As our world evolves and times change, businesses continually discover potential customers’ unmet needs. Dr. Ruth Ann Wood-Humiston, owner of Walnut Lawn Funeral Home, identified one of those needs and has opened a business to bring comfort to families grieving the loss of their cherished pets.
Cherished Pets Funeral Home and Crematory is a new resource for full-service pet funerals and memorials, private cremations, pet burials and pet grief aftercare. While there are other pet crematories in Southwest Missouri, Cherished Pets is owned and operated by professionally licensed and experienced funeral directors and certified crematory operators. In the past, the only options when putting a pet to rest were direct cremation or burial. Cherished Pets now offers a wider variety of choices to satisfy today’s pet lover.
While Cherished Pets is under the same ownership and will provide the same high-quality services as Walnut Lawn Funeral Home, it occupies its own separate building solely devoted to memorializing beloved pets.
Cherished Pets is located directly west of Walnut Lawn Funeral Home in Springfield, Missouri, and provides unique and customizable services for any grieving family. This building houses a reception area, two rooms with viewing windows, small chapel, arrangement rooms, an indoor prayer garden with a courtyard and a multi-chamber crematory.
Pet owners can be in the facility walking through the process of putting a pet to rest. This cremation process is designed to give families peace, closure and certainty that their cherished pet family member is treated with dignity and respect.
Here’s a list of unique services Cherished Pets can provide:
Open regular business hours, with live person answering the phone 24/7
Pet pick-up at your home, veterinary office or you may bring them to Cherished Pets
Personalized funerals or memorial services with payment plans available
Interior courtyard open-air prayer garden
Visitations and Receptions with Catering
Flowers & Online arrangements
Large assortment of urns and caskets
Cremation for small and large animals
Burial arrangements at a pet cemetery or on the owner’s land
Obituary and memorial videos posted on the website to tell the pet’s story
In-person witness of cremations
True private cremations (only one animal in chamber at a time)
Pet tracking for families
Bereavement services and aftercare support for grief
The inspiration for this business began with Ruth Ann’s dad, Bobby Wood, the original founder and owner of Walnut Lawn Funeral Home. He knew firsthand there was nothing in the area to fill the need of memorializing family pets. His vision was for high-quality funeral services for both humans and their animal family members. Ruth Ann became the second-generation owner of Walnut Lawn Funeral Home six years ago and has been in the process of bringing her dad’s vision to life.
“When we say, ‘our family serving your family,’ we understand that pets are family too,” said Wood-Humiston.
Cherished Pets offers a comprehensive aftercare bereavement program that includes a support group, community outreach, and Circle of Friends. Other grief resources are available on their website. These resources and programs are intended to facilitate healing and a healthy grief journey.
