Faithful Unto Death by Paul Koudounaris: A mongrel in a purebred cemetery? Scandalous!
Faithful Unto Death by Paul Koudounaris (Thames & Hudson £25, 256pp)
Not much is known about Bingo, a 16-year-old dog buried at a pet cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia, but he was clearly much loved.
The inscription on his headstone reads: ‘Let a little dog into your heart and he will tear it to pieces.’
Any pet owner will know that the acute grief you feel when an animal dies is not very different from the emotions you experience when you lose a relative (indeed, many would argue that our pets are family members).
As this quirky and entertaining history of animal cemeteries and burials shows, our attitude to our pets – and how we mourn them – has changed radically over the centuries.
The world’s first pet cemetery, dating from the 1880s, was inspired by the death of a playful Maltese dog called Cherry.
His owners had befriended Hyde Park’s gatekeeper, Mr Winbridge, who lived in a cottage by the park gates. He agreed that the little dog could be buried in his garden, a stone’s throw from the park lawns where Cherry had romped happily all his life.
Soon, other dog (and a few cat) owners asked if their pet could be buried there too, not least because there were few options for town dwellers wanting to bury a pet (cremating them was illegal).
Mr Winbridge’s garden became the world’s first urban pet cemetery; by the time he died in 1899, more than 300 pets were there. Why had there not been a pet cemetery before?
Perhaps because most people, especially country folk, saw animals as an aid to work, not becoming emotionally attached to them.
Rest in Peace: Statue of a cat in the ‘Cimetiere des Chiens’ in Asnieres-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris, France
Once animals were no longer useful, they were disposed of without ceremony.
However pampered dogs were, they were not all equal in the eyes of Victorians. When Mr Winbridge agreed to bury Topper, the police dog who helped bobbies patrol Hyde Park, some were outraged that a mongrel should be buried in the company of upper class, purebred pooches. The dog was lampooned in
Strand magazine for being ‘insufferably vulgar’ and having disreputable ‘bohemian tastes’.
One journalist wrote: ‘No one should plant a weed where flowers grow’. Following London’s example, pet cemeteries began springing up elsewhere.
In Paris, the Cimetiere des Chiens was laid out with elegant avenues and fine monuments. Berlin had several, too, until the Nazis banned them.
America embraced the idea, and by the 1920s there were more than 600. ‘Pet cemeteries are as American as baseball and apple pie,’ Koudounaris writes.
In Mourning: Moggie, a PDSA pet, pays his last respects to Peter, who served as Chief Mouse Catcher at Whitehall for sixteen years, 13th March 1964
Burials became increasingly elaborate. Bobbie the Wonder Dog, who trekked 3,000 miles to get back home after he was separated from his owners, was buried in his own little dog house and was visited by Hollywood royalty Rin Tin Tin, who laid a wreath at his grave.
Britain’s most notable animal resting place is the PDSA’s Pet Cemetery in Ilford.
Peter, a former Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, is buried there, along with a dozen of the 75 animals that have received the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
They include Rip, a terrier who helped locate more than 100 people buried alive under the rubble of the Blitz, making him the world’s first known search and rescue dog.
Illustrated with atmospheric photographs of notable pet gravestones and statues, this book brings home just how profoundly pets touch our lives.
One of the simplest but most heartfelt tributes is to be found on the grave of a dog called Pierrot, buried at a cemetery in Massachusetts. The inscription reads: ‘I knew love: I had a dog.’