Hello all,
        Thanks to all who responded to my questions about Pet Burials.
Your responses were very helpful, especially the Archive information.  I
was in the process of wading through a very thick (can text files be
thick?) instructional manual on how to use the archive database when
Anita posted with the specific information.  Many thanks Anita.
        The information posted by William Adams earlier on how to access
the database did not work for me.  The request I sent came back with
error messages, and I was reading the aforementioned manual to work these
bugs out so I could try again.  I'm still planning on finishing it
though, and when I figure out what I did wrong, I'll post it as advice
for others to avoid.
 
        So Pet and Livestock Burials eh?  Allow me to describe my
interest.  I've worked on 2 sites where pet burials were found.  The
first yielded a cat and a bull dog.  The bull dog was distinct because it
was recognized by an 80 year old woman who used to live on the site.  It
was her childhood pet, and it hung itself by its own leash on the fence
in front of the house while the family was out.  She was surprised to
find it buried haphazardly under the front porch though (no ceremony
here, it was deeply angled with head deeper than the rest, and back legs
splayed open towards the sky), as she was sure the gardener at the estate
had been instructed to bury it elsewhere.
        At another site here in Ontario, we uncovered a large number of
avian 'burials' in the backyard of a farm house.  The skeletons were
articulated completely, and all elements accounted for.  Later that year,
when I did the faunal analysis, I identified 3 chickens, 2 peafowl and a
turkey.  There were also a number of mammalian species buried including 2
rabbits and various butchered elements of a sheep and pig.
        What I found unique about this site was the fact that animals
were buried that it would be assumed were usually a part of the diet of
the family living there.  Why had they been buried uneaten?
        This has been the inspiration for my research.  It is still in
its infancy, but when completed will be posted here for all to enjoy or
constructively criticize.
        Any ideas?  My first thought is tht the animals were diseased,
but have yet to come across a historic reference in old farming journals
to suggest that this is the case.
 
        By the way, both sites are in southern Ontario, and were 19th
century farmsteads, althought the burials do not necessarily date from
the early periods.
 
        Hey, thanks again for the help,
        Dwayne James
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