Guinea Pig Urns

This collection is intended for the entire household, and especially for the child this was a first pet and a first experience of death for. It is for the parent attempting to navigate that loss alongside them, and for the keeper who kept them in pairs and could tell every one of them apart.

These memorials honor the animals that were members of the family rather than things that lived within the home. Each piece features an engraved guinea pig design, for an animal whose five or six years were not very long and mattered all the same.

They are known for being loud about their needs, creating a specific sound at the rustle of a bag or the opening of the fridge. That particular shriek for a piece of bell pepper is a sound that stays with a family long after the kitchen has gone quiet.

Every one of them had a personality out of all proportion to the size of them. Families often find themselves listing those specific differences and traits many years later.

For many, this is the first animal a child is wholly responsible for, and the first funeral that child ever attends, held in the backyard with the whole family standing together. If there is a survivor left behind, that one goes quiet too, and the household has a second, separate kind of silence to manage.

Each urn is cast aluminum, available in a variety of painted finishes or in a hand-applied enamel finish with hand-detailed silver bands. Every piece includes a threaded screw-top lid and a felt base. To allow for different ways of remembering, the collection includes full-size urns, sharing urns, and keepsake urns. For those who wish to make the piece more personal, we offer the option to have a name and dates engraved directly into the surface in a two-tone style.

These animals communicate through about eleven different noises. These range from the wheek-wheek of excitement or a call to find a friend, to a low purr when they are relaxed and settled. When worked up, they jump from the ground with all four feet at once and often turn ninety degrees in the air, which is called popcorning. Because they are sociable, they should be kept with at least one other of their own kind, as being left alone can cause them to suffer. While a normal life is five or six years, some live longer.

For a family, the design on the urn is the noise the house used to make at feeding time, and the animal that made it.

Source: RSPCA, How to take care of your guinea pigs

If their life was marked by a spirited voice at mealtime and a personality far greater than their small frame, then these designs will recall that presence. Families choose this design because their companion was a member of the household rather than a thing that lived in it, and because five or six years was not very long.

How you remember them is yours to choose. When families look at this design, they see the kitchen at feeding time and picture their companion waiting for a piece of bell pepper.

Our guide to selecting the right size urn