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Love Your Pets? Now You Can Be Buried Alongside Them for All Eternity

By Nicole Levy | September 27, 2016 2:16pm
 Who wouldn't want to spend eternity with these cuties?
Who wouldn't want to spend eternity with these cuties?
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Shutterstock/happy monkey

You already go on long walks, eat out at restaurants, and watch Netflix with your dog — and as of this week, you can spend the afterlife together, too. 

New Yorkers can now be buried with their pets at not-for-profit cemeteries, per legislation signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday

There are some conditions: Your beloved non-human friend must be cremated, and you must obtain written consent from the cemetery where you plan to spend eternity together. (The bill's provisions don't apply to cemeteries owned or operated by religious associations or societies.)

The law also requires cemeteries to provide customers a list of pet burial-related services.

The change makes New York one of the few states to officially allow the side-by-side burial of humans and animals. In practice, funeral directors across the country will often permit the urn of a dog or cat's ashes to be tucked into a human casket before it's entombed, Coleen Ellis, co-chairwoman of the Pet Loss Professionals Alliance, told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2013.

Back in 2014, New York passed a law permitting pet cemeteries to bury cremated human remains with a companion animal, following a two-year dispute over the ashes of an NYPD officer whose last wishes were to spend the afterlife with his three Maltese dogs in the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in Westchester. 

"The pet/caregiver relationship is a very special one and I am happy that this relationship will finally be honored," said New York state Assemblyman James F. Brennan, a co-sponsor of the new bill, in a statement Monday.

Since pets will never judge you for eating a whole pint of Haagen-Dazs in one sitting or leaving the toothpaste tube uncapped, the law confirms what we always thought: human companionship is overrated.