Thai Temple Offers Cremation Service For Pets – Star2.com

In Thailand, pets are usually buried when they die. But one temple offers bereaved pet owners another option that is not only more convenient, but also enables them to give their beloved pets a religious send-off.

The Wat Klong Toei Nai temple in Bangkok was the first temple in Thailand to begin offering pet cremation, 10 years ago, and it remains one of the few in the country that provides the service.

On average, four pets are cremated at the temple each day, with dogs and cats making up the majority. Other pets cremated there have included rabbits, hamsters and squirrels, as well as unusual ones such as snakes, turtles, frogs and fish.

When the perished pet arrives at the temple, a monk chants a Buddhist prayer for some 10 minutes – a much shorter version of the one for humans, which typically lasts an hour per day in the span of a week.

The owners are then given a few minutes to whisper their last goodbyes before the body is placed into one of three cremation furnaces owned by the temple.

An hour later, the body will be ashes, which can be sprinkled in a location of the owner’s choosing.

Cremation is considered both a practical way to dispose of a body and save space, as well as a way to return the body to the basic elements of the universe, according to Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. Buddha himself was cremated.

According to the abbot, Phra Ratchasitthi Suntorn, the temple started cremating pets after a Japanese man asked the monks to cremate his dog.

At that time, there was no furnace for pets, so the dog was cremated in a galvanised fuel tank. “It looked unpleasant, so I decided to order a furnace for pets, which is about half the size of the ones for humans,” the 70-year-old monk recalls.

“Then we started getting media exposure, so more people came in with their pets.”

Pet owners can expect to pay at least 1,500 baht (RM190) for each funeral service.

“We’re not doing it for a commercial purpose; the fee is for the furnace maintenance, fuel and electricity,” says the abbot. “We’re simply helping pet owners come to terms with their loss by assuring them that their pets are going to a good place.” – dpa/Hathai Techakitteranun

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