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by Michelle Green , LONDON, (Reuters) Long mocked for treating their pets better than their children, Britain's animal lovers are extending their extraordinary dedication into the afterlife.

Gone are the days when the family goldfish was given a watery toilet grave or the hamster a resting place amongst the weekly rubbish.

Today, Flipper and Harry can look forward to a hand-carved casket and tear-jerking memorial to send them on their final journey.

"Twenty years ago most dead pets went to the glue factory or ended up in landfill," Howard Jones, general manager of the Cambridge Pet Crematorium, told Reuters. "Now days people like to know their pets have been treated with dignity after death."

With new demand has come a new generation of entrepreneurs and an explosive growth in what can loosely be described as the "pet death industry".

There are pet crematoria, pet coffins and pet sympathy cards.

Support groups and helplines lend grieving pet owners a sympathetic ear, while on the Internet, virtual pet cemeteries commemorate departed companions with poems, anecdotes and photographs.

"Pet cremation and memorials are becoming much more acceptable," Antony Ringer, manager of Peaceful Pets crematorium in Norfolk, eastern England said. "That has sparked a rapid growth in services for bereaved owners."

The number of pet crematoria in Britain has more than doubled over the past 20 years to around 320 today.

Cambridge Pet Crematorium in eastern England is one of the country's oldest at 25 years.

"When we started it was a very, very small business. We carried out perhaps one or two cremations a day, now we carry out several hundred a week," manager Jones said.

As well as cremations, the crematorium sells urns and caskets - including a wooden urn in the shape of a sleeping cat - and provides memorial plots in a seven-acre (2.8-hectare) garden of remembrance, complete with waterfall.

Customers can opt to have their pet cremated individually or with other animals and can even attend a cremation ceremony.

"People like to know where their deceased pets are," Jones said. "It's really no different from losing a relative."

The reasons for the apparently bottomless well of pet devotion in Britain, home to around 11 million animal companions, are economic as well as psychological. Animal indulgences - from diamond studded collars to pet counselling - have been made possible by a decade of prosperity.

Childless career couples and rich singletons spend around 3.5 billion pounds ($5.4 billion) a year on their pets in Britain, according to Mintel, the international research company.

The break up of the traditional family has also brought Britons closer to their pets. "People are more mobile and less in touch with family," Jones said. "Pets have replaced the traditional family unit."

And like the loss of a relative, the death of a treasured pet can be devastating. Jo-Ann Dono, head of the Blue Cross charity's Pet Bereavement Support Service, said a lack of understanding - the age-old phrase "it's only an animal" - was driving pet owners to seek professional help.

"Sadly when a pet dies people often don't understand the owner's grief," she said. "We have found that most people just need someone to listen and understand how they are feeling."

On the whole, Britain's pet death industry has an aura of taste about it but inevitably the tacky and plain weird creep in.

Take the two foot-high (0.6 metre-high), heart-shaped headstone for a goldfish erected in a London pet cemetery or the weekly "Candle Ceremony" held by website petloss.com.

Conducted in 13 languages and lasting 20 minutes, the ceremony invites pet lovers across the globe to "join together in love and spirit" by lighting a candle in memory of their departed friends. There have even been requests from owners wishing to be interred with their pets.

"A number of our customers have asked to have their ashes interred with their pets," Jones said. "It's something we do.

"It's understandable. They're companions, they don't want to leave them."

But the award for true extravagance must still go to America's pet crematoria, where caskets are to be found that make the Cambridge Pet Crematorium's wooden cat urn look positively neglectful.

For 17,000 pounds ($27,000) grieving owners can purchase a solid maple and black walnut casket, lined with aromatic cedar and guaranteed to remain intact for 100 years - even underground.

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