You Need To Know

Honoring Beloved Pets: Jamie Queen Roosevelt and Nikki Smiley’s Approach to Pet Memorials

• Jay Lawrence

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What if you could honor your beloved pet in the same heartfelt way you would a human family member? Join us in this touching episode of "You Need to Know" as we welcome Jamie Queen Roosevelt of Brewers and Sons Funeral Services and Nikki Smiley from their division, MyPets. Discover how MyPets offers specialized pet cremation services, available 24/7, ensuring that pets of all shapes and sizes—from cats and dogs to snakes and horses—receive the dignity they deserve. Jamie and Nikki share their compassionate approach and the profound emotional support they provide to grieving pet owners, along with the various burial options and cemeteries they collaborate with.

Grieving the loss of a pet is never easy, and memorializing them can help. Listen as we explore personal stories of pet loss, the growing trend of pet memorials, and the meaningful ways to honor our furry friends. From cremation to memorial vials and specialized containers, we delve into the options available and the importance of prearrangements and prepaying for these services. Plus, learn about our upcoming grief counseling group at our Claremont location, "Hope Through the Holidays," designed to support those mourning loved ones, including pets. Don’t miss out on this heartfelt discussion that underscores the deep bond between pets and their owners and the significance of celebrating their lives.

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to you Need to Know. This is Jay Lawrence, your host. You Need to Know was created by Collage Travel Media Network to bring you information that may not be obvious, to get you in the know about the subjects like medical topics, topics like legal information, something that everybody wants, odds about politics, and that should make the show a little interesting and fun. And there's so much more Like things you may have been afraid to ask. Well, here we are. This is you Need to Know.

Speaker 2:

That's right, you Need to Know. And here, this is Z Michelson, and I'm in the studio today with two lovely ladies. This is Zee Michelson and I'm in the studio today with two lovely ladies. I have Jamie Queen Roosevelt of Brewers and Sons Funeral Services, and along with her she brought in Nikki Smiley. Nikki Smiley is from a division of Brewers and Sons called my Pets, because we all know our pets are our family. And what do you do when your four-legged family members pass on? So welcome to the show, ladies. I appreciate it, thank you, thank you. So tell me a little bit more about MyPets. What exactly do you do?

Speaker 4:

So MyPets is, like you mentioned, a division of the funeral home. We operate like a funeral home, but what we do is we specialize in individual pet cremation. You know, no communal cremation at all, that's not ever going to be an option, and we also operate 24-7 throughout central Florida with the funeral home.

Speaker 1:

Wow, when you have a pet and you don't expect it to pass away. And who do you call? How do you you know? How do we get a hold of you? How do we know about you?

Speaker 4:

so we have an 800 number. It is connected to the funeral home. So the operator, no matter what time, even if it's a holiday, you're going to give us a call, we will dispatch our. You have the option where we can meet at the house or, if the family prefers, where they could meet us at a funeral home, no matter what time it is, and we'll be there. We could also go to the vet's office as well if it's during the business hours of the vets.

Speaker 3:

We're just here to make sure that you are taken care of as well as your pet. You know pets are people too. They're members of our family and we want to make sure that they're also given the same respect as any other member of your family would be Well as you just pointed out, the vet's office also, because sometimes you wind up putting down your pet at a vet's office.

Speaker 2:

So you do know in advance if that's going to happen, so you can schedule that. But do the vet's office say can't get a hold of you until the next day? Vet's offices will hold the pet for a day or so, right?

Speaker 4:

They should be able to, but we still make sure we avoid that. We will respond as soon as possible. We have enough people on our team where, as soon as they give us a call, we will be there.

Speaker 1:

So what is the process? What is the process when your pet does pass away?

Speaker 4:

So the first thing is giving us a call. You know that starts everything. You know some people want to go through the whole process right then, and there on the phone some are just like hey, you know, just come here, help us out and we'll do that. And then when they're able to collect themselves, we'll let us know when they're ready to talk. We won't force anything onto them till they're okay I know something with me.

Speaker 1:

I have lost a pet and I didn't realize how emotional I was going to be. And it is pretty emotional time, isn't it?

