Ancient Pets Got Proper Burials

Contrast this with the ancient Egyptian practice of dog sacrifice as part of an early afterlife-message system. Dogs (or parts of dogs) were buried with messages from the living to the dead. Plaster/cloth cylinders with a cap roughly shaped like a dog's head had the message slipped inside, a pup was killed and stuffed inside, and the cap quickly spackled in place. An acolyte would run it down to an underground tunnel that had burial rooms cut into the rock every few feet, and toss the capsule onto the heap.

Each temple had a puppy farm nearby for a ready supply. The cages didn't allow the breeding animals to stand. We know this from the scars on the leg bones of the females, who were also used for message sacrifice when they were no longer useful.

There were 8 major temples that did this, many messages a day, for a small fee. For about 500 years. A total of some 200 million dogs killed.

So it wasn't historically all pets and concern for man's best friend.

I buried one of our cats yesterday - spent quite a long time doing it - spending some time placing stones and flowers he liked round his body.

I did find myself wondering if some archaeologist in some distant time would try and work out what I was thinking....

Tangentially related: one of the oddest, most touching, most fascinating documentaries I've seen is Gates of Heaven by Errol Morris [0], a film about pet burial practices. Certainly worth a watch if you find this interesting!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_of_Heaven