Pet cemetery offers new option for Mason City animal lovers Follow Us
Question of the Day By JARED MCNETT - Associated Press - Sunday, February 14, 2021
MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) - Almost as soon as Tyler Anderson took over as manager of Mason City’s Elmwood-St. Joseph Cemetery a year ago, he said he heard a common refrain of people inquiring about pet burials.
They wanted to know if there was a final resting place for Fido, Fluffy and Bugs somewhere inside the gates of the graveyard. In a few instances, Anderson said some folks even asked if they could be buried with their pets, which he said is actually illegal in the state of Iowa.
Feb 14, 2021
MASON CITY Almost as soon as Tyler Anderson took over as manager of Mason City’s Elmwood-St. Joseph Cemetery a year ago, he said he heard a common refrain of people inquiring about pet burials.
They wanted to know if there was a final resting place for Fido, Fluffy and Bugs somewhere inside the gates of the graveyard. In a few instances, Anderson said some folks even asked if they could be buried with their pets, which he said is actually illegal in the state of Iowa.
After enough of those questions, Anderson told the Mason City Globe Gazette he started to think seriously about designating a section at Elmwood-St. Joseph for pets. He noticed year-over-year positive growth for the pet industry and saw figures that showed almost 85 million American households own a pet (according to a 2018 figure from the American Pet Products Association). That finding led to more research and reaching out to pet service providers in the area.