Ever wonder where Humphrey Bogart buried his horse? Or where Steven Spielberg laid his beloved cat to rest? Well, look no further then the sprawling Santa Monica mountains, where deep in the hills you’ll come across something straight out of a Stephen King novel— The Calabasas pet cemetery.
The cemetery itself is a pretty calm place, and a very typical looking home for the dead from afar. However, that tranquility gives way to morbid comedy once you realize what's really going on here (Hint: DEAD ANIMALS!). Yep, you've stumbled across the biggest pet cemetery in LA.
You’ve got it all here: stone cats vogueing in statue form atop graves, memorial crypts specifically made for tiny pooches and hilariously epitaphs such as "RIP Rex the German Shepard," and "We love you, Satan the cat" inscribed on adorable little tombstones. In all, it’s basically a place where the pill-addicted rich bid adieu to their beloved pets via expensive cemetery plots, while (probably) writing their children out of the will.
Visiting is fun for the whole family, but things get a little eerie and unsettling when you start to see the mini coffins and animal stained glass mausoleums that dominate the area. That's when you really start to think that human graveyards are "kinda" fun, but maybe this is taking it too far.
Fun Fact: A strange looking William Shatner mannequin serves as the unofficial gate keeper to the cemetery. He apparently has a pet buried here, so it kinda makes sense? right?
HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?
Founded on September 4, 1928, the area is one of the oldest pet cemeteries on the West Coast.
Family operated for the first forty years, the park was eventually donated to the LA Society for the Preventing the Cruelty to Animals (AKA L.A.S.P.C.A., which is still long even in acronym form) in 1973, where it almost met an untimely fate to greedy land developers. As we all know, the hills of Malibu are a goldmine for cash opportunities, so after managing the property for 10 years the LASPCA started to seriously field offers for the property.
Once a potential sale became public knowledge, a crafty bunch of animal lovers established Save Our Pets' History in Eternity (AKA S.O.P.H.I.E., AGAIN long even in acronym form), a non-profit corporation dedicated to keeping the the cemetery alive. The group was so successful with bringing awareness to the cause that they actually lobbied the State legislature to enact the first ever state law to protect pet cemeteries, which keeps the place going strong to this day.
