Life may be in tatters, but cats and dogs patch it up. On today’s social platforms, pet literature is definitely one of the traffic passwords. As more and more ‘cat/dog owners’ regard their furry children as family members, the service industry related to pets is also constantly expanding. Among them, pet funeral, the last journey of a pet’s life, has come into the public view. Pet funeral has a long history.
Just like many cat/dog owners, seeing the mental state of the old cat at home deteriorating day by day, Xiao Liu began to consider its affairs after death. After consulting, she found that this is actually a relatively mature industry. ‘From body pick-up, cleaning, grooming, farewell ceremony to cremation, a one-stop service. If needed, there is also full-process video recording and customized souvenirs. Even ashes can be made into statues or jewelry, so that furry children can accompany themselves in another way.’ In Xiao Liu’s view, pet funeral is a novel industry. But looking through history, whether it is ‘burying pets’ or ‘burying pets according to certain ceremonies’, this matter has already existed in human civilization. The behavior of burying pets is not uncommon. It can be traced back to 14,000 years ago. In Bonn-Oberkassel, Germany, a clearly domesticated dog shares the same burial pit with its two owners. In the United States, archaeologists have discovered more than 200 pet graves, and the oldest one is more than 8,500 years old. Even for more modern collective burials, the Egyptians invented it early on. Between 75 and 150 AD, in the coastal town of Berenice in Egypt, there was already a public cemetery for pets. As many as 100 pets rest here, including 86 domestic cats, 9 dogs and 4 monkeys. Ancient pet dog graves by Lake Baikal in the Siberian region. In ancient Egyptian civilization, cats were given a sacred status and even regarded as the incarnation of gods. Therefore, cats were not only loved as family pets, but also made into mummies after death. When buried, the owner would also prepare expensive funerary objects for the cats to show respect. The same is true in ancient Greece. People would hold ceremonies such as washing, anointing, and wrapping for dead pets. Sometimes they would also put earrings, necklaces and other accessories on them to express mourning for pets and respect for life. Then, people would hold ceremonies for pets, including praying, pouring libations, and making sacrifices. Then they would cremate or bury them. They would also erect tombstones for them and use poems and reliefs to express their nostalgia. As shown in the following picture, funerary vessels in the shape of cats and dogs in ancient Egypt. In China, there are countless ancient people who love cats. In a Song Dynasty tomb in Xinxiang, Henan Province, archaeologists discovered the first combined burial tomb of a pet cat and its owner in China. The skeleton of that cat is placed as a whole on the coffin bed and lies on the shoulder of the tomb owner.Today, pet funerals exist widely around the world. In the United Kingdom, pet crematoriums offer online virtual cemeteries and hotline services. In Japan, there are special pet temples that provide salvation services for deceased pets.
Compared with some countries, the pet funeral industry in China emerged relatively late. However, since its emergence, it has learned from the strong points of others. The process is complete and full of a sense of ceremony. The basic services of pet funerals include: pet body arrangement, farewell ceremony, pet cremation, and pet ashes handling. Suppliers will also provide customized services such as pet end-of-life bathing, beauty care, commemorative photo frames, commemorative videos, ashes storage, and ashes recreation according to demand. In addition to conventional souvenirs such as 3D cloned dolls, pet ashes pendants, and hand-painted pet ashes jars, if ‘pet owners’ are willing to spend money, they can also make pet ashes diamonds, invite eminent monks for salvation, or even’revive’ their beloved pets through cloning technology. Pet funeral service quotation list. Every link of pet funeral services will be charged according to demand. According to the pet’s weight, process items, and degree of luxury, the final price is not uniform, and the cost range can be several times higher. On Meituan, there are both full-process group buying projects for several hundred yuan and ‘one-on-one’ cremation services for more than a thousand yuan. There are also customized pet ashes crafts ranging from several hundred to tens of thousands of yuan. High profits and huge growth space have attracted a lot of ‘hot money’ to the pet funeral industry. In June 2022, Enchongtang received 15 million yuan in Series A financing. In March 2023, Pet Heaven completed millions in angel round financing. Tianpet Tianchong attracted more than 20 investment institutions to visit and investigate within one year. According to public data, in 2021, Enchongtang, which had been established for just two years, achieved an annual revenue of 230 million yuan. The gross profit of Shenzhen Tianpet Tianchong reached 35%. More players are also entering the market. According to data from Tianyancha, in 2019, the number of pet funeral-related enterprises nationwide was 998. In 2023, it increased to 4,459. As of July 2024, this number has increased to 7,000, of which more than 1,300 were established in the past six months. Spending thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, is pet funeral a ‘IQ tax’? More and more people need pets. In 2023, the number of pet cats in China reached 69.8 million, and the number of pet dogs was 51.75 million, totaling more than 120 million. Among the ‘pet owners’ all over the country, those born in the 1980s and 1990s account for 66.6%. Another survey shows that more than 80% of ‘pet owners’ regard pets as their children or family members. 65% of people think that raising pets is a kind of companionship, and 12% of people think that raising pets makes them experience the feeling of being needed and loved.On the other side, approximately 3 million pets pass away each year. In Beijing alone, around 220,000 pets depart annually. Regions with a high number of pet-owning families, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Wuhan, also face tens of thousands of pet deaths each year. When a beloved pet passes, the immense grief requires a sense of ritual to bear and resolve. Surveys indicate that about 9.
4% of pet owners in Beijing choose to cremate their pets. The proportion of pet owners willing to hold ‘final farewell’ ceremonies for their pets reaches 60.4%, 56.3% will do the last grooming for their pets, 49.3% opt for a dedicated vehicle to transport their pet’s final journey, and 43.1% select an exquisite urn to store their pet’s ashes. The diverse demands have given rise to a new profession: pet funeral directors. Although the average salary is not high, many practitioners say that this is a profession where the meaning outweighs the income. Overall, compared to pet food and medical care, pet funeral services remain a blue ocean market. In 2023, the scale of China’s pet economy industry reached 592.8 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 811.4 billion yuan by 2025. In contrast, from 2021 to 2023, the market size of China’s pet funeral industry was about 1. 25 billion yuan, 1.433 billion yuan, and 1.825 billion yuan, respectively. Despite an annual growth rate of over 20%, it is still a very small part of the overall pet industry scale. Relevant data also show that compared to pet grooming, pharmaceuticals, and food, the consumer penetration rate of the pet funeral industry is only 2.4%, indicating a vast potential. Today’s pet funeral services also incorporate more modern concepts, such as environmental protection—many companies use eco-friendly materials for urns or recycle bodies through special channels to turn them into fertilizers, and some companies have introduced eco-friendly funerals that do not cause pollution at all. Ancient priests have become today’s funeral directors, with toys and snacks replacing the burial accessories like earrings and necklaces, and body cleaning and sorting out the deceased’s belongings continue—throughout history, human love for pets has never changed. It is evident that pet funeral services are not just about handling pet remains; they are also about caring for human emotions. Corresponding to every sorrow is the purest love our pets have given us.