The Real Pet Cemetery Nightmare

The problem:

The Humane Society in Wichita recently sold land that held a pet cemetery. The graveyard, which functioned from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, holds about 1,500 animal corpses. With few records on who owned the long-dead pets, the Humane Society isn’t sure what to do with the remains.

Who’s affected:

Aging baby boomers may be getting phone calls about the exhumation of that goldfish won at a carnival 40-some years ago. If your parents gave you a story about Spot going to live on a farm 20 to 40 years ago, and you happened to live around Wichita, you might want to give the Humane Society a call.

The problem with the solution:

It’s not cheap exhuming remains and replanting them in individual graves. The likely options are mass cremations or mass graves. Or, in the creepiest scenario, the Humane Society just might turn over the property sans headstones, with the remains still in the ground. This strikes the Department of Burnt Ends as the option most likely to result in vengeful, poltergeist puppies.

The possible answer:

Wayside Waifs in south Kansas City has offered its pet cemetery on Martha Truman Road. The organization has been running its burial site since 1944. “Pets are family,” says spokeswoman Jenny Brown. “This is all about honoring our pets.”