Homemade Wooden Pet Caskets

Making a personal resting place for the pet you've lost is a good way to deal with sadness and loss. Preparing a wooden casket for your best four-legged friend might seem morbid, but it may help you to deal with grief and say goodbye. For some, it can be a very satisfying personal experience.

To build the casket, you will need a saw for cutting wood pieces in the appropriate lengths, screws and the corresponding screwdriver, and optional brackets for attaching the top piece. Buy a copy of “Do-It-Yourself Coffins” for coffin-making plans for pets and people, available from retailers and on websites, or visit WayneoftheWoods.com for a free plan.

You may not be so skilled at carpentry, or simply don’t trust yourself with a saw. But you can still make something in honor of your pet. Preparing the coffin, whether from scratch or through a kit, will help you feel more connected to burial and will help you let go, which can be important when saying goodbye to an animal. Order a kit for assembling a wooden casket at TheOldPineBox.com or Rockler.com. Each of the kits comes with the wood pieces and step-by-step assembly instructions. While websites claim express delivery, it never hurts to order in advance for a future need, if you are interested in the preneed approach.

While you might not find much help online for building a casket yourself, scan the Internet and you will find many handmade pet caskets for sale, some with intricate, made-to-order carvings of individual pets and others with elaborate interiors. While many large-scale manufacturers produce coffins without the “homemade” feel of a plain wooden box, quality varieties are available from Highland Lakes Pet Coffins, Pets in Paradise, and Pet Memorials (see Resources below).