Kathi Bruggeman of Pet Services has offered cremation services for pets for almost 30 years. She works with veterinary clinics and clients who learn about her through word of mouth. (Photo/Russ Hanson.)

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

If pets are a much-loved part of your family, you have known the joy of your lives together … right up to the darkest hour when you must say goodbye.

Kathi Bruggeman still remembers the first heart-wrenching moment when she and her family had to say goodbye to her first cat, Cougar. “Through the years, pets become so much a part of your family,” she says. “Your kids grow up and leave home for lives of their own, but pets remain with you for their entire lives. They need a lot of care, and give a lot of love. They become a part of our whole being.”

For almost 30 years, Kathi – a former manager of the Animal Health Clinic, whose four-legged family includes two Afghan hounds, a whippet and a horse – has been easing the pain of pets’ deaths and freeing their grieving owners to remember the good times. Her business, Pet Services, operates a pet crematorium to help families during what, for many, is a traumatic and painful time.

Kathi entered the unlikely field of pet burials in 1992, when she and her former husband bred hogs on a farm between Grandin and Hillsboro. “When you have baby pigs, you’re going to lose some,” she explains. “We needed a way to take care of them.”

With the closest animal crematorium in Grand Forks, they acquired a cremator, which she carried on after the marriage ended a few years later. “Almost from the beginning, we found ourselves providing the service for domestic animals as well as livestock,” she says. She moved to Moorhead and, later, south Fargo, where she meets grieving clients and handles the business side in her home. 

The cremations themselves take place on her farmstead near Glyndon, where assistant Al Dykema handles the hands-on side of the process. Her longtime partner Mark Lundquist also works with Pet Services, along with vet tech Annie Rickie (“my right hand”) and great-nephew Dylan Bruggeman, a student in nursing school.

Kathi recognized the need for veterinary cremations firsthand. She has worked in the veterinary field since she was 17, later managing business operations for the Animal Health Clinic until her own business demanded her full-time attention.

“I’ve seen a lot of loss over a lot of years,” she reflects. “Pet owners whose dogs, cats and other pets die or are euthanized haven’t had a lot of options.” Clinics used to depend on city waste disposal. “That was just awful. No one liked it,” she remembers, “… but that’s just what people had to do. Burial is fine if you live on a farm or own land somewhere. It doesn’t work at all when you live in a small home or apartment.”

Pet Services has grown into a busy enterprise without the benefit of marketing. The independent company works with most of the veterinarians in town, and the volume has grown. Meanwhile, word of mouth has brought other grieving clients directly to her doorstep. “ People find out mostly from their friends. They’re so grateful for this alternative,” she says. “This is a dignified, respectful way to say goodbye.” Most collect their pets’ ashes in an urn, many planning to have them buried at their side someday. If not, she scatters them in a peaceful grove on her farmstead.

Kathi understands both sides of the depth of grieving over a beloved pet – from working with clients, of course, but also as an animal lover herself. Over the years, she has bid farewell to six dear dogs of her own and five belonging to a friend, all over the span of just three years.

“I do get emotional when people come in,” she confides. “It’s always heart-wrenching for them … and even after all this time, for me as well. It took me years to learn to deal with the emotion. I don’t cry as much with the owners anymore. I hold back until after they leave.”

The vet clinic for whom she worked always cast a plaster paw print for pets who died, and she has carried on that tradition: “I want their owners to have a remembrance of all the good times. That’s how the animal you have loved will live with you forever.”

For more information on Pet Services, message the company on Facebook or call 701-790-4759.