Custom funerals, memorial keepsakes: How Singapore pet owners cope with pet deaths

SINGAPORE – When 13-year-old pomeranian Princess died in March, her family did not want her final farewell to feel like a simple cremation appointment.

For more than a decade, the dog had been part of their daily lives. Wanting to honour their source of joy one last time, they worked with local pet aftercare company Everpet to turn a memorial hall at its Kaki Bukit facility into a garden filled with bespoke floral arrangements.

According to Princess’ owner, a dental assistant in her 30s who declined to be named, the pooch lived like royalty at home and thus deserved a meaningful farewell.

Family and friends gathered for the funeral, which included photography and catering.

Loved ones took turns to share stories and fond memories of Princess. Some reminisced about daily walks and the parks she loved. Others laughed about her enthusiasm for food and how she would patiently station herself beside the dining table in the hope of receiving a morsel.

What began as a sombre gathering gradually became something else.

Princess’ family had initially wondered if a farewell ceremony would make the grief even harder to bear. Instead, they found that having dedicated time and space to say goodbye brought an unexpected sense of peace.

“The members found comfort in being surrounded by loved ones who understood the significance of their loss,” says Everpet co-founder Rachael Tay, who started the company in 2025 as an extension of funeral services provider Casket Fairprice.

“It became less about saying goodbye and more about remembering a life that had touched everyone differently.”

World Pet Memorial Day falls on June 9, and stories like Princess’ reflect a growing trend among Singapore pet owners seeking meaningful ways to remember their fur kids.

The trend comes as pet ownership continues to grow in Singapore.

Cats and dogs are becoming increasingly integrated into family life, with many owners celebrating birthdays, planning holidays around their pets and treating them as companions through major milestones.

As those bonds deepen, attitudes towards pet loss are changing too.

Once focused largely on cremation arrangements, Singapore’s pet aftercare industry is evolving to include private farewell ceremonies, memorial keepsakes and grief support services.

“Pets are increasingly seen as family members and the expectations around their end-of-life care have changed as well,” says Tay, 26.

At Everpet, more than 90 per cent of families choose some form of farewell ceremony, remembrance keepsake or memorial jewellery in addition to cremation. Prices for a pet funeral package start at $988.

For many owners, the desire for a more meaningful goodbye reflects the important role pets play in their lives.

“We are not just mourning a pet,” says Tay, whose family has two cats – an eight-year-old ragdoll and a two-year-old British shorthair.

Farewell rituals can help families process that grief, she adds.

Throughout Princess’ ceremony, family members gently brushed her fur, adjusted her decorative ribbons and spoke softly to her, much as they had done at home.

The memorialisation industry has also expanded beyond funeral services.

Andrew Lim, founder of memorial jewellery brands Apart.sg and Together Diamonds, says interest in pet keepsakes has risen significantly in recent years.

When he started Apart.sg in 2022, memorial jewellery was relatively unfamiliar to many Singaporeans. Today, younger pet owners are increasingly preserving fur, whiskers, paw impressions and ashes in jewellery like pendants or display pieces such as crystal keepsakes.

According to Lim, the growth in the pet aftercare industry has been “very significant” since 2025, when he started Together Diamonds, which turns carbon extracted from pet fur or cremated ashes into lab-grown diamonds.

“Public awareness and acceptance around memorial keepsakes have also changed dramatically compared with when we started,” says Lim, 34, who owns a 14-year-old Japanese spitz.

“Pets are emotional anchors,” he adds. “When they pass on, people do not necessarily want to move on. They want a way to continue carrying that bond forward.”

Depending on the design and materials used, the keepsakes can cost from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars.

Lim believes changing attitudes towards grief, coupled with owners sharing openly about their loss on social media, have encouraged more people to talk about pet loss and explore different ways of remembering their companions.

Yet, not every grieving pet owner seeks such trendy avenues.

Singaporean actress-comedienne Xixi Lim posted on social media on May 13 about her pomeranian En En, who died at almost 17 years old.

En En was the third dog Lim said goodbye to, after her shih tzu Benji in 2012 at the age of 17 and Xiao Xiao, a nine-year-old Japanese spitz, in 2020.

“I thought it would be a lot easier after you have gone through it (a few times), but they all took a piece of my heart with them,” she says.

For the 38-year-old, grief is something quieter and more intimate. She did not hold memorial services for her dogs or turn their ashes and fur into keepsakes. Following her family tradition, she also chose not to keep their ashes at home.

“My grandma’s belief is that the dogs should be free,” she says. “We just wish them freedom and happiness again, wherever they are.”

The artiste, who does not have any pets now, still thinks about Benji, Xiao Xiao and En En often, and her advice to fellow pet owners in the same boat is simple: “Take out their photos; remember the happy times.”