People no longer ashamed to admit they grieve a pet's death...~Super Princess~

GLADSTONE, Mich. -- "Our biggest seller," explains Jeanne Hoegh, as she enters her pet casket showroom, "is the 24-inch, which will accommodate a schnauzer -- your average house dog."

Along one wall are lace-lined pastel pink and baby blue coffins (the No. 24 V.I.P.C. -- Very Impressive Pet Casket); the lids are propped open and tiny pillows lean against the headwalls. Nearby sits a small, square container -- just right for a parakeet or frog (it looks just like a Big Mac container, and, Hoegh says, people ordering from the company Web site often describe it that way).

"We were getting some complaints that the No. 20 wasn't big enough for some of the small pets who were a little overweight," she says, picking up a shoebox-size No. 20 Deluxe. "So we made this one."

Tucked away in Michigan's Upper Peninsula on the edge of Green Bay is Hoegh (pronounced "Hoig") Industries, the largest pet casket manufacturer in the world. Since 1966, Hoegh Industries has provided stylish caskets for tubby tabbies, cotton-tailed rabbits and pot-bellied pigs, among others. Last year, the company shipped more than 35,000 units, in addition to nearly 6,000 urns, primarily to more than 700 pet cemeteries and other locations in North America. The company also has shipped to England, Japan, Australia and Africa.

"People are no longer ashamed to admit that they are having their pet put in a cemetery, and that they are grieving," says Jeanne, 68, who, with her husband, Dennis, owns the company and designs the coffins. "Everybody used to say, `Oh, it's just a dog. It's just a cat.' People are more sensitive to that now."

The marketplace wasn't always so enlightened.

Dennis got the idea of pet caskets from a friend who had been unable to locate a coffin for a prized racing dog.

"Right there -- BANG! -- I knew what I had to do," he says, "I was never that motivated before. I was a salesman, and I was never really good at that."

So, Dennis started making his own fiberglass models in the basement of his Iowa home, despite the lack of an apparent market and with little support. It was such an odd venture, he says he was too embarrassed to even tell people. "They'd look at you as if you were half-cracked," he says.

His first wife, Barbara, also was skeptical.

"That's why no more Barbara," Dennis says with a chuckle.

After he had completed some prototypes, he loaded his 1962 Dodge with the tiny caskets and a dream. He'd drive to pet cemeteries throughout the United States, hoping to sell America on the idea that dearly departed pets deserved better than a trip to the landfill or a plastic-bag burial.

But the venture was going nowhere, so Dennis designed a hard-shell gun case, which he eventually sold to Upper Peninsula gun accessory maker Marble Arms (now Marble's Outdoors). The deal moved him up to Gladstone to be a Marble Arms consultant, and funded his casketmaking endeavor.

"My father met Dennis when he was going door-to-door selling pet caskets," remembers Bill Remkus, owner of the Hinsdale Animal Cemetery in Willowbrook, Ill., a 77-year-old institution. "[Dennis] was a pioneer in the industry. He took a product there was need for, expanded on it and improved it."

Dennis, now 70, helped found the International Association of Pet Cemeteries in 1971, which started with 50 recognized locations. That number has now grown to more than 650 pet cemeteries across North America, Europe and Australia.In 1976, when Dennis was on a sales trip, he met Jeanne.

"It was a blind date, and we were introduced by a mutual friend who happened to own a pet cemetery," Jeanne remembers. "I was widowed and he was divorced, and he would come down to Ohio to visit her, to sell her the product, but they were good friends. And so she thought it was time I started dating, so she introduced us. So we courted, long-distance, for a year."

No pets of their own

Pet people themselves, they've always had "two or three dogs," cats and birds around. Barks and chirps no longer fill the house, however.

"We just lost our last pet, and it's been over a year now," Jeanne says. "We were very fortunate; they all had long lives. But we spend six months in Arizona, and older pets need more care so right now we don't have a pet."

Remnants of their last Arizona trip are apparent on Dennis' face, from his cherry cheeks to sunburned forehead. After a heart bypass five years ago, Dennis leaves the daily business to Jeanne, although he comes over for coffee every day.

After 37 years building their brand, the Hoeghs operate the most successful pet casket business on the planet. Their headquarters and factory, at the residential end of Delta Avenue in Gladstone, has grown from a single 40-foot-by-60-foot block building to a 22,000-square-foot operation. Gladstone's downtown economy is otherwise speckled with two restaurants, a few bars and two video rental stores -- not the type of place you'd expect to find the largest anything in the world.Over the years, the pet casket competition has come and gone. Monument makers Brown-Wilbert Vaults offered creature coffins for a brief time but then dropped out of the business, and The Pet Casket Shop has sold biodegradable units for the past year. "Basically, we are it. There are companies that come and go every year, because they don't do enough research or can't respond quickly," Jeanne says. "When you need a casket, you need it now -- not six weeks from now."

Hoegh certainly has the infrastructure for the demand. Hoegh's caskets are high-impact styrene casings, available for pets of all sizes and builds -- all except horses, although there have been inquires. Each week, hundreds of plastic sheets are heated up and sucked down into a mold in the vacu-forming process. Three olive-green machines mold up to 30 caskets an hour, after which the sides are shaved to specifications and extra plastic pieces are recycled into the next order. Caskets are then assembled and boxed, able to be shipped out at a moment's notice.Most of the mid-size coffins run $200 to $300 retail, depending on where in the country one lives. Hoegh sells largely to businesses, although it sells individual products to customers who live within 100 miles.

Option for some

"Some people think it's extravagant to spend that much money on a deceased pet. But everybody should have an option. We're here if they want us," Jeanne says. "I don't know why, but people feel guilty when they lose a pet, especially if it was hit by a car, or if it was sick. They go through the same grieving process they do when a person dies. Then they buy a casket, and they use the cemetery services, and they feel so much better."

She continues: "They feel like they've done the last possible thing to pay this pet back for all the love and fun that they've had out of it."After nearly four decades in the pet "death care" industry, however, Dennis Hoegh still doesn't know how to deal with bereft customers.

"When I see them coming, I can't get out of there fast enough," he says.

Jeanne immediately comes to his defense with: "It's not that he doesn't sympathize with them. We're dog people; we love animals. He just doesn't know what to say; he doesn't have the words."

So, Dennis leaves the consoling and salesmanship to his wife and their able, nine-person staff. On occasion, Dennis and Jeanne even have time to conduct tours themselves.

"I say that our caskets, if sealed properly, will resist the intrusion of air and water," Jeanne says, recounting a favorite story. "And I said to one school group, `So in other words, what's in can't get out and what's out can't get in.'"

One little girl on the tour -- lowering her voice to a careful whisper -- asked, "What's going to get out?"

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