ANIMAL KINGDOM COME

Dan Byrd fixed up some flowers at one of the graves in the pet cemetery.

Tom the Cat lives on, proudly perched on the mantle.

In another home, Max the basset hound, stands guard.

Tom hasn't meowed in years. Max is silent, too. But they are still very much a part of their owners' homes -- not fur and floppy ears, but lifelike statues made of their ashes and an artisan's clay.

Sound morbid? Maybe to some people, but Susan Shipman thinks it is a way for pet owners to remember their beloved pets.

Shipman owns Everlasting Memories, and uses her patented process to prepare ceramic statues in the likeness of deceased pets.

Pet owners have a number of options in disposing of their deceased pets these days.

And, with one out of every five households in the United States maintaining at least one pet, business is booming for pet cemeteries, special containers for pet ashes and unique businesses like Everlasting Memories.

Shipman's Everlasting Memories business has been slow recently, following a move.

"But I'll still talk to people about it," she said this week from her Dexter home.

The cost may be prohibitive for some potential clients, she said, adding:

"It is not a cheap process, especially if the customer wants a life-size replica," but "I've had calls from all over the U.S. I've even had calls from Japan and Europe."

The statue-making process is a lengthy one. It takes about a month to create the likeness of a small pet and up to twice that long for a full-size reproduction, such as Max.

Shipman said the cost of the work is justified: An artist, working with photographs, pays plenty of attention to detail.

Shipman moved into her entrepreneurship after her cat, Casey, died in 1987.

"I didn't want a shoe-box funeral," said Shipman. "And I wanted something more than the old, flat photograph to remember Casey."

Casey was immortalized as a calico cat statue, but Casey's statue doesn't contain any of Casey's ashes. Ideas take time to develop, and it wasn't until 1991 that Shipman perfected her process and received the patent.

Shipman's method of pet immortalization was a new one for the International Association of Pet Cemeteries in Land-O-Lakes, Fla.

"The majority of people today think of their pet as a member of the family," said Shipman, who has had a number of pets, "everything from turtles to goats."

During the early 1990s, most of the actual statue work for the company was done in Grand Rapids, Mich., where her sister, a co-owner of Everlasting Memories, lived.

Probably the most popular -- and the cheapest -- way to dispose of a deceased pet is cremation. Cremating a 25-pound poodle costs, even with an urn, under $50. A new animal crematorium will be available soon to area residents.

Although the primary purpose of the new crematorium will be to help dispose of the 3,500 animals euthanized each year by the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri at Cape Girardeau, it will be available to veterinarians and people whose animals die at home, said Jhan White, shelter administrator.

The price for using the crematorium will range from $25 to $100, depending on whether the owner wants the pet's ashes back. Urns will be available for purchase at the shelter.

With more than 700 pet cemeteries in the United States, including Cape Girardeau and Southern Illinois, pet burial is still the traditional way to dispose of deceased pets.

Cost of burial in pet cemeteries runs from $50 up, not including the casket. Many owners choose to bury their pets in blankets or au natural.

Cedar Hill Pet Cemetery on Highway 177, just north of Cape Girardeau, was established as a family business and is currently being operated by Dan Byrd, a sophomore at Southeast Missouri State University.

The family farm belonged to Byrd's grandfather. Byrd's brother, David, investigated other pet cemeteries, and Cedar Hill was founded by the two brothers and their mother.

"We have a number of different pets here," said Dan Byrd. They include a guinea pig, ferret, fish, rabbits, cats and dogs.

Caskets are available for pet owners who wish to have their pets spend eternity in comfort. The front part of the cemetery is for pets buried in caskets and the back part is for those whose owners are more frugal.

Byrd calls burials without caskets "farm burials," but he doesn't bury pets in mass graves. Burials range from $45 to $185 depending on how elaborate pet owners want the casket to be.

While the Cedar Hill Pet Cemetery started as a family business, it soon came to be Dan Byrd's alone.

Byrd's brother, who was in the Army, was sent to Germany and when Byrd's stepfather's job sent him to India, Byrd's mother went with him. Byrd now employs four people part-time.

"I couldn't do it all alone," Byrd said. "There are days when I get three in one day. I don't have a backhoe yet and I can't dig all the graves by myself." Some of the pets are large.

"I love animals and I know that people care about their pets and that makes me care," Byrd said.

It's understandable that people are upset, he added, "some people want to say a little prayer or throw the first shovelful of dirt on the grave."

People often visit their pets' graves after the pet is buried, and he often notices fresh flowers on the markers.

Byrd, who is majoring in horticulture, said he eventually will work in that field.

"But I want the cemetery to do well," Byrd said. "I'm going to take care of it for a while and then I'm going to sell it and someone else will carry it on."

Some people may opt to memorialize Spot the freeze-dried way.

The departed pet is first posed, then all of the moisture removed from the body in a process that takes up to four months for a small cat or Yorkshire terrier, or as long as nine months for a Doberman pincher.

Time isn't the only drawback to freeze-drying, though. The cost ranges from $500 to $800, glass eyes must be used and the preserved animal must be forever kept away from moisture.

Not only that, it can be too lifelike for some pet owners.