I strongly advise anyone in Massachusetts to NOT use Andover Animal Hospital for cremation. My Bubbie just recently passed away. He died at the vet's shortly after his surgery (You may or may not remember my post about this). Well I decided to have him cremated there because they have on site cremation facilitlies. Yesterday I got the cremains back. They gave them to me in a nice little tin. I opened the tin to say good bye to my Bubbie. Opening the tin and seeing the ashes for myself was suposed to help give me some closure as it has in the past. I was very unprepared for what I was about to see. I opened the tin and to my horror there were no ashes. All there is is BONE! Peices, chunks, fragments of BONE! There are bones just under an inch long! Now I know this is not right as I have had animals cremated in the past. This was my first time using this place. I am outraged. I have cried every day since Bubbie passed away on March 25th. This has made my grieving process worse. My mother called the vet's office because I am not able to at this time without crying. They told her that sometimes when they cremate the bodies they have to grind up some remaining bone up after. If this is so then WHY did I get back a bag of bones? This makes no sense. The owner of this place will be in tomorrow and will talk to her then. What I want to know is is it my right to demand them to pay me back for the money paid for the cremation and holding charge and also to ask that they pay to let me choose another facility to do it correctly? They are willing to do it over for free but I just don't trust them. Also I had a rat cremated. If Bubbie's bones were to be cremated it would not amount to the ash that makes up my rat Buddy. So I think something is fishy here because Bubbie was 3 times the size of Buddy if not more. I noticed green stuff mixed in with the bones. Does anyone know if this is just due to an improper temperature and duration used? or am I looking at something foreign here? ~Susie and Brood~ [Posted in FML issue 4483]