Where beloved pets get a worthy send-off

Drivers speeding down Colma’s Hillside Boulevard might see Carlos Yuen loading a dead horse into a large crematorium if they happened to look up the Pet’s Rest Cemetery and Crematory driveway at just the right moment, but Yuen works so quickly that most people have no idea what’s happening just a few yards up from the road.

Most of us who’ve been to Colma have passed by the sky blue house nestled between the city’s large human-focused cemeteries that’s home to Pet’s Rest. A 1950s-style unlit neon sign sits on a post above the chain-link fence that protects the adjacent pet cemetery, but even that sign, with its old-school charm, is easy to miss. Still, for the devoted clients who return time and time again to Pet’s Rest, this 72-year-old family business offers a vital service.

Opened in 1947 by Earl and Julia Taylor, Pet’s Rest is now run by their sonin-law, Philip C’de Baca, who lives in the residence above the Pet’s Rest reception area and office. Most days, Teresa Hernandez sits behind the reception desk at the office, which has low ceilings and a massive aquarium. Each day Hernandez greets any number of unannounced clients in the midst of their grief.

“We don’t know what we’re doing from one day to another,” said Hernandez from the desk she’s helmed for 20 years.

During my visit, Hernandez had just handed a tearful woman a wooden box containing a cat’s remains and listened intently as the woman wondered aloud whether her new pet was the reincarnated spirit of the dead one.

“Sometimes it’s really hard to talk to people because they’re grieving,” Hernandez continued. “Some people can’t have kids and these (animals) become their kids.”

There’s a bowl of candy on the counter between Hernandez and me, and the back wall of the office is covered in team photos of the local Little League teams that Pet’s Rest has sponsored over the years. The reception area features a bookcase covered in urns of varying intricacy and expense. The space resembles a motel check-in area; transactions happen pretty quickly, and usually people don’t phone in advance.

Most clients choose to cremate their pets and take them home, Hernandez said. Some buy plots of land in the small cemetery and bury one or more of their pets there, cremated or not — unless it’s a horse. Pet’s Rest doesn’t have room to bury a horse.

Like with human cemeteries, the bereaved can visit during business hours, and many do. They’re free to spend time in a small chapel, which is little more than a dedicated room out back, its walls covered with hundreds of photos of pets who’ve passed.

Nothing about Pet’s Rest is fancy or formal, yet everything about it is somehow handled with the exact amount of grace and love needed to help people through the loss of a beloved animal.

“You can surrender your animal anywhere, but they have a love here,” Hernandez said.

Yuen, who has worked at Pet’s Rest for 18 years, walked me past hundreds of small grave markers. Some were hand-carved pieces of wood. Others were elaborate headstones with laser-cut portraits of the deceased. Many included surnames.

And it’s not just dogs and cats who have found their final resting place along the brisk traffic of Hillside Boulevard. Pet’s Rest is home to remains of birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, snakes, fish and one monkey.

Behind the main Pet’s Rest building sits a garage area that holds three crematoriums for pet-sized animals (one was still warm from a morning cremation) and a very, very large one for horses. Pet’s Rest is one of the few places in the Bay Area that can cremate a horse. Owners of any animal can witness cremation if they want. It all felt surprisingly intense.

Sporting a backward baseball cap and a Bluetooth earpiece, Yuen had just helped the woman who’d picked up her cat’s remains with the burial. I was struck by how emotionally available he and Hernandez needed to be at a moment’s notice. People just show up, oftentimes in tears.

I asked Yuen whether he has pets. He motioned toward the cemetery. The hundreds of animals buried and scattered there are the recipients of his love and care. I got the impression it takes a lot out of him.

“When I get to see people over and over, it gets harder,” said Yuen. “But I love my job, just being of service to other people — and the pets.”

“They’re grieving. ... Some people can’t have kids and these (animals) become their kids.” Teresa Hernandez, Pet’s Rest cemetery in Colma