For many, the idea of pet funerals brings back childhood memories of shaded backyard graves, with only a rough-hewn cross or perhaps the departed’s name chalked on an old paving slate. As solemn and affecting as these early bereavement rituals are, though, such traditions might be going the way of the Currier & Ives sleighing scene. Earlier this year, the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association released its estimated pet spending projections for 2007 and the results were mind-boggling. According to the APPMA, by the end of the year Americans will have spent $16.1 billion for food, $9.9 billion for supplies and over-the-counter medications, $9.8 billion for veterinary care, and $2.9 billion for “other services.” Funerals and cremations factor more than a little in this last category, and few would know more about this aspect of the pet industry than Andrea Walker, assistant manager and cruelty investigator for the Columbia-Greene Humane Society and co-owner, with her mother, Karen Walker, of Buddy’s Place pet crematorium.

Fitting to the emerging form of pet services, there is nothing funereal about Andrea’s appearance. In her early thirties and striking, with multiple ear piercings and elegant Sanskrit tattoos on both wrists, she looks far more like a stylish Pixies fan than a long-faced mortician. Nor does Buddy’s Place possess any of the squalid atmosphere of the dreaded knacker’s yard. Located in the rolling farmlands of central Columbia County, the crematorium is just minutes from both the Merchant and Ivory Foundation and the early 18th-century Luykas Van Alen house, which was used as a location for Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence. The area has been likened to the pheasant-filled parklands of England before World War II, and while driving from Albany to Columbia County, I remember why this portion of the Hudson Valley has become the ideal spot for wealthy
urbanites wishing to fulfill fantasies of becoming landed gentry.

Andrea and I meet at a homemade-ice cream stand, unfortunately closed for Rosh Hashanah. Two of her pet dogs are snarfling around the backseat of her sedan, and she tells me that the bulldog named Sadie recently had surgery to implant a titanium kneecap. As I ponder the marvels of veterinary science, Andrea says she has to make a couple stops before we visit Buddy’s Place. Between the humane society, cruelty investigations, and the crematorium, she’s in constant motion, usually with live or dead animals in tow. Today she’s trying to finalize a cremation contract with a local veterinarian, and she makes sure to bring a box of doughnut holes, bagels, and a Buddy’s Place magnet as gifts for the office. Whether it’s aluminum siding, pharmaceuticals, or animal cremation contracts, sales is the same everywhere, and Andrea gets a partial victory when the receptionist tells her the vet will be sending cats to Buddy’s Place, though the dogs, which cost more because of their size and weight, will still go to another cremator, one who the doctor has been doing business with for years. Curious about the eternal feline-canine rivalry, I ask whether she gets more business from cat or dog people.