Many people have asked the question "When my pet has been put to sleep at the vets, what happens afterwards if I choose for them to be cremated?". The truthful answer is, at most vets, they are likely to be stored on vet premises before their cremation actually takes place. The length of time that a pet is stored on the premises varies from practice to practice, but on average it could be any time between one or two weeks, until the pick up collection van from the contracted crematorium collects them. Contracted crematoriums are usually “mass” crematoriums i.e. those that deal with communal cremations and handle clinical waste. Pets are then transported together in the van to the crematorium along with the clinical waste from the surgery.