I don't agree with IRescue, regarding cremation. Sure, there are places that are dishonest and just give you ashes, and not necessarily those of your pet. However, most don't operate that way. We even have a local funeral home (for people) that does pet cremations, and they are above board and squeaky clean, and would never tarnish their top notch reputation in the community by doing something so underhanded.

I once read of a guy who wanted to make sure he was getting back the ashes of his pet from a private cremation, so he put a tiny metal i.d. tag in the pet's mouth, knowing that if he didn't get this back with the ashes, then he wasn't getting his pet back. The ashes came back, and the tag was also there.