Speaker 4:

yes, and pets are our companions. If it's just some random cat you found on the street, or you did spend quite a bit of money on them, because we're a pure breed and show them off, or whatever, they still hold an important part of our lives. You know, losing a pet for us as individuals is equivalent to losing a person, because they're there with us every single day. They're our interaction.

Speaker 2:

So when you say pets, you know everybody thinks cats or dogs. But do you, you know, some people have snakes, some people have tarantulas yeah, so we do them all.

Speaker 4:

um, you know, before I got into this division We've done quite a few horses. Right now I'm currently working with a lady that has a skunk. You know, if it's a pet to you, sure you know we're not going to tell you no.

Speaker 2:

Right. So if it's a pet now you said horses Now do you only do cremation or do you have places where they can be buried?

Speaker 4:

We do work with cemeteries that do have either pet section of that cemetery or a cemetery that's dedicated to the pets. There's not that many. Some people don't do that, but we will work with you to figure out what is the best option.

Speaker 3:

And we do work with multiple locations. There are a few in central florida. One of the the cemeteries that we run, that brewers runs in mazark town, does have a section for pets. There is a pet specific crematory I'm sorry, uh, pet specific cemetery over in apopka. And there are here and there a few smaller cemeteries, typically not corporate cemeteries, but smaller cemeteries in Central Florida that have pet areas.

Speaker 2:

Now, Jamie, you had mentioned in one of one of the last talks we've had that the Brewers has their own crematoriums and things like that. Do you do the same thing for the pets? You have their own, they have their own and things like that.

Speaker 4:

Do you do the same thing for the pets? You have their own, they have their own. Yeah, so we have it's at a separate location and it is for pets only. We do not combine pets with people. We keep it by themselves, and I operate that daily, you know to show, and I can promise you that it's made for one pet only.

Speaker 1:

This is amazing. This is something you need to know. That's the name of the program because you need to know. It's interesting because it's given me a different perspective on what to think about in terms of when I lose my pet. You're taking care of them, right?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely Well. Me personally, in my long history of having pets I've had pets my entire life you know, when your pet passes, you sadly take them out into the yard and that's now their final resting place. And that's not really the case as much anymore. People are feeling more of a connection I don't know necessarily than always, but it's becoming more common, more popular, more accepted to reach out to a funeral home or, in our situation, a funeral home. In many other situations it's not going to be a funeral home. It's going to be a pet-specific crematory and make sure that they are able to honor their pet the same way they would any of their other loved ones. It's no longer.

Speaker 1:

You used the word connect. Is there something that you give them? Is there a way to connect with the pet after the ceremony? Is there a ceremony there? Can be that you do.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, you can treat your pet's passing like you can have for any other member of your family. We can do services, we can do burial, like Miss Nikki was saying. We can do cremation celebrations of life. We had a family that had a, I'm going to say, a series of bunnies. They had several bunnies that were very close members of their family. The most recent one that passed his name was Lettuce, which we thought was so cute, and we did a burial for Lettuce. The entire family came out, the children all played instruments. They brought their instruments. The son was a very, very talented violinist, as Miss Nikki is, and they were able to play at the cemetery and do their own celebration of life for their bunny, for this member of their family. So we have all different types of options and we are here to help you honor your loved one, your pet. However you want to to term them, they're still one of your loved ones and we're still here to honor them in whatever way you know would be best.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure you have urns and that's what I I think of, but are there any other memorial items that I haven't even thought about?

Speaker 4:

So one free thing we do. We do life stories. You know we got away with the word obituary because we're here to continue the legacy, so we will post that online where you could share with your friends and family. What I do is, as well, I make little prayer cards for pets. You know I find something that caters to them.

Speaker 4:

I have the family. I notice a lot of the families on the phone will talk about how their pet was and kind of give me an idea of the personality you know. So I'll try to customize a prayer card. I don't tell the family I do this. You know I try to do that extra thing. Well, when they go to bring their pet home, they see that, you know, and I figured a prayer card would be a good option because you could put it in your wallet, have it in the visor of your car, bring it wherever you know.

Speaker 4:

We also offer locks of fur and whiskers. You know I'll put that in a nice little heart-shaped container with the name on it. We do paw prints and nose prints. We try to capture everything because at the moment you may not want it, but I've seen I helped out more than my girlfriends recently. She took that paw print and got a tattoo of it and she made it into like a little flower field of the flowers the cat would lay on. How you know those purposes and all those little things we do.

Speaker 2:

You just may not realize it yet or maybe you haven't had that inspiration to figure out what you can right and as, as you're talking about this, I've had many animals and, just like you, earlier, you know, we wound up burying him in the yard. And then, you know, you know, first, the first animal that I ever lost, but I was young and I didn't know what to do. I didn't, I didn't bury him in the yard. I didn't know what to do, and they just said, well, we'll take care of it. But I would have liked to know all about these other things and, as you're right, more and more people are going that route, because I've had many.

Speaker 2:

I now have two little memorials for my two cats that I've had and one for my dog, which I'm pretty upset with the way they handled it, because, you know, my cats are in a beautiful brown container with, you know, the paw print and everything else. They gave me this tin can that looks like I put dog biscuits in it for my dog, so it's like, yeah, I'm going to get her something better. That looks like I put dog biscuits in it for my dog. So it's like, yeah, I'm going to get her something better. But it's nice to have these features and let people know, because some people just don't know that they can do this that they can have, this, they can have a little vial that they can carry around with the ashes in it. There's so many different things and you know, one of the funny things about pet funerals was an old, old episode of the Odd Couple. Have you ever heard of the Odd Couple with Jack Klugman?

Speaker 1:

and Tony Randall. Oh, my goodness, you're thinking of Odd Couple again.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, I mean it was funny at the time because you know, tony Randall lost, or thought he lost, his pet parrot, and they had a service for the pet parrot. But the pet parrot wasn't dead, it was actually alive. Tony randall overdosed him on medication so they weren't going to reimburse him any money, and so oscar madison got upset, killed the fly and put the fly in the funeral in the casket and said that's my pet fly.

Speaker 2:

They had to, they had to follow through with it. So I mean, but back then it was comical, nobody thought of that. But now it's second nature, because our pets are our family. You know, whether you have one cat or five cats, or one cat and six dogs, or whatever, they are our people and we want to make sure that we can bring closure to their life with us.

Speaker 1:

And so are there any special requests that you guys get that we haven't mentioned.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we get some pretty interesting things. We do occasionally do families who like to witness the cremation. We have, like we were talking about doing, the pet services that are becoming a little more common than in previous years and I know Nikki's had some different requests.

Speaker 1:

What was one of them?

Speaker 4:

So one of the requests is getting items cremated with a pet.

Speaker 1:

Is what.

Speaker 4:

Getting items cremated with a pet.

Speaker 2:

Like their favorite toy, yeah, favorite toy blankets.

Speaker 4:

You know a lot of families if they have. You know the cat always slept on this one blanket. You know they make sure my team would wrap the cat up and walk out with that blanket and most of the time in that scenario with that. Those kind of families they want the cat to have it in the afterlife. You know we do cremate it. Um, I totally understand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one of my cats before all of this, this stuff became more commonplace loved one of the blankets, so we buried him with the blanket yeah, I mean I had.

Speaker 4:

Um, we recently lost a duck to cancer. I know that sounds odd, but, you know, not in my family.

Speaker 3:

Well, nikki's a nikki's a big duck fan.

Speaker 4:

She has a bunch of ducks I do, and her favorite thing was corn like that, that even her struggling through cancer as soon as she saw us with corn, you know that made her day. And what my husband and I did, you know, when we buried her, we buried a whole bag of corn. You know, because that's we want her to have that.

Speaker 2:

That's so Egyptian yeah.

Speaker 3:

Oh it is, I never thought about that. That's very interesting yeah.

Speaker 4:

I mean we try everything to make sure, you know, all pets have everything you know. I mean, when I lost my cats, I lost them a week apart and there was one blanket For me. I kept the blanket. That's the last thing she laid on. That's something I refused to wash for the longest time because it's sentimental. But if I had the option I probably would have cremated her with that because that was her blanket.

Speaker 2:

Or take a piece of it and put it in a frame and then let them have the rest, Absolutely so.

Speaker 1:

Jamie, in the past we've talked about prearrangements for our adults. Is there a way for prearrangements for your pet?

Speaker 3:

We do offer some different options to prepay for burial cremation. We offer payment plans, the same as we do people, and I know that there are some other options. I know that if you do prearrangement, preplanning for your pets, that there of course are small discounts and things like that. It does lock in pricing, which is always a nice thing. If your pet is two years old, hopefully your cat is going to live to be 20, and there's a lot that's going to change over the next 18 years.

Speaker 3:

so, you know, having those options are really important, especially to financially being able to make payment plans. Making a $20 a month payment is a lot easier than laying out three or four $400 at a time for a cremation Right, you know, or whatever, because we do have quite a few different package options for whatever suits your needs best.

Speaker 2:

Now something that happened to me. I was away on vacation. I had a pet sitter and one of my cats died in her care. It was an older cat but we weren't planning on it going that quickly. So it died on New Year's and she contacted me. I had her race to the vet's office. She raced to the vet's office. They couldn't save the cat but because I was driving back from New York they had to hold the cat until I can get down there.

Speaker 2:

So I hate to say, put her on ice but, they kind of did that because they needed my official signature to make sure I wanted it cremated and everything that I wanted with it. When you're doing the pre-planning, can you do stuff like that for the pre-planning, for you know, oops, this happened and what are?

Speaker 4:

you going to do now? Yeah, absolutely. And if anyone is in that scenario that you fortunately experienced, with it now being, you know, 2024, we have online ways to submit everything. So if you're in the position where you could just access your email and I'm not a lot of people familiar with DocuSign, but you could just tap in your signature and we will receive it instantly, so we don't have to wait for you to make it back to florida, or maybe you just don't want to come in at all. That's fine, you know we could do everything on the phone, right? Yeah, we try to make it convenient for the families yeah, that's, that's basically what you need.

Speaker 2:

You know, because your, your mind is going in a million different directions, just like a family member, member. What do you do? And they're showing you different forms and papers Do you want them in this box? Do you want them with this? Do you want this? Do you want that? And you can get a little blown away by it. Yeah, everybody's saying, well, it's just an animal, but it's not just an animal, it's your family member, absolutely, and you want to be able to send it off the way you would expect the family member to be sent off, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know, we are such a busy society and we have so much going on every single day that being able to come home and your dog is going to be happy to see you, you know. Whether it's because you're going to feed them or let them out or not, it doesn't matter, they're still happy to see you.

Speaker 3:

Maybe you're not so much your cat, but I promise they care and you know having that ability to have that companionship and build that relationship with this other being is so important and I don't remember the percentage I read recently of people that have pets, but in the United States it's something like 76% of households have a pet and that could be a completely off number. So please don't quote me on that.

Speaker 3:

But I'm pretty sure that was a fairly accurate number that you know 70 whatever percent of households have a pet, and most of those pets are going to be considered members of the family Absolutely, and so having the option to treat them the same way you would any other member of the family is very important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, where I live, when I see a baby carriage going down the street, it's not a baby, it's their pet. So they're taking care of the poor little thing, because it's almost that time.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

They probably had the pet for 20 years.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes they just want to spoil it.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 4:

I mean, I do that. I have a special needs duck and I take her everywhere with me and because she can't walk, I do have her in a pet stroll and the amount of people that stop by they're like, oh, it's a baby, it's a dog, and they open it up and it's a duck, you know.

Speaker 1:

Did you say it's a duck? It's a duck, yeah, oh my goodness, you have a unique pet.

Speaker 4:

Uh-huh, that's my baby girl.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, marvin. Marvin is her baby girl. Pet cremation isn't a thing that happens every day. It's not something we talk about. But how have you been trying to connect this with different people around the area, with the community?

Speaker 3:

So we're working with a couple different organizations. Nikki is out of our Hernando County. She's based out of Hernando County. Over here in Lake County we are working with South Lake Animal League. We're doing some things with them, most, most I can't even think of the word, the more recent or the one that's coming up. Let me put it like that the thing that's coming up is going to be at the Harvest Festival, the Claremont Harvest Festival, on October 19th.

