Are You Really Breaking the Law By Burying Your Pet in Idaho?

It's never an easy thing to deal with - the family pet passing on. I can remember not that long ago when my own family dealt with a grieving loss. As a parent, I remember feeling guilty asking myself: "Where are we going to bury 'Dorothy'?"

R.I.P. Dorothy

As we were moving up to Idaho from Texas back in 2021, my 5-year-old daughter had a beta fish named Dorothy. Once we got settled in at our new home in south Boise, it only took a few weeks for Dorothy, her fish, to pass away. I don't know if it was all of the miles... the sudden change in the climate. Whatever it was - it killed Dorothy and we needed a place to place her corpse.

Burying the pet in Idaho

Before we move on - I have to share that my 5-year-old was completely calm about the entire situation. I don't know if it's the desensitization from Disney movies on Disney+ that seem to scar all of us within the first 10 minutes or if she just doesn't understand the loss of a pet yet, but she was good. She even asked me where we would "bury" Dorothy.

Now, I know it's wrong and probably frowned upon to admit, but I may have broken the law by giving our family fish a "proper burial."

According to Idaho law, you must meet certain parameters if you want to bury your pet in Idaho. I don't want to necessarily incriminate myself but I may have stretched the rules a bit when we buried sweet Dorothy. Let's look at the rules for burying your pet in Idaho...