Thinking about preserving your pet in New Hope?
Roughly 640 dogs and cats die in New Hope each year, by our estimate, and most go to cremation by default. If you'd like to preserve yours, tell your vet today and get them into a freezer within hours.
- What to tell your vet or emergency clinic
- Freezer and power-cut backup plans
- Practitioners chosen by portfolio, not postcode
New Hope, Minnesota
Getting your pet frozen and to a specialist from New Hope
Some households hold off on any memorial until the ashes have returned and people have a free weekend. A shared meal, a candle lit at sunset on the balcony, or a slideshow of phone photos is enough. Some pick a date that mattered, like the day the animal came home from the shelter. Timing is yours to set, and a later goodbye still counts.
In a suburb where apartment neighbors change every year, grieving an animal can feel solitary. Twin Cities therapists see people after animal loss, and national pet-bereavement lines answer late into the evening. Online groups can help at 2 a.m. when the apartment feels too quiet. Mentioning the loss briefly at school or work usually earns more patience than you might expect.
In a town like New Hope, the local vet may never have had a preservation request. Explain simply that you'd like your pet frozen, not refrigerated, and kept out of the cremation collection. If the clinic has no freezer space, most rural homes have a chest freezer somewhere, and a relative's will do for a few days while you choose a practitioner.
New Hope's population is around 20,807, the 60th-largest of the 67 Minnesota communities we cover. Some of the providers who serve New Hope are based about 7 miles away in Minneapolis, the nearest larger centre, so collection times reflect that drive.
New Hope sits within easy reach of Crystal (1 miles), Golden Valley (3 miles) and Plymouth (4 miles, a larger centre). A provider based in any of them will usually collect from New Hope; ask what the mileage adds to the bill.
Our estimate
7,650
New Hope: dog- or cat-owning households, our estimate
How we calculated this
20,807 ÷ 2.5 = 8,323 households; × 53% (dog) + 39% (cat) = 7,650. A household with several pets counts once.
Our estimate
640
dog and cat deaths per year in New Hope, our estimate
How we calculated this
7,650 dog/cat-owning homes ÷ average lifespan (dog: 12.69 yrs + cat: 11.18 yrs) ≈ 640 a year. The real figure is unlikely to be lower.
53%[1]
53% of US households own a dog, which is about 71 million households.
12.69 years[2]
US dogs have an average life expectancy at birth of 12.69 years.
39%[3]
39% of US households own a cat, which is about 53 million households.
11.18 years[4]
US cats seen at Banfield hospitals have an average life expectancy at birth of 11.18 years.
Sources for the statistics above: Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science and American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry.
Local aftercare habits and pet preservation
Cremation stands at about 68.5%[5] in Minnesota, and many families mix traditions across generations. Older relatives may remember pets buried under a tree in the yard; younger ones may think of ashes, or even freeze-drying. It can help to let each person say what they would keep if they could: a paw, a collar, a photo, the whole pet. The answers often overlap more than you'd expect.
Source for the Minnesota number: NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage) (2024). Nobody publishes a pet cremation rate for New Hope, so the human figure is the best local signal available.
Heat, cold and a freezer that mustn't fail in New Hope
In January, February, March, November and December, it's tempting to leave a pet outside in New Hope because it's cold enough. Please don't. Sunlight, wild animals and daytime thaws are all real risks, and a preserved pet needs to have stayed frozen without interruption. If there's no freezer space at home, ask your vet, or a friend with a chest freezer, to hold your pet for a few days.
Winter storms in New Hope can bring ice, fallen lines and days without power. If your pet is waiting in a freezer, keep the lid closed, pile blankets on top and find dry ice or a generator before the second day. A full chest freezer kept shut holds its cold far longer than an upright model, and a garage freezer in January gets some help from the weather.
Budgeting for freeze-drying or taxidermy from New Hope
Large dogs are where prices climb fastest. On one US studio's published list, pets over 20 lb are priced at $2,781 + $69/lb[6]; by our estimate, a 50 lb dog would come to ~$4,851[7] on that list before a base or shipping. Ask several practitioners for a quote by weight, and ask whether a head-and-shoulders piece or a paw would be possible instead.
Prices for New Hope track the wider Minnesota market, so use the Minnesota price table as your baseline and the services page to see what is included.
Free tool
Freeze-dry & taxidermy cost estimator
Estimate cost and waiting time for freeze-drying or taxidermy by size and pose.
Rules worth knowing in Minnesota
Most people never need to think about law when preserving a pet. The exceptions are wild or native animals, pets that died of a notifiable disease, and pets sent across a border, where animal health paperwork may apply. If any of those fit, raise it with your vet and practitioner first. Anything you don't keep follows the ordinary burial and scattering rules.
To find your county or city office in Minnesota, start with the official Minnesota local government directory.
Start with the Minnesota rules, which cover burial, scattering and oversight for the whole state, and treat New Hope's local ordinances as a possible extra layer.
