What to do when your pet passes away in Singapore: How I dealt with my cat's death

Our beloved cat, Olive, passed away on 29 March 2023.

If you are someone who has lost a close pet or companion, you will agree that it is an extremely traumatic experience that can only be healed with time.

If you are someone who is preparing to say goodbye to your current pet, being an animal of any type; a dog, cat, mouse, hamster, tortoise — you might also feel lost on what you should do to make this stage of your life as painless as possible, both for your pet and for yourself.

Olive was a brave cat. He was a cat that didn't take any nonsense from his humans, and was also a fighter all the way till the end (he pulled out his drip from his arm in the hospital, despite the doctors securing it pretty tightly).

He was also an old one at the time of his passing, 15 years old to be exact, and died of natural causes.

Although I only knew him in the last five years of his life, it was my wife that had taken care of him since he was a mere 8-month-old kitten.

If I'm already feeling this deep sense of loss despite, only knowing him for five years, I cannot imagine how much pain my wife felt when he left us. He meant the world to her, and she still tears up about his passing even today.

But how did we try and keep ourselves together throughout all of this?

Give your pet a burial/cremation it deserves

When Olive died at 11pm, we were pretty lost on what to do with his body.

This was our first pet death, and it was in the middle of the night. We couldn't exactly go to our garden and bury his remains, since we do not own a landed property in Singapore.

That is when I frantically looked for pet cremation services. And to my surprise, there are quite a few in Singapore.

There are companies like Pet Cremators SG, Sanctuary Pet Cremation, Mandai Pets Sanctuary, to name a few, that specialise in animal cremation.

We went with Mobile Pet Cremation Services because it was one of the few that accepted 24-hour requests, and it was relatively nearby to Tampines (I believe they have since moved to an area in Mandai).

After contacting them, they sent someone within an hour to collect Olive's body.

They were very respectful towards the body, wrapping it in a cloth and gently putting it in a container, which was then brought to the crematorium.

They then set a time for cremation. Owners were allowed to visit an hour beforehand to pay their final respects. In our case, Olive's cremation slot was set very early, 11am the next day.

The crematorium itself is situated in the midst of the jungle and wildlife. It was serene, yet sombre.

Olive's body was placed on a table, with decorations, a picture, plaque and flowers, much like a normal human visitation before burial or cremation.

After we were done paying our respects, they gave us the option to place the body into the cremation chamber ourselves.

A week after that, they hand delivered the ashes and bones in an urn to our doorstep.

It was a tough time for us throughout this whole process, but pet cremation services in Singapore do definitely treat the death of our friends like it mattered to them.

I have seen testimonials for cats, dogs, birds, mice and even tortoises, so rest assured, any kind of pet that you own will still get its proper send off when the time comes.

Create or keep a memento of your deceased pet

Sometimes, all we want is to keep a memory of our pets. There are many forms and ways to do so in Singapore.

Olive was a lazy bum at home. He would sleep anytime and anywhere.

My wife's friend noticed this and made a cushion with Olive's print on it, mimicking his lazy bum when he was alive. My wife loves this pillow very much, as it serves as a reminder of our cat's antics.

One other thing I sought to do was to create a little miniature cat doll of Olive as a memento.

I approached a company called Petsplus, that specialised in making true-to-life miniatures of pets.

Although they took a while creating it (art shouldn't be rushed anyway), they got everything of Olive to the tee, including his colour and the placement of his stripes.

Besides this, there are a lot of other ways that you can choose to remember your companion, like t-shirts, drawings, paintings and the like.

Remember the lessons that your pet has taught you throughout the years

Pets, much like humans, have their own quirks and personalities.

Olive taught us to always enjoy life as much as possible. He was a cat that enjoyed his food, slept whenever he felt like it, and in the last few years of his life, couldn't care less about what was happening around the house. He owned his surroundings (yes, even when he was sick).

Although one might think, "Isn't that what a cat generally does?", it is actually untrue.

We have two other cats at the moment with drastically different personalities. Olive's personality is probably closer to the stereotype of a typical cat, but that doesn't discount the lessons we learnt from him.

Olive's legacy lives on in our family as a reminder that we should always remember the good things in our lives, fight for what matters, and rest whenever it is possible to do so.

Your deceased pet's lessons could be different, but always try to live your life by honouring what they have taught you throughout the years.

If you still have trouble getting over the loss of your pet, the Singapore Counselling Centre has some resources for you to tap on, if you need them.

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