Visiting the Pet Cemetery

 "Pets are the new children," said our son.  "And plants are the new pets."

I think he's right about that, given that his own dog goes to doggy day care and regularly comes home with a report card. Which begs the question if children have been usurped by pets, what are children these days?

That's a question for another day.  Today, we're here to talk about pets or, more specifically, dead pets.

Once there was a man, and the man had a dog. The man loved his dog and when the dog died of cancer the man wanted to bury his dog properly but he couldn't do so because there was nowhere to bury his dog. Well, there was the time honoured back yard option of course, but he didn't want to do that because he was moving and who knew how the new residents would respect (or not) the dog's burial site.

The man had to get his dog cremated instead, and then when he and the ashes had settled into his new place he decided that he wanted other pet owners to have the option of burying their pet properly, somewhere where they could come and visit in later years. He didn't have any land of his own so he went to the Copper Coast Council and asked them for some space to build a pet cemetery.

They said yes, and gave him a block of land beside the Spencer Highway on the edge of Wallaroo, looking out over the salt lake (the one with sharks).  That was back in 2016, and pets have been dying to get into the Coopers Pet Cemetery ever since.

We rode our bikes down to the pet cemetery to have a look-see.

There was a grand entry.

And a little shelter shed which was very useful for parking bicycles.

Given the number of carefully tended and laid out graves, the Cooper Pet Cemetery met a hitherto unmet need in the community.  A great deal of thought and loving care had gone into creating memorials for much loved pets.

There were a disturbing number of slightly creepy statues with large, googly, glow-in-the-dark eyes.

And an equal but much less disturbing number of cute stone puppy dogs.

The outlook was peaceful, apart from the odd grain truck roaring along the Spencer Highway.

There were areas of the cemetery set aside for dogs and cats whose owners wished them to be separated from each other in death as they were (presumably) in life.  Some of the graves had headstones that would have not been out of place in a human cemetery.

"There's a business opportunity here," said Roger.  "We could run a multi-million dollar pet cemetery empire."

Then again, that sounded like a lot of work so maybe not.  I didn't retire to start a multi-million dollar business empire.

That being the case, the idea is up for grabs.  Entrepreneurs, do your best!