Cremation mix-up; pet owner gets wrong ashes

The passing of a be-loved pet can be a trying time and for one Valley family it was made worse when the vet misplaced their dog, and gave them the wrong ashes.

Styre was a rescue dog.

By the time she turned 11, her seizures were too much for her body to handle.

Fighting back tears, her owner Karen Siebeck, told us how she had to put her down.

Siebeck asked her vet for a private cremation so she could keep the ashes, but that didn't happen.

When she received Styre's ashes, the box they came in was clearly marked with her name and the date, but the baggie inside had another dog's name on it.

“They took a random dog's ashes that they had and put it in her box,” Siebeck said.

She immediately called her vet and told them the problem.

Turns out the vet messed up and sent her dog to a mass cremation.

There was no way to find Styre's ashes.

“If they would have just put it in a different baggie, I would have never known,” Siebeck said.

If your pet dies, what do you do? We asked the several experts.

-You can buy a burial plot. We found only one pet cemetery in the Valley and that's in Sun City; the next closest is Tucson. The price starts at $1,550.

-For a lot less money, you can cremate your pet with either a private or mass cremation. Private is only about $115.

By law pet remains are considered refuse and are required to go to the landfill. If that happens, your vet will make you sign off on it.

Siebeck's vet apologized and refunded her money.

They told the ABC15 Investigators that it was a clerical mistake.

“That leaves me with nothing,” Siebeck said as tears began to fall. “It is just really upsetting that this happened because she deserved more than that.”

If you do have a problem, you can complain to the state's Veterinary Medial Examining Board .

And to answer many questions, you can find a great deal of information on the Companion Animal Association of Arizona .