Where to part with animal remains

Our 14 year old family dog passed away early this morning. As we've recently arrived here, we're not familiar with the hereafter here in Munich. Do vets help with this? Other options? Curious to know what others might know.

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your dog.
We recently had our cat put down but as he was already at the vets, the vet just kept him there. I'm sure if you got in touch with your/a vet they would dispose of him. Not sure if they offer a cremation service, like in the UK. As for costs, I couldn't tell you.
Hope it all works out well for you.

My heart goes to you.

I have a 15 year old dog and my vet told me she would help when the time comes. She will call the cremation service, if I wanted, and even had a catalogue to choose urns. So I'm sure any vet can help you organize what you need.

My vet is Dr. Obermüller and her number is 32299688. She's open until 12 noon today and speaks very good English. She's in Schwabing, near the Alte Heide subway station (U6).

Good luck.

Thank you for the responses, but 3 hours after poor Marcy expired (and it was a good death, as these things go. She was old, had no illness and got to die at home in our attentive company) her corpus is gone. Fortunately, we had taken her to vet in Eching a couple weeks ago for a leg problem, so we had a relationship established. We called her at 8 (on her handy, no less) and she agreed to meet us at her office at 9:30 where we left good old departed Marcy. The cost was 47 euro which covers the cost of cremation (though we will not get the cremains for that price). The vet was compassionate, accommodating and very reasonable on both visits. Our vet in the states would not have been so on short notice on the weekend. Ergo, I highly recommend Dr. Brita Sander in Eching, 089-319 52 41.

BTW, she said we had 3 options: the cheap cremation (which we opted for), a more expensive one at a crematorium in Munich, which will return the cremains, and a pet cemetary. We've only been here 5 weeks and feared extensive German bureaucracy in dealing with this event. Happily it was not the case.

well I am glad that something so sad that could have been a nightmare, in the end went so easily. Nice to know that Germany came up trumps.

Crap.. I love dogs... most loyal kind creatures on this earth...sorry

My sympathies to you and your family, Melly.

Thanks for posting the follow-up information. It will undoubtedly come in handy for fellow TTers in future.

There is a pet cemetary (German link - watch out for the graphic picture on the starting page) close to Ismaning offering full service starting from anonymous cremation with the remains being buried in a communal grave to a fancy plot that you can decorate with photographs, flowers and other memorials (minimum 3 years' lease). The owner is available 24/7.

Anyone want a Rabbit? (Alive at moment!)

This may not be appropriate, and if it's not I apologize... but in a way you were lucky to have him (her?) go that way. My guy is getting close to his time I think, and I keep hoping he'll go peacefully in his sleep, so I don't have to make "that" decision. Do I wait until he's ill? Do I do it before he gets that way? Two of my friends recently put down their old dogs, and though they finally understood it was the right thing to do, the guilt was very painful for them for a long time. I'm really dreading it.

It's all part of having a pet I guess -- but it's hard. Your dog was lucky, especially for having such a loving family.

@ gills: I suppose this applies to dogs as well as cats
"Deciding when to put a sick cat to sleep"
Face it, survive, cherish the memories. I know how hard it is deciding over the life of a beloved pet. The first time was when I was nine years old, the last time when I was 42, both were hard but the right decision.

I'm finding it hard to know what the right thing to do is, because he had a couple of very serious illnesses last winter and bounced back quite quickly. He's tough as nails, my pooch. Now he's losing power in the back end, and he can't get up by himself, but once he's up he plods on. The vet tried steroids but they only worked for about 10 days, and his back end is very weak again. He's getting slower and slower on his walks, last summer he could walk for miles and chase his frisbee but now he can only manage a trip around the apartment building. He's pretty blind and deaf, and he does have the odd bad day. Most of the time he's in good spirits, though. The vet said his blood tests are surprisingly good.

So the inevitable is coming closer, I know. Part of me thinks I should let him go while he's still happy, and not let it get to the point of him being in pain or miserable. The bigger part of me can't imagine putting him down unless he was sick with no hope of it getting better. I've had him since he was 3 days old, and can't just put him down because he's old and not so much fun anymore. So I guess that's why I'm hoping and praying I'll wake up one morning, and he'll have made the decision for me. I'm a coward.

As I have posted on the other thread I waited until my cat was too weak to drink/eat/move. Don't wait too long, gills, no matter how much it hurts you - think of what the dog is going through.