12 Meaningful Ways to Memorialise Your Pet With Their Ashes

The hardest truth about being a pet parent is knowing their time with us is shorter than we’d like. They’re more than just animals – they’re family. Your dog’s wiggling bum when you get home, your cat’s soothing purrs on a rough day – these are the moments that make your house feel like home. But eventually, we all have to face the day we say goodbye.

If you’re navigating that grief now, I’m so sorry. The weight of it only reflects the love you shared. While practicalities such as what to do when your pet dies can feel overwhelming, finding meaningful ways to honour their memory might bring comfort. For those who’ve opted for cremation, here are some thoughtful, creative ways to keep your pet’s presence alive in your life.

Customise an urn

An urn can be a temporary solution or a permanent home for your pet’s remains. More than a simple container; it’s a tribute to them. Whether it sits in their favourite corner or by your bedside table, there are endless gorgeous bespoke options to keep your beloved pet’s ashes safe. On Etsy, Barruntando Ceramics, for example, create bespoke handmade dog and cat urns. You can upload your favourite photo for the ceramists to work from, and the results are like a soft focus cartoon. Then there’s Animalia Ceramic who create a realistic lifelike replica of your pet in clay from your photos. There’s also pots that simply have your cat or dog’s name on them, some very sweet options are available from Amanita Pottery.

Teddy Bear urns

But urns don’t have to be made out of pot. A teddy bear urn has a hidden velcro compartment so you can secretly store a pouch of ashes inside its tummy. The memorial dog teddy from EverWith is ever-so-perfect to cuddle up with.

Scatter their ashes

One of the most heartfelt, and more popular ways to honour lost loved ones – both human and animal. Scarlett took her pug Rocky on his last ‘walk’, sprinkling him in the places he liked to pee and sniff. “Our local park and a few little streets and flower beds,” she tells me. “The leftover ashes are in my mother-in-law’s house where he used to spend a lot of time wrapped in his favourite blanket.” 

You could also take them on a last epic journey as you can carry pet ashes in your luggage on a flight. Legally in the UK and US you can scatter pet ashes in your garden as long as you own it, but you should always seek permission if you want to do it on someone else’s land. You can also immerse the ashes into water, but check in with the relevant local authority in other public spaces. Also make sure it’s just ash and not other items that could affect the natural environment – a scattering tube can help with this, they’re specifically designed to make the process less messy, especially in the wind.

A piece of jewellery

Seek out your own piece of unique keepsake jewellery to put some sprinkles inside – maybe a vintage locket discovered in a market or a piece of jewellery already in your collection. Lockets are ideal for this and so are ‘poison’ rings that open up to reveal a tiny hidden compartment. Loft & Daughter have a secret T-bar amulet necklace that looks like an antique. The charm on this necklace is a tiny vessel, worn close to your heart, that can carry ashes, fur or a strand of hair. 

If you’d rather the ashes become part of the jewellery itself, EverWith creates pendants, rings, bracelets, lockets, cufflinks and earrings in a range of styles. A tiny amount of your pet’s ashes is mixed in with coloured resin, which, when finished, has the appearance of a glossy stone with the ashes suspended inside like ‘floating flakes’.

Get them cut into a real diamond

You can send around two thirds of a cup of your pet’s ashes to a company like Heart In Diamond, where the carbon from their ashes – which can also be mixed with some of their fur – is grown in a special lab and turned into a real diamond. A sparkling gem that can be cut and polished to your exact preference. Orange, red, yellow, blue, you could choose a colour that matches your pet’s eyes, or their collar, favourite toy or blanket. 

Make a record out of them

If the memory of your pet’s snoring or barking brings you joy, consider a memorial vinyl record from And Vinyly. They take a teaspoon of your pet’s ashes and turn them into a vinyl record that can include up to 12 minutes of sound or music on one side of a 12-inch record. “We use clear vinyl so you can see the ashes,” says the company’s founder, Jason Leach. “We can take the sound from a video, too.” You can also customise the centre label with your dog’s paw print, for example, and the album sleeve could be a photo of them.

Plant them so they morph into something else

Turn your pet’s ashes into a living tribute by planting them with a tree, plant or flower. Bio urns such as those from Living Urn help to ensure that the ashes nourish new life. 

If you move around a lot  – or live in a flat without a garden – a house plant you can take with you wherever you go can work much better. When Sarah’s first dog Charlie passed, she put him in a glass vase with some succulents and cacti. “He lived on my side table,” she tells me. “He was underneath the soil, which actually looked lovely as there was a grey layer of him, the dirt and then the plants.”

Get a tattoo with their ashes mixed into the ink

Tattoo artist Alice Nicholls, who owns The Fine Art of Tattoo studio in Colchester, only needs a small amount of your pet’s ashes to take tiniest grains and mix them into the tattoo ink. “It can be a turning point in the grieving process,” she tells me, “your pet becoming part of you forever.” The design is up to you, but Alice’s customers mostly get paw prints, portraits or names. 

However, tattooing with ashes isn’t something every tattooist will do. If you’ve got your eye on an artist, simply get in touch and ask the question. Alice also says you can get specialist pigment made from the ashes, if a tattooist doesn’t feel comfortable mixing the ashes into their own ink. Companies such as Cremation Ink, for example, create professional grade tattoo ink infused with the ashes of humans or pets.

Ashes to stone

A company called Parting Stone (which currency only operates in the US and Canada, but has plans to expand to the UK) take the remains of your pet, refine them, turn them into clay and craft them into a collection of stones. For dogs, that’s around 5–40 stones, and for cats, around 2–10, depending on their size. The most magical part of the process is that you don't know what exactly affects the colour of solidified remains, but Parting Stone do not do anything to colour them – it's all natural. “The colouring is completely unique to the individual, and we see varying colours in both human and pet remains,” they explain.

Ashes to glass

Glass artists, such as Stuart Wiltshire craft sculptures, ornaments or keepsakes with ashes suspended in molten glass. Once the molten glass reaches 1120c, the artisan adds your chosen colour, mixes in one tablespoon of cremation ashes, shaping and forming patterns, so no two pieces are the same. 

A keepsake to put in your pocket

If you prefer something small and portable, to keep with you at all times, SSC Keepsakes make endless options with ashes worked into resin, from teeny models to keyrings. There’s also Seahorse Glass on Etsy who will turn ashes into a collection of little glass pebbles that match the colour of your pet’s fur. 

Turn them into art using your own hands

If you want to feel closer to the ashes, you could work them into paint and create a piece of art, or mix your pet’s ashes in with clay to create ceramics. If crafting isn’t your forte, artists like Zann specialise in pet portraits with ash mixed in, or get in touch with your local studio to see if they can help you with this. 

Clay artist Suzy Solley says that bone ash can be used to make a glaze or ash can be made into the vessel itself by mixing it in with the clay. “But if you’re a beginner, you might need a few classes to make something you’d like enough,” she says, although she notes that the clay can be recycled and reused. 

Grieving your pet is deeply personal, and so is honouring their memory. Whether you choose one of these ideas or a combination, the goal is to create something that feels right for you—and keeps your pet close in spirit.

If you’re struggling with your mental health due to grief, please speak to your GP or visit Mind for support. The Blue Cross also offers free support for those going through pet bereavement.