How important is burial?

So... I've had this awesome dog for eleven years, and he started having terrible seizures last week. My siblings and I have spent every last penny we've got on vet visits, bloodwork and medications just to find out they can't save him. He's gotten to be quite wretched, and they say it will only get worse, so we've decided to have him euthanised.

The vet would charge us $120 to have him euthanised there, and they'd give us the body back to bury him. The rescue society would charge us $50, but wouldn't release the body because the chemicals they use are so toxic. We're going to have to borrow the money anyway.

Thing is, I really want to bury him here on our land. It's another $70 that we don't have, but I have to have that sense that his remains weren't thrown away. Usually I give sentimental people a hard time... but this is just... weird. And its even weirder to be trying to decide with the dog still alive and looking at me. This all just sucks.

How important is burial to you? Or are there other rituals or customs that it just feels wrong to not carry out?

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Originally Posted by Avalokiteshvara

If you own your own land, and you want to lay your dead there, I think it's fine. It ties you more closely to a place you can call your home. It gives you a sense of history, and imparts a certain significance to the land ... If you can say, though, that your family members were born, grew up, and were laid to rest on this land, it gives you a stronger sense of where your home is.

Yeah. We have a few acres and, quite frankly, by the time anyone else decides to develop it the dog will be long gone. In the meantime it is reassuring to have family buried here, and that includes the pets.

We decided to pay the extra money for the vet to do it so we could bury him. I'm glad we did. This is going to sound a bit macabre, but digging the grave was cathartic. It was kinda finalizing, like, it's really over now.

Originally Posted by Avalokiteshvara

On the other hand, a diadem composed of 7 generations of relatives would be pretty awesome too.

That would be so cool... and creepy. Especially knowing that you'd one day join them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.