Japan - What do you do when your beloved four-legged friend passes away? Many pet owners get goosebumps just thinking about it. In Japan, meanwhile, there is a dignified alternative for paying your last respects to dead animals .

As Sumikai reported, the demand for pet funerals in the Land of the Rising Sun is higher than ever before.

Whether dogs or cats - the Japanese don't want to say goodbye just like that. Funeral directors have now recognized the trend and offer special graves.

According to the German-language magazine rund um Japan, a company from the capital Tokyo was a pioneer in discovering the trend shortly after the turn of the millennium and thus a gap in the market.

The mortician operates seven pet cemeteries across the country. Because reservations based on tradition and religion have been diluted over the years, many Japanese even want to be buried together with their four-legged friends in communal graves.

Around 1500 such orders have now been accepted and implemented.

Sumikai quoted one of these Japanese men. According to him, the man simply could not imagine having to leave his dog behind after his death. In future, humans and animals will be laid to rest in a common grave.

In Hyogo Prefecture in the Japanese heartland, a funeral director also offers individually designed gravestones. Here, pet owners can have motifs of their deceased pets engraved on weather-resistant ceramic plates.

Monthly memorial services are included in the service offered by many companies. Children in particular should be taught about the cycle of life and death in this way.

But that's not all. Some morticians even offer to bury dead insects! If you want to take advantage of this service, all you have to do is send beetles and the like in by post.