Planning a goodbye for your pet in New Hope
About 7,650 New Hope households share their home with a dog or cat, by our estimate. When the time comes, a small farewell helps. This page covers where to hold it, what it costs and who to call.
- Small, personal goodbyes that fit your family
- Questions to ask any provider or cemetery
- No pressure, no packages you don't need
New Hope, Minnesota
Choosing where the farewell happens in New Hope
Some households hold off on any memorial until the ashes have returned and people have a free weekend. A shared meal, a candle lit at sunset on the balcony, or a slideshow of phone photos is enough. Some pick a date that mattered, like the day the animal came home from the shelter. Timing is yours to set, and a later goodbye still counts.
In a suburb where apartment neighbors change every year, grieving an animal can feel solitary. Twin Cities therapists see people after animal loss, and national pet-bereavement lines answer late into the evening. Online groups can help at 2 a.m. when the apartment feels too quiet. Mentioning the loss briefly at school or work usually earns more patience than you might expect.
Working dogs, barn cats and old ponies are part of family life around New Hope, and their farewells often happen where they worked: by the barn, at the edge of the field or on the porch step. A few words from whoever worked alongside them and a quiet minute with the other animals nearby honours the job they did.
New Hope's population is around 20,807, the 60th-largest of the 67 Minnesota communities we cover. Minneapolis, roughly 7 miles off, is the closest larger centre, and a share of the providers who cover New Hope run from there.
Our pages for Crystal (1 miles), Golden Valley (3 miles) and Plymouth (4 miles, a larger centre) describe the same choices from those towns' point of view, and the providers overlap, so a quote from one often covers New Hope as well.
Our estimate
7,650
New Hope: dog- or cat-owning households, our estimate
How we calculated this
20,807 ÷ 2.5 = 8,323 households; × 53% (dog) + 39% (cat) = 7,650. A household with several pets counts once.
Our estimate
640
dog and cat deaths per year in New Hope, our estimate
How we calculated this
7,650 dog/cat-owning homes ÷ average lifespan (dog: 12.69 yrs + cat: 11.18 yrs) ≈ 640 a year. The real figure is unlikely to be lower.
53%[1]
53% of US households own a dog, which is about 71 million households.
12.69 years[2]
US dogs have an average life expectancy at birth of 12.69 years.
39%[3]
39% of US households own a cat, which is about 53 million households.
11.18 years[4]
US cats seen at Banfield hospitals have an average life expectancy at birth of 11.18 years.
To check the figures yourself, see American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry and Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Funeral traditions in Minnesota and your pet
Some pet cemeteries also run a crematory, which suits Minnesota, with cremation at roughly 68.5%[5] and burial still common. If there's one near you, you can see a grave site and ask about cremation in the same visit, then decide with both options in front of you rather than on the phone.
The Minnesota percentage above is from NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage) (2024) and refers to human funerals. Treat it as context for New Hope, not as a count of pets.
New Hope weather and your pet's farewell
New Hope winters are cold, with average lows at or below freezing in January, February, March, November and December. Frozen ground can make a garden burial impossible for weeks, which is one reason many local families choose cremation in winter and hold a graveside ceremony for the ashes in spring. It gives the farewell a second moment everyone can plan for.
Snow and ice across January, February, March, November and December can delay collection and make roads unsafe for relatives driving in. If your pet is old or very ill and a winter storm is forecast, it's reasonable to ask your vet now how a home goodbye and collection would work in bad weather, rather than on the night.
Where the money goes in a New Hope pet funeral
Ask every provider in New Hope to split the quote in two: body care (collection, cremation or burial, the container) and the farewell (viewing time, witnessed cremation, a graveside service). Seeing the two numbers apart makes it easy to drop what you don't need. The national figures below show what's typical.
The Minnesota price table breaks costs down by product; our services page explains what sits behind each line.
Free tool
Memorial budget planner
Add up cremation, urn, keepsakes and a farewell so the total holds no surprises.
Local rules worth checking in Minnesota
A farewell itself needs no permission anywhere: you can gather, speak and say goodbye at home as you wish. The rules start when the body or the ashes go into the ground or the open air. Here's what applies in Minnesota for burying at home and scattering ashes.
Not sure which office covers New Hope? The Minnesota local government directory is the official list.
For Minnesota's rules on burying a pet at home or scattering ashes, see the Minnesota guide. Local rules in New Hope can be stricter than the state's, especially in homeowners' associations and rentals.
What to do first, and what can wait
- Decide who needs to be there. Pulling a few close people together within a day is manageable; the wider group can be invited to something later.
- Pick the place: home, garden, a favorite walk, a crematory farewell room or a cemetery.
