Planning a memorial service for a pet (whether your own or someone you know) is different than planning a memorial service for a human. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't put as much time and effort into it, though. In fact, when it comes to pets, it's sometimes harder to get a pet memorial service "just right" - not overboard, but something people will remember with a warm glow in their hearts.

The first thing to do if you find yourself planning a pet memorial service - whether at a pet cemetery, a pet crematorium, or in someone's home - is learn as much as you can about the pet in question. From looking at pictures or video of the pet, to talking to the pet's owners about the animal's personality, anything you can do to learn about the pet will go a long way in making sure the pet memorial service is the best it can be.

Once you have all the information you can tastefully gather about the pet, it's time to move on to the pet's owner or owners. You probably know a little about them (or maybe a lot), but try to find out how their pet fit into their life. The more information you have at this stage, the easier your job is going to be as you progress.

By now you should have a lot of notes and ideas about the pet memorial. This is good. Take time to write down ideas quickly - brainstorm. Once you have ideas down for the memorial service for the pet, begin to match that list to what you know about both the pet and the pet's owner. Use common sense to make sure nothing you plan would be something that won't cause a disruption.

After that step, you can begin to put together all the details. Make sure to pay attention to times and dates for the memorial. You'll want to make sure you have it at a time and in a place that all the people who were important to the pet will be able to show up. Sometimes this list of people isn't very large, but you want to make sure that everyone who wants to be at the pet memorial will be able to be there.

Once you have the plan complete, you may want to run it by friends and family - especially if they have pets themselves. By getting input from others, you can make sure your gut instinct was right when you made decisions in the previous steps of planning a pet memorial.