Sandy Latchford, chair of the Built & Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee gave a presentation to Prince Edward County Council on Tuesday, as an annual update on the committee’s work.
One of the many topics covered in her presentation was restoration and preservation work being done on local graveyards and one of the details in her written report was that they were looking at establishing parts of cemeteries where people can be buried with their pets.
Ontario law normally forbids pets to be buried with humans, but special arrangements can be made to permit this in a dedicated pet-friendly area of the cemetery. The pet friendly area has to be separated from the regular burial plots.
Latchford says they have previously received multiple inquiries at local cemeteries about being buried with the remains of a beloved pet.
“We will pursue it, we’ve had people come and they were so distressed that they couldn’t take Fluffy the cat’s urn in there and we couldn’t. It was illegal for us to do. We could lose our licence so we couldn’t do it,” said Latchford.
Some municipal-owned vacant land adjacent to Glenwood Cemetery has been proposed as a potential area to allow the mixed burials, but no timeline is available on when the mixed plots may become available.
