Editorial: Pets should have legal protections from being treated like trash

Families don’t always look the same.

Sometimes they are small and nuclear. Sometimes they are blended from remarriage. Sometimes they are extended with grandparents or grandchildren.

And for many people, families include animals.

According to Forbes, 66% of American households include pets. That’s almost 87 million families. Most pets are dogs in about 65 million households. There are 46.5 million homes with cats — and the math tells us there are plenty of people who have both.

For many people, these furry family members are just as important as the ones they married or those who share their DNA. (Maybe more. We won’t judge.)

And that was why the April announcement of charges against Patrick Vereb, 70, was so shocking. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday’s office says Vereb charged clients of his Harrison funeral home for cremations that never happened.

Instead, Vereb is accused of throwing away the animals in landfills like trash. The cremains returned were not the beloved family pets delivered by distraught owners grieving a loss.

For the Jack family of Buffalo Township, the anonymous “ashes” that should be Australian shepherd Blue are now mixed in with the remains of their daughter. Kadyn, 14, died in 2017. Her furry friend followed in 2022. The family thought the two were resting in peace together only to find out that might not be the case.

Vereb’s criminal case is playing out in court. For the families whose pets authorities said were discarded in landfills, that is only half the battle. While Vereb is charged with theft for $660,000 in services he billed but allegedly did not provide, the pet owners say the law is overlooking the greater blow of mistreatment of the bodies of their animals.

“It just makes me sick,” said Tammy Bain, 62, of Oakdale. “Our dogs were our babies.”

She and others want the law to recognize this oversight.

At a gathering outside the Allegheny County Courthouse on Wednesday during Vereb’s arraignment, a petition was being circulated asking for regulatory changes and transparency to protect pets.

It isn’t too much to ask.

The law protects pets from abuse. The law restricts abuse of a human body after death. The law regulates funerary services provided to humans. It is a small leap to offer similar protection, restriction and regulation to pets.

These are animals who were loved in life and mourned in death. The families should have the protection of the law.