Speaker 3:

We're going to be setting up a pet photo booth and we will have pet costumes, costumes and I know that there's going to be a pet event that Southlake Animal League is going to be doing. It's a costume contest or a costume parade, and so there will be a lot of pets already dressed up, but we will have other costume options. It is completely free If anyone would like to donate money. All of those donations will go directly back to the Animal League, so we're not keeping any of that money. And where is that going to be? Again, and when? That's going to be on October 19th. That's going to be downtown Claremont. They're doing a big harvest festival for the fall. There's going to be all kinds of vendors and booths and all kinds of stuff going on that day, so it should be a pretty cool event.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you're with the funeral home.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir.

Speaker 1:

And this is my Pets which is a division of the funeral home, correct, correct? Okay, how would we get a hold of you?

Speaker 3:

Well, the best way to get a hold of us is you can either call our local office, which is here in Claremont the number is 352-394-8500. Or you can call our 800 number, which is which she does not have memorized and I would have to look up. Well, is it online? It is, yeah, it, the phone number is online. I unfortunately don't have it in front of me, but there is an 800 number that anyone can call. Again, that will go to our main location, or, if it's after hours, it will go to one of our night operators. We have three very lovely night operators that would be able to answer the call.

Speaker 1:

You always have someone on call 24 hours a day.

Speaker 3:

We do we do. You will never reach a quote unquote operator. We don't use third parties for that. It will always be a member of Brewer's staff.

Speaker 1:

Oh good.

Speaker 3:

So if you call during the day, you'll get one of the office managers. If you call the local number, you'll get either myself, Maria or Cassidy. If you call the 800 number, you'll get our Brooksville location, and during the nights and weekends, you'll receive an answer from one of our night operators.

Speaker 1:

Now, what is your website?

Speaker 3:

It's brewerfuneralcom.

Speaker 1:

Okay, very simple.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir, okay, we like to keep it simple.

Speaker 1:

Right, okay, because it's very. I found a lot of people are not looking at phone numbers now, but they're looking at the.

Speaker 3:

you go to the website first absolutely and that's where we'll find you and that probably be the easiest way to find you absolutely, and there is a section on my pets on our website that again has the the life stories that nikki was talking about, so they can click on it. Absolutely, they can click on it or whatever was important to them. We can upload a photo there's. You know, it's much like a people life story, but it's for your pet, for your family member, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

For your furry or not furry family. Well, ladies, I thank you for coming in and enlightening us on my Pets, because more and more people are going that route. One of the last questions I have is I know that a lot of the veterinarian offices offer the services through a third party. Should they just contact you or have the vet's office? Say the vet's office, I'm going to go through my pets, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Yeah, just have. Have your vet reach out to us or you can reach out to us personally If you have scheduled something to go in to have a final goodbye with your pet at your vet office. You can always give us a call ahead of time, Let us know what time that's going to take place and we can meet you at your vet's office so that you don't have to make those arrangements on your own, because your mind is spinning at that time. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Well, ladies, thanks for coming in. And again, what's the name of the company? It's Brewer Sons, my Pets, and the way to get onto the line is brewerfuneralcom. There we go. We always like to say the name of the company so they can actually click online.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I do have one other thing I'd like to talk about real quick though. Oh, what do you?

Speaker 2:

got.

Speaker 3:

Another thing we're working on is getting grief counseling. Yes, for people and for pets. Oh, for both. For both, oh yeah. So we are working on that. Please make sure you're visiting our website, our social media pages, to get more information on that. I know our Claremont location has a general grief counseling group coming up. It will be a series of three meetings and the first meeting is going to be October 29th. So that will be for anyone who is going through something. It will be hope through the holidays. Yes, and this is for people who have lost parents, children, spouses, siblings or pets, or pets and it doesn't have to be immediate no, I mean it could be some years past and you need to still get over it absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Grief is not linear and it can fluctuate over time, over events and things like that. So if you've lost someone five years ago, that does not diminish the grief that you're feeling today, right.

Speaker 2:

So, stay online.

Speaker 1:

This is exciting because the name of the program, as I've said, is you Need to Know, because the name of the program, as I've said, is you Need to Know and we are thankful that you're being with us today to talk about your pet that you may need to know.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.