SACRAMENTO — Lisa Melendez came home in December to find Roscoe, who weighed 80 pounds, barely alive. She believes the 8-year-old boy had a seizure. He died shortly thereafter.
“He always wanted to cuddle. He wanted to cuddle with you. He was a really good dog,” she remembers.
She took Rosco to the Sacramento Pet Crematorium on Garber Road and remembers what the workers said as they wheeled Rosco out on a stretcher.
Despite paying $481 to have Roscoe cremated and returned in a rainbow urn with her name engraved, she never heard from her again. Apparently it has gone out of business.
“How could they do something like this?” she asked.
A memorial box is placed on her mantle, awaiting his ashes.
“I just want to know what happened to him. You know, I want to make sure he wasn't just thrown in a trash can or something. I don't know where he was someday. “We want to make sure that he was actually cremated,” Melendez said. “Or if his body is still frozen somewhere, I'd like it back. I mean, he's in a landfill somewhere, just rotting there.” I don't want to know that.”
The state regulates people's crematoriums. However, it turns out that there is no supervision at the pet crematorium. Anyone can run a pet cremation business.
Hilary Levy, who lives in a Los Angeles suburb, said she had her dog's remains replaced at a different crematorium in 2017. She knew this because the remains she brought home weighed twice as much as the small dog that had died a year earlier.
“They didn't even have a way to properly measure it, like a specific size,” Levy said. “It was like digging a cup into a cup of ashes and sticking it in a box, and I didn’t get the right ashes.”
She called on the state veterinary board and legislators to regulate pet crematoriums to require cameras and inspections. That idea went nowhere.
“The staff I spoke to said, 'Well, this is very important. I hope something is done,' but nothing was done,” Levy said. Told.
We contacted the Sacramento pet crematorium several times. Owner Tammy Leung finally got back to me and said that due to personal issues, she had temporarily closed the store for safety reasons. She insisted Roscoe was cremated and then agreed to hand over his remains to Lisa and give her a full refund, which she insisted was the right thing to do.
Leon said Roscoe was the only pet that was cremated and not returned.
Lisa said she will always wonder if the remains she has now are really Rothko's.
“This kind of business is supposed to be for mourners at a sad time in their lives, and they're taking advantage of them,” Lisa said.
Because DNA is destroyed during cremation, it is difficult to prove whether you have gotten your pet back.
Levy sued the crematorium and won based on the weight of her dog's ashes. If she wants to make sure she gets her pet's remains back, she says she will either have an attended cremation or bury her dog in her garden. Check with your local government to find out if a permit is required.
