Mickey191: I know whereof you speak. When my cat Chester was in the final stages of kidney failure and had to be put to sleep to end his suffering, it was in the middle of a heat wave during which I'd had such respiratory distress myself that I'd gone to the emergency room of the local hospital. I didn't want to risk going outside my air-conditioned apartment to drive to the vet for my sake and for Chester's, so the vet and her assistant paid a house call to put him down. She gave me a moment with him after the death, but then she wrapped his body in a towel rather briskly and matter-of-factly, and I was upset to see his body flipped around like that.

I think vets forget sometimes that the pet owners are as much their patients as the animals themselves!

As for animal cremation, Sorcha is right: I investigated the options for Chester's remains, and I was told by the pet crematorium folks that several animals are cremated at once, then the pet owner gets ashes from that cremation session. To me, it did matter that some of Chester's ashes might go to Fido's owner and vice versa, so I went for the more expensive route of burial in a pet cemetery since I don't have a yard of my own to bury pets in. A friend offered to let me use her garden, but I wanted a place that I could visit and mourn for my little companion anytime without worrying about whether the current or future owners of a private property would approve of my being there.

Re my own body: If it were possible in this day and age, I would want to be buried without a coffin and to be allowed to decompose and let the nutrients of the body return to the earth. But I don't think that's legal. And you're right that, if any of my siblings outlive me, they would be displeased and possibly distressed about that method. I do feel, though, that keeping bodies in containers (be they coffins or urns) robs the earth and ultimately depletes it of necessary chemicals. However, leaving bodies above ground to rot, as this monster in Georgia has done, is inexcusable. Now I hear that they're testing the ground water near the Noble crematorium site for contamination.