- Check anything that needs permission, such as scattering in a park or burying on land you don't own.
- Plan a loose running order: gather, open, share memories, a reading or song, a ritual, the farewell.
- Arrange the handover or the burial to follow the ceremony immediately, rather than leaving people standing about.
- Look after yourself afterwards. Have a meal, accept offered help, and leave the lead hanging until you feel like moving it.
The weeks and months after the goodbye
In a New Hope apartment, saying goodbye can mean nothing more than friends sitting on the floor beside your pet's bed with the lamps turned low. Many metro vets offer in-home euthanasia, which keeps an anxious animal off the road entirely. For kids, a few honest sentences about what is happening, plus something to hold, like the collar, helps far more than silence.
Our services overview lays out every option side by side, use the free tools before you ring anyone, or see what other families chose in the poll results, read our guides and latest articles. More local pages: Brooklyn Park, Bloomington, Minneapolis and Rochester, the Minnesota overview and every city in the United States.
Reader polls
What would you choose?
Vote anonymously and see how other readers answered. The results are live counts from people who visit this site, so they show real opinions, not a scientific sample.
Who would you want at your pet's farewell?
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When would you hold the farewell?
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If you had to decide today, which aftercare would you choose for your pet?
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Free tools to help you plan
Memorial budget planner
Add up cremation, urn, keepsakes and a farewell so the total holds no surprises.
Farewell & memorial service planner
Build a simple goodbye: who, where, readings, rituals and a checklist.
Aftercare options compared
Compare private, communal and water cremation with burial on cost, timing and what comes home.
Questions people ask
How do Minnesota attitudes to cremation compare?
NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage) (2024) puts the Minnesota human cremation rate at about 68.5%[5]. We show it on the New Hope page because pet aftercare choices tend to track it: where cremation is normal for people, communal and private pet cremation are both easy to find.
Will I have to travel to Minneapolis to arrange things?
Not usually. Providers based in Minneapolis (roughly 7 miles from New Hope) collect from here as a matter of routine, and the paperwork is done by email or phone. If you want to be present for a witnessed cremation, that is when the drive matters.
How many pet owners live in New Hope?
By our estimate, about 7,650 households in New Hope have at least one dog or cat, and around 640 are lost each year. We calculate this from the city's population of about 20,807, the average household size and national ownership and lifespan figures, so treat it as a floor rather than an exact count.
When is the hardest time of year to arrange a burial in New Hope?
January, February, March, November and December: average lows are below freezing then, and frozen ground makes a home grave slow or impossible until it thaws. The other pressure point is July, when highs around 82°F mean a body needs cooling and collecting quickly.
Is a pet funeral common in Minnesota?
Small farewells are common almost everywhere, even if people don't call them funerals. For people, about 68.5%[5] of deaths in Minnesota end in cremation, and that shapes pet habits too: where cremation is usual, pet farewells often centre on the ashes; where burial is usual, a graveside moment in the garden feels more natural.
Is it normal to grieve this hard after a pet's funeral?
Yes. In an RSPCA survey of more than 4,000 bereaved owners, 66.9%[7] said they were surprised by how intense their grief was. The farewell often brings the loss home rather than ending it. Be patient with yourself, keep eating and sleeping as best you can, and talk to someone who understands. Our grief check-in can help you notice when it may be time to ask for more support.
Sources and our estimates
- [1] 53% of US households own a dog, which is about 71 million households. American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry, 2025.
- [2] US dogs have an average life expectancy at birth of 12.69 years. Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science - Banfield Pet Hospital life expectancy tables (13.3 million dogs, 2.4 million cats, 2013-2019), 2023.
- [3] 39% of US households own a cat, which is about 53 million households. American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry, 2025.
- [4] US cats seen at Banfield hospitals have an average life expectancy at birth of 11.18 years. Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science - Banfield Pet Hospital life expectancy tables (13.3 million dogs, 2.4 million cats, 2013-2019), 2023.
- [5] The NFDA projected Minnesota's cremation rate at 68.5% for 2024. NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage), 2024.
- [6] Across five posted US pet-cemetery price lists, the median whole-body burial for a small pet, including plot and opening/closing, was about $350. Our estimate: median of [Rainier $150 plot incl. first burial, Cedar Bend $290, Forest $350, Great River $750, Precious Memories $1,500]. How we calculate.
- [7] 66.9% of respondents were surprised by how intense their grief was after losing a pet. RSPCA — Pet Loss Survey Results, 2026.
Plan your pet's farewell with us
Tell us what you need and where you are. We'll reply by email with clear options and prices so you can decide in your own time.