What to do now, and what can wait
- Check how warm the room is first. Turn on the air conditioning or carry your pet to the coolest tiled or concrete floor in the house.
- Use what you have tonight. An emptied kitchen freezer shelf, or bagged ice in a cooler with a towel laid over it, keeps a small pet until morning.
- Leave the coat dry. Blot the mouth and rear with paper towel only; wet fur freezes into clumps that are harder to work with.
- Write down when you found your pet and the time they were put in the cold; a best guess is fine if you aren't sure.
- Phone your vet when they open if your pet won't fit in your freezer, and be clear that a preservation specialist will be taking them.
- Contact practitioners once your pet is frozen solid, telling them what kind of animal, how heavy, and attaching a current photo.
Living with a preserved pet in New Hope
In a New Hope apartment, saying goodbye can mean nothing more than friends sitting on the floor beside your pet's bed with the lamps turned low. Many metro vets offer in-home euthanasia, which keeps an anxious animal off the road entirely. For kids, a few honest sentences about what is happening, plus something to hold, like the collar, helps far more than silence.
For a plain comparison of the choices, open services, try the free planning tools, or see how other readers answered in our polls, there are guides for the big decisions and articles for the details. If you live between New Hope and Bloomington, Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Brooklyn Park, either page applies. Every other community in Minnesota, and all of the United States, is listed too.
Reader polls
What would you choose?
Vote anonymously and see how other readers answered. The results are live counts from people who visit this site, so they show real opinions, not a scientific sample.
If you were preserving your pet, which route would you lean toward?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
If your pet died today, could you freeze them properly within a few hours?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
If you had to decide today, which aftercare would you choose for your pet?
Tap an answer to vote and see how others answered. Anonymous.
Questions people ask
When is the hardest time of year to arrange a burial in New Hope?
January, February, March, November and December: average lows are below freezing then, and frozen ground makes a home grave slow or impossible until it thaws. The other pressure point is July, when highs around 82°F mean a body needs cooling and collecting quickly.
Roughly how many pets die in New Hope each year?
Our estimate is around 640. It comes from New Hope's population (about 20,807), the average household size, the share of homes with a dog or cat (about 7,650 households here) and the average lifespan. It is arithmetic, not a count, so read it as a rough floor.
How do Minnesota attitudes to cremation compare?
NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage) (2024) puts the Minnesota human cremation rate at about 68.5%[5]. We show it on the New Hope page because pet aftercare choices tend to track it: where cremation is normal for people, communal and private pet cremation are both easy to find.
Where are the providers that serve New Hope actually based?
Some are local, and some run from Minneapolis, about 7 miles away. That is normal for a town this size. What matters is the collection time they quote for New Hope and whether the drive is priced into the total, so ask both up front.
The only taxidermist near New Hope does deer. Can they do my cat?
They might, but ask to see cats or dogs they've finished before you agree. Recreating a pet's face is a different skill from mounting game, because you know every detail of how your pet looked. A game taxidermist can still be a big help in the first hours, by freezing your pet properly or pointing you to a pet specialist.
What should I send the practitioner besides my pet?
Photographs, and plenty of them. The face in good daylight from the front and both sides, how your pet's ears and eyes looked when relaxed, their favorite sleeping position and any unusual markings. Mention quirks too, like a tongue that always poked out. Practitioners never met your pet, so these details are what make the finished piece look like them rather than any cat or dog.
Sources and our estimates
- [1] 53% of US households own a dog, which is about 71 million households. American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry, 2025.
- [2] US dogs have an average life expectancy at birth of 12.69 years. Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science - Banfield Pet Hospital life expectancy tables (13.3 million dogs, 2.4 million cats, 2013-2019), 2023.
- [3] 39% of US households own a cat, which is about 53 million households. American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry, 2025.
- [4] US cats seen at Banfield hospitals have an average life expectancy at birth of 11.18 years. Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science - Banfield Pet Hospital life expectancy tables (13.3 million dogs, 2.4 million cats, 2013-2019), 2023.
- [5] The NFDA projected Minnesota's cremation rate at 68.5% for 2024. NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage), 2024.
- [6] An Ohio pet preservation studio prices freeze-drying for pets over 20 lb at $2,781 plus $69 per pound, and 6–19 lb pets at $2,095 plus $49 per pound. Animal Family Pet Preservation – Pricing, 2026.
- [7] On a per-pound-above-threshold reading of its price list, one Ohio studio would charge about $4,851 to freeze-dry a 50 lb dog. Our estimate: $2,781 + $69 × (50 − 20) lb. How we calculate.
- [8] Freeze-drying a cat or small dog costs about 10 times a private cremation. Our estimate: midpoint freeze-dry $1,750 ($1,000–$2,500) / $175 (private cremation 3–24 lb, NC provider). How we calculate.
Ask which practitioners take your pet
Tell us what you need and where you are. We'll reply by email with clear options and prices so you can decide in your own time.