But ending up as a pair of underpants isn't the worse fate for a dog, as Cuddy explains. "It's a booming industry but the problem is pet cemeteries, unlike human ones, don't have to be on consecrated ground. If an owner goes bust or changes business then the land can be used for something else."According to Cuddy, one woman in Derby recently charged punters for pet robes, caskets and burials and then did a runner with the proceeds. When distressed owners went in search of their pets, they found them dumped in plastic bags. Beverley Cuddy, editor of Dogs Today, says that there is a seedier side to the whole business of pet disposal. Once the sorrow that dared not speak its name, pet bereavement is finally out in the open "I think we're all entitled to show grief in a positive way.

If it means burying or cremating a pet then that's no bad thing," says Lee. "Let's face it, if you've looked after something for 15 years, why should that sense of responsibility end when the animal dies?"The danger is that where vulnerable emotions are released, unscrupulous entrepreneurs are sure to follow And make a tidy profit. Laura Lee, a pet loss adviser, believes it's an area of experience that has become more acceptable to talk about. "They tell me they knew the end was coming and it was meant to be," she says. Helen Hartley was deeply comforted when Barbara "conversed" with Amber, her six-year-old golden retriever "I found out how Amber was ill-treated by another owner.

It was quite uncanny, but it was comforting to know she was settled and happy; she told me not to grieve and to get another dog."In the past, owners like Pam, Jean and Helen may have concealed their grief but now they're encouraged to express such feelings. Which is why visitors to Cambridge crematorium can watch their dear departed on a TV screen as they're moved along a conveyor belt towards the cremator. As managing director Ray Hale says: "The important thing for people to know is that what they came with is what they go away with, albeit it in a smaller form." Jean kept Chico 2 and 3, in their smaller form, at home for a year. "They were in the lounge and then I moved them to my bedroom - above my bed. I wanted to be closer to them."Those who wish to get closer still can always contact Barbara Burgess, an animal spiritualist who uses telepathy to communicate with pets on the other side, and then tapes her findings.