Understand pet cremation costs. Find trusted providers.

If they are still at home with you

The one thing to decide tonight is where they rest until morning. That is all.

• Lay them on a towel or a blanket in the coolest room you have: a laundry room, a garage, a tiled floor. Not the car.
• If you can, settle them on their side with the legs gently tucked, the way they slept. Do this soon rather than later. Within a few hours the body stiffens, and it becomes harder to move them with care.
• A little fluid can release. One towel underneath and one folded over is enough. This is normal, and it is not a sign that anything was done wrong.
• In a cool room they can stay overnight and through tomorrow. If it is warm where you are, wrap them in the blanket and then a large bag, and use the coolest space you have.
• Collar on or collar off. Either is fine. Many people take it off tonight and are glad later that they did.

If they died at the vet's

Then the where is already handled, and there is nothing you have to do tonight. The clinic will keep them safely until you have chosen what happens next. You can call in the morning. Card 4 covers what you can still ask the clinic for: time with them, a paw print, the collar back.

What you do not have to do tonight

• Choose a crematory. Tomorrow is fine. Almost every crematory collects within a day, and the person who answers the phone has heard every version of this call. Card 3 has the eight questions to ask.
• Decide private or communal. Card 2, when you are ready.
• Tell everyone. Tell the people in the house. Everyone else can wait until tomorrow, or next week.
• Move anything. The bowl, the bed, the leash by the door: leave them exactly where they are. Card 7 is for when you want it, and there is no deadline.