Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Call for pet caskets keeps firm healthy Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE D;LIFE;WAY OF LIFE \SS (WS) \HD Call for pet caskets keeps firm healthy \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT GLADSTONE, Mich. GLADSTONE, Mich. - Dennis J. Hoegh knew the demand was there, but finding investors for a business that manufactures caskets for dogs, cats and other pets was, well, a little awkward at first. "It was horrible," Mr. Hoegh recalls. "We'd go see the bankers, take a sample of our work. They'd be so embarrassed - like, 'No, you don't have to open it.' " Mr. Hoegh (pronounced HOYG) eventually persuaded some local business people to invest start-up money, and Hoegh Industries Inc. was created in 1970. A year later, he helped establish the International Association of Pet Cemeteries. Today, Hoegh Industries supplies hundreds of caskets, cremation urns, plaques and other memorials each year to pet cemeteries across the country, with occasional orders from Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and Japan. The company expects to produce 30,000 caskets and gross about $750,000 this year. Its product line includes seven sizes and 21 styles of caskets, each constructed of high-impact styrene plastic. The biggest model, with satin interior lining, costs about $200. A cremation urn or tiny casket, though, costs as little as $15. Mr. Hoegh scoffs at those who criticize his business as catering to a trendy indulgence. "Pets are a part of the family for many people," he says. "And when they die, there's a grieving process the owners go through. Some want to do something a little more special. "It's especially good for children. It helps them feel they've taken care of their pet, done all they can." On the practical side, he notes, it's getting more difficult to dispose of animal remains. Many landfills refuse them, he says. Mr. Hoegh, 59, who runs his company with his wife, Jeanne, says he first got the idea for his business in the mid-1960s when he was working for an Iowa food-processing company. A friend who was breeding dogs wanted a casket for a prized animal that had just died but couldn't find one for sale and ended up making his own. Mr. Hoegh figured there must be others in the same predicament. So he started making caskets in his basement and hit the road in search of buyers. "As I would go from farm to farm in Iowa . . . every single one would have a cemetery under a tree for the dog or cat. You'd see the little wooden crosses," he says. Business lagged at first, then picked up after he moved to Michigan and got some investor backing. Carolyn Shea, the executive director of the International Association of Pet Cemeteries, says Mr. Hoegh is "like the daddy of the pet casket industry." "In the 21 years I've been ordering from him, I've never gotten a defective product," says Ms. Shea, who also owns a pet cemetery near Tampa, Fla. She says other companies are trying to break into the niche business, and some manufacturers of caskets for people also make them for animals as a sideline. But Hoegh is probably the nation's biggest company whose main product is the pet casket, she says. Hoegh Industries has 10 employees and contracts with a half-dozen people who sew the coverings, cushions and pillows for the inside. Sample caskets are on display in the factory's showroom. Out back is a model pet cemetery, with rows of small granite markers and plaques with pictures of animals and inscriptions such as "Our Special Girl." There's a columbarium - a wall with niches for cremation urns. Presiding over the scene is a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. School classes and curiosity seekers regularly drop in. They can watch the company's promotional video and listen to Mr. Hoegh's stories about some of his more unusual requests. Take the fellow in Oklahoma who entered a turkey shoot and won a turkey. He kept the bird for 10 years and taught it to walk on a leash. When it died, the owner took it to a pet cemetery, which supplied a Hoegh casket and ordered a grave plaque. Then there's the saga of "Charlie Lindbergh Pheasant," who used to run beside taxiing airplanes at the Jacksonville, Fla., airport as though he were racing them. Charlie became a local celebrity, until he ventured too close to a propeller one day. "The cemetery called us, and we donated a blue casket because he was a boy, you know," Mr. Hoegh says. "They had a huge funeral . . . and because the airport was also a naval air station, they flew the missing-man formation overhead." Skunks, snakes, an ape and other animals have been laid to rest in Hoegh caskets. "Just about anything that's ever been a pet," Mrs. Hoegh says. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM