A really upsetting Sunday evening .....

B

Biglets Mummy

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 October 2012
Messages
320
Visit site
If you bury a dog in your back garden do you have to tell anyone its there? The reason I ask is after what my family and I went through last night I really think that a note on the house deeds might avoid what happened to us.

My brother is having his back garden totally made over after moving in 6 months ago. The property is in the middle of a town , in a suburban culdesac and is of an average size. His gardener made the very grimm discovery yesterday of the decomposing bodies of 2 large dogs. If I say that they were still "juicy" and that you could clearly tell what breed they were you can get the picture of how awful it was.

They were buried only inches below the surface behind a rockery. My nephew - who my brother tried to shield from it all as best he could but he was in the garden at the time - is very upset. They rang my dad and I and we went over - Some how we managed to get the bodies into a tarpaulin and got them into the back of our old landrover and with the windows all open because the smell was horrendous we got them back to our place where we reburied them under the oak tree in the bottom of the paddock. I put some flowers in and we said a few words which might sound silly but we really felt awful at disturbing them and the indignity that followed.

I always have my animals cremated - I can totally understand burying your pets on your farm or land that you own and might never move from but big dogs on such a small plot.......Someone was going to dig them up at some point.

Just think if there was a note on the deeds it would have saved all this unpleasantness.
 
As long as they owned the home at the time they are within their rights and it doesn't need to be on the deeds. Common decency would suggest a 'heads up' but there are no legal necessities to this. If anyone ever digs up a yard I used to be on they are going to find at least 5 horse corpses (old YO used to bury her horses along the track 🙈 )
 
what a horrible experience for all of you - and how kind and caring to re intern them in such a sensitive manner. We have buried almost all our pets/horses etc. on our own land but always VERY deep so no chance of being inadvertently disturbed. It does seem a bit stupid to not even dig a decent depth by the previous owners, what were they thinking????
 
You acted so right, with sensitivity when it must have been a horrible experience. Two of our small dogs are buried in the garden here, but are now under the conservatory floor (without having to be moved) as we had it extended and warned the builders not to disturb them.
 
When we converted an old barn we dug up lots of my OH's childhood dogs, that thankfully they were skeletons and so not so upsetting. Finding them still 'recognisable' must have been awful and very distressing. I think the reburial is lovely.
 
God bless you.
We lived in are family home for over 50 years and I had a phobia about digging past pets up that were buried in the borders, there was no pet cremation then.
I now pay the vet as we are on bottomless clay, my spade will not go through the top 4inches. I feel sad but we would need a JCB to make a dent
 
All my dogs (and OH’s) are buried at home but on the hill behind our house rather than in the garden. Must have been very distressing for you all to find what you did. Well done for being so sensitive about reburying them.
 
I've buried pets in the garden, but always in deep graves and certainly not where some future owner would be digging and come across the bones.
The former owners must have done this whilst the house was on the market, which is a thoughtless and unpleasant thing to do, particularly putting large dogs in such a shallow grave.
 
My Nan lived in the same house for 60 years and raised two generations. When I was burying cats I'd dig up more cats. I think there's a goat somewhere as well. The new owners will probably think there was some sort of ritual going on....our old vet took one female to be buried on his farm allegedly, the last three dogs, we let the vets take care of it. For me, the body is just a shell.

'You do not have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body' as CS Lewis said.
 
I can imagine that it was a bit of a shock but children pick up very much on the reaction of the adults around them, so if you treated this in a matter-of-fact way, the child would do the same, realising that it wasn't a terrible thing for someone to bury their pet at home and that you would simply re-bury the bones. Once the animal has died, it really doesn't matter what you found, whether it was someone's beloved pet or a passing rabbit/fos/bird that happened to die in the garden. Children need to understand the cycle of life and that the animal lives on people's memories, what is left in the ground is of no further use to the animal and therefore of little real importance.

If the adults treat finding bones as a horrific event, so will the child.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
I can imagine that it was a bit of a shock but children pick up very much on the reaction of the adults around them, so if you treated this in a matter-of-fact way, the child would do the same, realising that it wasn't a terrible thing for someone to bury their pet at home and that you would simply re-bury the bones. Once the animal has died, it really doesn't matter what you found, whether it was someone's beloved pet or a passing rabbit/fos/bird that happened to die in the garden. Children need to understand the cycle of life and that the animal lives on people's memories, what is left in the ground is of no further use to the animal and therefore of little real importance.

If the adults treat finding bones as a horrific event, so will the child.
Click to expand...

Totally agreed Pearl- but it wasn't bones we found.....They were still fully fleshed , "juicy" and all intact wrapped in blankets and it was very clear what type of dogs they were. I cant even go there with the smell. Believe me I have a strong stomach but this was pretty awful.
 
I'm gagging just thinking about it. Must have been awful. I wouldn't mind finding bones but half decomposed bodies? Horrible. They must have been buried not long before they left! Why did they bother burying in that case? Surely you would let the vets take care of them or get them cremated? Makes me wonder what happened to the poor dogs to be honest.

Well done you for re-burying! I couldn't have done that. I'd either have had to recover with earth and put garden work on hold until they were bones or build some kind of pyre.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top