My cat's name was Mousti. She died of cancer after a full life of 17 years. We were very close, she was my little buddy and you very rarely saw one without the other. She was never more than a few feet away from me.
But, all good things come to an end and I try to concentrate on the good times we had. I am still grieving her death and it has been a difficult time. I wanted to bury her at home, I couldn't stand the thought of having her cremated or buried anywhere other than the place she had known as her home.
After she was put to sleep, she was put in what I call her little coffin. A box made of hard cardboard. They had put a pillow case in the box, which served as a blanket. When we came home with her, we buried her under the big maple tree where she used to nap in the afternoon. We put a good number of flat, heavy stones on top of her grave to prevent wild animals from digging.
Behind the maple tree is a huge barn that was half broken down last winter. We were told this past week that a crew is expected to arrive with an excavator to clean up the remains of the barn. Looking at it logically, there is no way to do this and work around Mousti's grave, they'd have to disturb it for sure, so I decided to give her a new resting place, away from where the excavator will be.
First we dug her new resting place. When ready, I made a large double plastic bag, and we started to dig very carefully, in case the box she was in would still be intact. Soon we found out that it was not, because we saw pieces of the box. We scooped very carefully to get as much soil out as possible without disturbing her too much. Then Steve put the shovel very deep and picked her up. We didn't actually see her, the shovel looked as if it had a big pile of soil and pieces of the box. I held the bag wide open and he carefully put her in the bag. I closed the bag and we walked down the path to put her in her new grave. At that time, there was no smell at all.
After putting her in her new resting place we started to fill it up with soil. At that point there was some smell, but really not as bad as I had expected. We worked very quickly. When done, we covered her grave with rocks again.
If you feel that your pet needs a new resting place, I'd say don't hesitate to do it. I'm not an expert and I am sure it could have turned out differently. All I can do is write down my experience in case someone else needs to do this and is helped by this information. In hindsight, I am glad that I did this because now I know she can rest in peace.
Here is a picture of my little queen, God I miss her :(
