recognise that people may want to memorialise and commemorate their pets, but don’t really get the opportunity to understand how they can do so, which is why we designed our pet memorial range to look beautiful both in the home and the garden.
History of pet commemoration
As a modern society we don’t do enough to celebrate and remember our pets after they have passed away, and it seems to be a modern phenomenon as history tells us that our ancestors went to some extreme lengths to mourn and celebrate their pets.
Dogs are humanity’s greatest friend and companion with some studies dating evidence of a domesticated relationship as early as 14,000 years ago.
Ancient pet burials have been discovered in cultures on every continent except Antartica.
Since humanity’s earliest memories we have been caring and commemorating our pets with some archaeologists hypothesizing that people saw those pets as being spiritually the same as themselves.
The World’s Oldest Pet Cemetery
Nearly 2000 years ago Egyptians were burying their cats and dogs in what archaeologists believe is the world’s oldest pet specific cemetery located in the Roman port of Berenice.
The pets were covered in textiles or pieces of pottery which formed a kind of sarcophagus, a level of care and consideration that led zooarchaeologists to speculate that pets were like family here.
Ancient Egyptians are renowned worldwide for their worship of animals, espescially cats.
Herodotus (c. 484 – 425 BCE) wrote how if there was a house fire in Egypt, the inhabitants would save the cats before saving themselves or their property.
When a pet passed away, he wrote how the household would shave their body hair as a sign of grief.
“All the inhabitants of a house where a cat has died a natural death, shave their eyebrows and, when a dog dies, they shave the whole body including the head. Cats which have died are taken to Bubastis where they are embalmed and buried in sacred receptacles; dogs are buried in sacred burial places in the cities where they belong.” – Herodotus
Here at Rest Easy Pet Memorials, we don’t suggest people start shaving their eyebrows, but we do want you to know that we as humans have been loving our pets and wanting to do something special once they pass away since many centuries ago.
So, if you do want a dog gravestone or a cat memorial stone look no further than our beautiful and unique range of pet memorials where you will find the highest quality memorials available.
We are proud to select only local UK materials and each memorial is crafted by our UK based memorial masons ensuring a low carbon footprint and natural material memorial.
We have also worked with experienced family funeral directors to design a free at-home funeral guide for anyone looking to give their pet a proper goodbye.
