When Ed Hildebrandt bought Pleasant Mountain Pet Rest in Plymouth in 1980, fewer than three dozen pets were buried there. Today, more than 4,000 animal companions - from cats and dogs to a boa constrictor - are laid to rest in the 3-acre tract bordering Route 3.
Business is booming, there and at other pet cemeteries in the region, as more people choose to give a human-like memorial to deceased pets. Grief is grief, specialists say, whether for a lost pet or a lost human companion.
Eighty percent of Hildebrandt's clients are choosing to have their pet cremated and returned in a wooden box (average cost: $150). The rest choose private burial (up to $450, depending on the pet's size).
"It's a matter of wanting to do something for the pet so that they know it's not being disposed of in a manner that's distasteful," Hildebrandt said.
Mary Hicks of Halifax is among the pet owners who feel that way.
When Lilly, her pug, and Nacho, her Chihuahua, died within three months of each another in 2001, Hicks, 62, turned to Pleasant Mountain to have a full burial and memorial service.
"It just felt right to me," said Hicks. "I didn't want cremation and I didn't want public cremation or a public burial. I wanted something private. It seemed to work." She visits the site regularly.
"There's a tendency to think it's strange," she acknowledges.
But for veterinarians and others who understand the human-pet bond, it makes perfect sense.
"The grief process is exactly the same," whether the deceased loved one is a human or a pet, said Dr. Stefanie Schwartz, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist for more than 20 years. "But our society does not recognize it to the same degree."
"Losing a pet can be more impactful and more emotionally profound than losing a family member," said Schwartz, who runs a pet loss support group at VCA South Shore Animal Hospital in Weymouth. "There are unresolved emotional issues with people, but the relationship with the pet can be very pure."
Schwartz said a pet can symbolize the "ideal" relationship the owner may be lacking with parents, siblings, or spouses.
"When that pet goes, it's shattering all the hopes and dreams and securities," she continued. "The relationships we have with our pets are sacred in a different way."
The loss of a pet can also be more devastating because of the potential insensitivity toward the pet-owner relationship. Schwartz noted that owners most often have to take a personal day from work for the loss of a pet, but are given weeks for the loss of a family member or friend.
Other veterinarians, including Dr. Lisa Barber, who oversees the pet loss support hot line at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, agreed that the pet-owner bond can eclipse that of some human relationships.
"There are always going to be people who say, 'It's just an animal. Get over it,' " she said. "They just think of it as a lesser relationship than a person."
Owners feel solely responsible for their pet's well-being, more than for another human, Barber said, and not being able to save the pet from illness or age can be difficult.
"They feel so responsible for the pet, doing everything for them, and they feel a lot of grief and sometimes guilt," she said, "although it's not necessarily that they did anything wrong."
"Your pet, who you spend every day with, passes away," Barber added. "There's really no formalized way of acknowledging that or making it acceptable" in society.
Kimi Hardej of Hull said that when she was growing up, pets were considered part of the family. She still feels that way, so when her dogs Molly, Lucy, Cody, and Muffy died, it was not a hard decision to have them cremated.
"The death is so hard, I don't remember that there was any discussion afterward," she said. With instructions in her own will to be cremated, Hardej said she wasn't interested in burying her pet in the backyard or traveling to a pet cemetery to grieve.
"I didn't want to think of them just disposed somewhere," she said.
Some owners go as far as choosing to bring their pet with them to the grave, interning their ashes in their own casket or burial plot.
Bob Biggins, owner of Magoun-Biggins funeral home in Rockland, said it is not unusual for a family to ask to put the cremated remains of a pet in the deceased person's casket. He said he receives the request a couple of times a year.
"It's nothing special," he said. "Just following the family's wishes. That's what we're about, is helping families celebrate life."
Hildebrandt recounted a phone call he received from a family a few years ago, asking for an expedited cremation of a pet that died just a day after its owner. The family buried the pet with the owner, placing its ashes in the casket at the funeral.
Pleasant Mountain is not the only pet cemetery in the region that is experiencing the boom in "pet aftercare."
At Pine Ridge cemetery in Dedham, Mike Thomas, who has overseen the 27-acre cemetery for 37 years, said he's gone from performing about 70 burials and 100 cremations a year to up to 300 burials and 450 cremations annually.
Pine Ridge, which is operated by an animal welfare agency, is more expensive than Pleasant Mountain, charging up to $190 for cremations and $900 for upright burial markers and plots. The cemetery also offers upgrades for urns, headstones, and other memorial options.
"There's always been a core bunch of people" who think that burial or cremation "is what they have to do," Thomas said. "More and more now, people are considering their dog, their cat, their hamster a member of the family. There is no other option but some private arrangement."
At Angel View Pet Cemetery in Middleborough, owner William Morgan said a better knowledge by pet owners about services available to them is the biggest factor in increasing the industry's business.
"People are aware that there are choices and ask more questions. 'What are my options? What can I do with my pet if I don't want to bring my pet home and bury it in the backyard?' " said Morgan, who opened the cemetery in 1980.
Back at Pleasant Mountain Pet Rest, Hildebrandt says that despite his 37 years in the pet business, and even with seven of his own pets buried on his property, he can't explain the bond between animal and owner.
"The only definitive answer that I have is that the pet is the only thing that we all know will give unconditional love, be it a pit bull or the most docile Labrador," he said. "And that's something you can't buy."
