Spain’s first public pet cemetery opens with grief help for house owners

Beginning this week, it could actually most likely be attainable to bury beloved pets in a public cemetery only for them.

Positioned in Málaga’s Parque Cementerio, this new facility is bigger than solely a resting place; it features a memorial park, crematorium, farewell corridor, an space for spreading ashes, and a burial zone for as loads as 500 pets. Solely pets beneath 200 kilograms in weight shall be accepted.

There are fully totally different pet cemeteries in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Zaragoza, nonetheless none of them are publicly owned an identical to the one in Malaga. Burying a pet in Spain is maybe troublesome; doing so illegally can result in fines from €3,000 as loads as €60,000.

Per Juan Antonio de Luque, president of Málaga’s School of Veterinarians, this launch is essential for the Andalusian province, house to over half one million pets.

“There are over half one million animals, together with canines, cats, ferrets, and fully totally different species, with 114,000 all through the capital metropolis of Málaga alone. Beforehand, house owners wishing to bury their pets needed to resort to non-public cemeteries,” he educated Spanish newspaper El País.

Alongside cremation or burial, Malaga’s cemetery handles post-death paperwork like transporting deceased pets and updating registries. Way more distinctive is the psychological help supplied to house owners by psychologists.

“The difficulty of demise is taboo for society normally, nonetheless the demise of animals is seen reasonably extra critically due to of us query whether or not or not or not the grief over shedding a canine or cat is maybe equated with that of shedding a human,”  director of the Animals and Society division at Rey Juan Carlos College Nuria Máximo educated El País.

“As we perceive that household pets are further members, their caregivers expertise a part of that course of, that transition in route of demise, and a great deal of lack the monetary means to bury them as they could one totally different member of the family. Attributable to this reality, it is important to have public cemeteries, as they facilitate the grieving course of.”

The prices for the pet cemetery differ from €40 for a serious collective cremation to €975, relying on the service.

Setting up on most individuals pet cemetery in Málaga began in 2016. It value €1.1 million to assemble.