Pet cemetery dug up to clear way for Hampton Inn

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Pets' rest disrupted

Sale of land uproots cemetery

RALEIGH -- Five years ago, Candi the wiener dog went to her grave with an elaborate pink marker and warm wishes for the afterlife.

Last week, Blase Kaauamo dug up her plastic casket and set it on the grass. The dachshund's body is just one of 500 buried animals that Kaauamo must transport out of Pet Rest Cemetery.

"I think she was brown," mused the gravedigger, brow sweaty.

After 35 years, the Pet Rest Cemetery in far northwest Raleigh has succumbed to development -- perhaps a Hampton Inn, owner Steve Rogers said.

That means a new home for Yogi, Sniffy and a pig named Arnold.

By mid-November, Kaauamo must disturb the rest of Puddles Eggleston, Capt. Nick Danger Myers and Sir Timothy Flash of Skye.

"At least I'm not having nightmares," he said. "Yet."

When it opened, Pet Rest sat on a grassy hill on a then-bucolic stretch of Glenwood Avenue.

But now the animals rest alongside Brier Creek, with its shopping and country club golf. Rogers' father, Jerry, recently sold his two acres to American Asset Corp. for $750,000, with the understanding that all critters would be moved to a new spot on T.W. Alexander Drive.

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