I’m going to attempt to answer your question for real. I have never had to cremate a person, but I have cremated pets before. One time I think I may have gotten a symbolic collection of ashes, and the other time I was pretty sure I got my exact cat. The difference was visible in their system.
The first time I did not ask many questions, and I ended up with a bag of ashes that had a sticky note with my name on it. It would have been very easy for the wrong bag to be placed with my name, or for the notes to fall off and get mixed up. It was clear that accuracy was secondary to creating a chance for closure. They were very nice and professional, it was just clear that they had not felt it necessary to have an iron clad ash delivery system.
The second time I needed to cremate a pet, I asked a lot more questions, and all were answered without any surprise. Considering the type of business it is, it is always ok to ask a lot of questions about the process.
They put a tracking barcode on my deceased kitty as well as on the body bag he was placed in. When I picked up the ashes days later, the same barcodes were on the tightly sealed bag as well as on the carrying bag, plus they had his collar and a pawprint memorial in the bag too. They could have given me random ashes still, but the care that they clearly put into their system gave me a strong feeling that they had held up their end of the bargain.
The sad truth is that there is probably no way to be 100% sure, and it is likely normal for some ashes to get left behind while others may be unintentionally scooped in. The best you can do is make sure that you ask all the questions you need to (don’t let anxiety shut you up), and try to pick a place that will treat your loved one with dignity.
The place I sent my parrot to when he passed puts a numbered metal tag on each pet before they go in and the tag stays with the ashes. They also did a foot impression and sent the ashes back in a simple but lovely clay urn. It was a little weird seeing the ashes in a ziplock inside the urn but I totally get it since they were a small family business.
This happens with people too. If you don’t get an urn they’re in a bag inside a box.
Radiate the body before sending it to the crematory. That way you can test radiation levels when you get your urn back.
I was a funeral director in Ontario, Canada. The law here is that the contract you sign with the crematorium will have a cremation number which will be stamped into a metal disk and that disk will be placed with the remains. After cremation, the disk will be in the cremated remains. People who receive the cremated remains can check that the number on the disk matches the number on the contract they signed.
This system stops honest mistakes but nothing stops people from intentionally swapping disks. Say a funeral home worker is filling urns with a batch of cremated remains they recieved from the crematorium. They accidentally put remains A into the urn for family B and remains B into the urn for family A. The worker should swap the remains…but swaping the disks is easier. Most people I’ve worked with would do the right thing but the system still relies on people being honest.
I think it depends entirely on the integrity of the cremator. I have a good friend who does pet cremations. He cremated one of my pets and told me that he had a hell of a hard time getting the bag of ashes into the box I gave him. I laughed and asked him why he didn’t just pour some out so the bag would fit more easily. Who would know? Who would care if there were a few grams missing? Especially if the reason was that the client-provided box was too small. But he was genuinely shocked and said he would never do that.
That’s surprising to hear, because I heard that pet cremation services generally cremate multiple pets at once and give you some random ashes. That’s why we buried our dogs instead of having them cremated.
Depending on the company, you often have the option of either a group or a private cremation. Group cremation is what you described, but private cremation ensures you only get your pet’s ashes returned. The company my vet uses even offers the option for you to be present and view the cremation.
This is how it was done where I worked. If you asked for ashes, we just went and scooped out an appropriate amount of ash.
Sometimes the animal was still just sitting in the burn pile (we only burned on certain days). Also the ‘cremation’ furnace was just a modified 50gal drum. So you had to cut up any of the larger dogs. Small animals (kittens or anything smaller than a regular sized cat) we just threw in the dumpster.
As you can imagine, that job sucked.
Cremation doesn’t burn everything to ash. Pieces of bone are left intact and must be mechanically pulverized to make the remains a powder.
When my dad’s dog was cremated many years ago, the remains they gave us were partially ash, but the larger pieces hadn’t been pulverized. It still had many intact pieces of bone. We could see evidence of some injuries and degenerative disease the dog had experienced in his hip and spine.
I’m not sure how many people would be down for rooting through their pet’s remains for proof that it is the right animal.
