DYING WOMAN: Bury the Dog With Me.
DOG: No Thanks, But Have a Nice Trip, Lady.

Monday, June 11, 2001 - USA

MASSACHUSETTS — With all due respect and of course with sincere condolences to the deceased woman's family, The Scoop has to wonder if anyone happened to remind her that the Pharaoh's burial customs died out a few thousand years B.C.

Aside from that, this seems to be just a case of dog-loves-woman, woman-loves-dog, woman-dies-and-requests-the-dog-be-put-to-sleep-in-order-to-join-her-on-the-other-side, sans mortal coils.

An anonymous Massachusetts woman's story was published in the New York Times yesterday, describing how an elderly, ailing woman made her son promise that after her death, he would have her 5-year-old-dog put to sleep and cremated with her.

The son apparently promised, but only as a comfort to the dying woman; he apparently has no plans to wax the pup. 

New York Times opinion columnist Randy Cohen points out:

"Even if [the] desire to walk her dog in the afterlife were formally expressed in a will, it is not certain that the courts would uphold it. While judges tend to allow most instructions left by the deceased, assuming they describe legal acts, they may invalidate a will on public policy grounds, which could include a reluctance to put animals to death arbitrarily."

As mini-mystic Tangina advises in Poltergeist,
"DO NOT GO INTO THE LIGHT."

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