In the days leading up to my cat Caramal passing away I was wrestling with the decision to put her to sleep. Each time I would think that it would be better to put her to sleep or that she was close to going on her own I would call Precious Pets to give them a heads up, then I would change my mind and call back again, then call again late at night to ask yet again about my options. Dealing with her death was hard enough that I literally couldn't remember what I had done, was doing, or was going to do. I forgot to eat for 5 days as I waited. Carrie put up with all of it with the amount of compassion I really needed. I would call for information and she would end up listening to me cry and wail and tell her about my cat because I just needed to cry and she was the only person within' contact at the time. She didn't just listen, she participated in the conversations and helped me get it out.
When we finally made the decision to put my cat down it was a spur of the moment one. I wanted to spend the whole day with her before I said goodbye so we scheduled her to be euthanized at 7pm. At the same time I knew that if I didn't get her body out of the house right after I would have a hard time giving it up and letting go the next day. On about 2 hours notice Carrie dropped her plans and drove to meet us at the Crematory well after regular business hours. She offered to come pick it up herself but I felt I owed it to my cat to do it personally. When we got there she made the whole process very easy and gave us as much time as we wanted in the mourning room to say goodbye. In my grief I wanted to make sure everything was perfect as I could make it. She put up with all my requests and they followed it to the letter. She went above and beyond what when I expressed how distressed I was that my cat was caked in food and urine from the worst moments of her last day and how I didn't want to send her off dirty. She volunteered to bathe her up nice and clean for me, and she did. My baby went to heaven looking her best.
I didn't have to wait long before her remains were finished. The urn I had picked out had been delayed in shipping. Instead of waiting the extra days till the urn came, they let me take her home in a temporary urn early. When my urn was delivered, I watched Carrie's husband gently transfer her to the new urn while Carrie talked to me about how I was doing. They even let me keep the temporary urn because I had grown attached to it. Carrie checked up on me afterward to be sure I was ok.
A week afterward I was letting my dogs out when I realized my next door neighbors house was on fire. Unfortunately the house burned so hot and so fast that she lost all 8 of her foster cats before she could get to them. Even though they were foster cats, she loved them as her own. The shelter she was fostering for didn't have the funds to help her handle their remains, animal control wasn't able to help, she couldn't bury them on her condemned property, it looked as though her only option was to take her babies to the dump.
I called Precious Pets in hopes they would know of any one that could help my neighbor with her cats. Precious Pets volunteered to retrieve their remains from inside what was left of her home, handle everything, cremate all 8 cats and return them to her however my neighbor wanted. Since my neighbor's house burned down she didn't have a place where things can be delivered to reach her easily so Carrie dropped them off with me, till she came to pick them up. My neighbor had chosen to put them in one big urn made of really nice heavy wood with a pretty finish and a gold plaque on it custom engraved so that everyone knows it contains my neighbor's angels. I glanced that the invoice and was amazed to see that Precious Pets had gifted over $1,000 worth of work and didn't even have her pay a dime.
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