I know the Chinese have a different response to death than most ex pats and I have seen it with my own eyes regarding a kitten that died on me a few years ago.
Very affectionate to completely cold and wanting nothing to do with it. That was something I couldn’t feel empathy for.
I buried the kitten in a mountain and sometimes stop off there when passing to have a bite to eat.
Anyway, my question is, when their pets die, what do they do with them?
Do they just forget them and get a new one?
Although not a pet, I saw a dead 6 month old puppy in a road a few months ago and the Police had but a few cones around it, waiting.
I got the impression they were waiting for some kind of disposal unit to arrive and take it away.
What would the authorities do for a dead, random pet in the West? Unless they could find the owner, they’d deal with in much the same way I should imagine.
As to what Taiwanese do with dead pets, my wife tells me the traditional funeral is to throw it in the river and let it float away. Her family’s golden retriever died very recently and that’s what they did. It’s all very sad and all, but aside from the hygeine issues (although a dead golden retriever is probably the least of Taiwan’s river problems!), imagine seeing a bloody great golden retriever corpse float past you if you were by the edge of the river!
The traditional way is putting the bodies of a cats in bags and hanging the bags from trees. Whenever you’re out in the countryside and see a plastic bag full of soup and bones hanging from a tree branch, that’s what you’re looking at. The bodies of dogs are supposed to be disposed of in water. Nothing but good solid natural resource management there.
Taiwanese vets charge very little money to dispose of your pet by cremation. IN the USA, it can be pretty expensive. Something in the order of 200 dollars or so.
My two TW cats I brought with me to the USA were cremated thru the vet. My rabbit that died in TW was buried by me in the mountain behind my wanli house.
Which reminds me of an odd dream that night . I had put him (this was a very treasured pet who died suddenly probably by the bite of a scorpion, as I saw two tiny puncture holes on his neck) into a pillow case and dug a hole and was prepared to bury him with the pillow case. But at the last moment i took him out of the pillowcase and “returned him to nature au naturel” sans pillowcase. I then carefully packed the earth down so his resting place wouldnt be dislodged in a rainstorm.
He was already in rigor mortis by the time i woke up in the morning but relaxed again when i put him in his grave. Weird thing was that night i had a dream that he came to see me. He ran around me like he normally does and was very happy. I knew in my dream that he was dead but he had come to see me. Then suddenly in the near distance a shepard figure called him and he perked up and instantly ran over to the shepard.
Weird huh? Our pets have a big impact on our lives.
ok back to topic. I think nowadays most people have their vets arrange for their pets to be cremated as its not expensive in Taiwan to do so.
cremation as far as i know is the most popular method, sometimes group cremation in which they don’t get the remains back, or they take their pet to a crematoriam and he/she is cremated singularly and then they have the option of either taking home the remains in a jar or paying for a place in the sanctuary upstairs where they have their own little slot where they can place the animal’s favorite toy and picture. For the 4 animals that have passed away for me i have had them cremated and they are now in jars in my home. I’m torn between spreading their ashes and keeping them, in my heart i know they should be free, but i’m selfish and want them to stay with me for ever.
The comment i saw earlier “do they forget about them and replace them with another” i found this harsh, i have promised all of my animals that i would never let their lives be in vain and if they did leave me then i would take in another animal who needed a home and not leave that spot open and unused. This way i believe i am honoring their lives by continuing to help their fellow furry friends. I will never have an empty home. I could never replace my furry friends, i just have new furry friends who bring me just as much love, but just in a different way as before and seeing them every day reminds me of the ones i have lost.
I’m saddened every day by reading forumosa at the constant “them and us” attitude. Different people deal with death in different ways. It may be culture it may be personal, who is anyone to say it is right or wrong.
What i find hard to cope with sometimes are the foreigners who don’t plan ahead, get a furry friend and then dump it on friends, family, associations or even the streets/mountains because a) they don’t have enough money to ship them home b) they have family problems c) they have to move d) they suddenly get a girlfriend who doesn’t like animals e) they can’t find the time any more and so many more excuses (by the way i do hear this from chinese too, but i see/hear so many foreigners complain about the chinese attitude to animals and then in the same breath make excuses for themselves dumping their companinon.
anyway back to the point, cremation is what i have always seen chinese/taiwanese people do and i’ve never heard of any of the other stories in teh 16 years i’ve been here, but who knows they might be true.
[quote=“cake”]I know the Chinese have a different response to death than most ex pats and I have seen it with my own eyes regarding a kitten that died on me a few years ago.
Very affectionate to completely cold and wanting nothing to do with it. That was something I couldn’t feel empathy for.
I buried the kitten in a mountain and sometimes stop off there when passing to have a bite to eat.
Anyway, my question is, when their pets die, what do they do with them?
Do they just forget them and get a new one?
Although not a pet, I saw a dead 6 month old puppy in a road a few months ago and the Police had but a few cones around it, waiting.
I got the impression they were waiting for some kind of disposal unit to arrive and take it away.[/quote]
Yes, a couple of weeks ago at the vet, I saw when a member of the cleaning unit or something accompanied a grieving family. Their doggie had run away and was run over by a car a few blocks away from their home. The police checked the chip, and got in touch with the vet. The vet called them and thy all met at the vet’s to retrieve the corpse. They had to sign some papers with the police cleaning whatever. Then he accompanied them and put the corpse in their car.
I can assure you, as a resident of rural Kaohsiung County, that the little plastic bags full of soup and bones hanging from tree branches are the remains of cats. Sorry.
I know a taiwanese guy who’s nuts about cats, but an idiot about caring for pets in general. One of his cats had kittens, and they all died. I asked what he did with them and he said he threw them out with the trash.