KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- In Kansas City’s West Bottoms, Jarrod Hammond’s “aqua cremation” business — where over hours using a machine known as the Pet-550, he dissolves to the bone the bodily remains of beloved family companions that include birds and guinea pigs, dogs, cats, snakes, a bearded dragon, and once a miniature donkey — has run out of room.

That’s how in demand his business, the only one of its kind in the Kansas City area to use a water solution rather than fire to cremate the remains of family pets, has become.

Five years ago, having been let go by Cerner Corp. in a round of layoffs, Hammond — a former philosophy major, married, with three kids — started Heartland Pet Aquamation in a tiny, 1,000-square-foot space at 1414 Wyoming St. It was part of what he called “a weird journey,” peering at YouTube videos on the mortician’s trade to seek a new career, and one with an environmental bent.

Aquamation, also called water cremation or alkali hydrolysis, touts its benefits as using less energy with no emissions or greenhouse gases.

“Green business has always been an interest of mine,” he said. “When I learned about the process, I thought it was really cool, because it was basically a way to remove the carbon footprint from an industry.”

Plus, he said, “I absolutely believe in the value of what I’m doing. I really derive a lot of satisfaction from being able to help families during a time of need.”Aqua cremation in the West Bottoms

Others apparently agree.

Hammond, who not only serves individual clients, but also five veterinary clinics to date, has so outgrown his space that he is soon to move into a 5,000-square foot building at 1700 W. Ninth St. Located in the northern reaches of West Bottoms, it will sit close to the West Bottom Flats apartments and north of the ongoing $527 million SomeraRoad development.

Working by himself, with one part-time assistant, he estimates he’s cremated 4,000 pets for between about $110 to $300 — the lightest, a pigeon, the heaviest, a pig.

The move, for many reasons, could not come sooner.

As Hammond spoke, he stood in his front office, its conference table cluttered and stacked with 125 tiny, cedar boxes filled with the cremated, powdered remains of the bones of people’s family pets, with names like Diva, Buddy, Zoey. In the rear room, eight cats and dogs were being processed in the Pet-550. Eight more lay in the back room’s two freezers.

He said the learning curve has been steep. One unfortunate drawback of his current location is that the parking at Heartland Aquamation currently is at the rear of the building.

“When I signed the lease, I didn’t know there wasn’t any place to park out front,” he said.

The problem: He also didn’t expect so many walk-in customers.

When Hammond set the place up, he thought he’d be working primarily with veterinary clinics, retrieving pets with his van, bringing them back to the business. This was to be a working space: office up front, work area in the back.

Now, on numerous occasions, when customers enter — sometimes grieving their lost pets — they come through the back door, only to be greeted by the workings of the Pet-550, the freezers and a grinding machine known as a cremulator. Once the Pet-550 is done doing its job, the cremulator turns the bones that remain into powder.

Hammond said some customers have definitely “voiced, you know, some dissatisfaction around that.’ Things like, you know, ‘I wish I would have come through the front door.’ Or, ‘You really ought to get a different place.’”

After 174 Google reviews, Heartland has a 4.8-star rating out of 5. The vast majority are positive, noting the kindness and respect the business showed.

“Couldn’t have used a better service,” said one about their dog.

“Extremely sensitive in our time of loss,” said another. “Professional service, excellent product.”

“He is compassionate and understanding,” a third said of Hammond. “He will give you time to say good-bye to your lost loved one. It’s never easy and I’ve never felt rushed. I recommend this place to anyone who is looking for after death pet care.”Heartland Pet Aquamation

Kyle Little expressed more than dissatisfaction. On July 6, Little lost Pancake, a lovebird, a type of parrot that had been a family companion for 20 years. The next Monday evening (Hammond graciously agreed to stay open late for them) he and his mother, who had been caring for Pancake, brought the bird to Heartland at his mother’s suggestion.

“It seemed like a gentler process that was more ecofriendly,” Little said.

When he entered the back door, he said, he came upon two other customers.

“They were weeping,” Little said. “And in front of them, on a baking sheet, was a rib cage of a, like a, medium-sized dog or large cat. So I closed the door. I turned to mymom and said, ‘I just saw remains.’ I was like, ‘Is that normal?’ We just didn’t know.’”

Other aspects disturbed him: Soiled animal beds and blankets piled in disarray. The sight of a dead dog that had yet to be placed in the freezer or cremation machine. The tables stacked with boxes of cremated remains.

He and his mother initially ended up leaving Pancake at Heartland. Little returned home to his partner, Ellen Collingwood.

“When I got home, I started telling Ellen about it,” Little said. “The more I thought about it, the more disturbed I felt. The more I felt like this is just not OK. You shouldn’t feel traumatized from dropping off your pet to be cremated.

“I mean, I understand the nature of the business. And I’m not a prude about death. But I think most people would be disturbed by seeing remains in the way that we saw them.”

That night, Little and Collingwood changed their minds. They called Hammond to say they no longer wanted to go through with the cremation. They agreed to meet the next morning to retrieve their pet’s body. Collingwood said that when they walked in the back door and again came upon skeletal remains.

“I mean they knew we were coming,” Collingwood said. She called the experience “unsettling.”

The couple took Pancake to be buried with some of his favorite toys, crackers and a feather from a previous parrot.

Other negative reviews mention lack of communication, waiting many days or even weeks to receive the pet’s cremated remains. Another customer also railed about business’s entryway.

“When I first walked in, there was a lady with long rubber gloves on standing by the stainless steel tank. . .No big deal, but when I asked about my dog they said oh we think he is still drying — so they opened the bathroom door and started looking through remains on a baker sheet. . .Why is the tank in the main entryway room? Why not put it away from customers . . .or maybe get a bigger place if you are going to allow people to come inside.”Water cremation by any other name

Some customers are interested in the details of how water cremation works. Hammond is always willing to comply.

He explained how pets, first placed in a separate compartment, are lowered into a bath into an alkali solution that is 95% water and a 5% combination of sodium and potassium hydroxide. The top of the Pet-550 (the number equals the amount of weight the system can hold) is closed. The solution is warmed and pressurized. Over 15 to 18 hours, the organic matter that makes up muscle and tissue decomposes, leaving only bones.

As the bath empties, the organic matter is disposed of through the city’s sewer system. The bones that remain are removed and ground into cremated remains. Customers take them home in urns or boxes.

When customers choose not to keep the cremated remains, Hammond gathers the ashes to be taken to a friend’s farm in Kearney, Missouri.

“I would feel wrong throwing them away,” Hammond said. “He scatters them on his pastures.”

Allyssa Kemp and her spouse, Justin, were not at all bothered seeing the equipment. The couple walked into Heartland recently, having just lost their dog Albert, a pit bull, boxer, akita and chow mix that had been in Justin’s life for 16 years, since he was about 20 years old.

The breeds are often thought of as aggressive, but Albert has been gentle.

“Every single person who met him ended up really enjoying him,” Kemp said. “My spouse and I would joke that if something ever happened to us, there would be like a waiting list for Albert.”

But in the end, multiple illnesses took hold and when Albert’s better and healthier days were outweighed by his harder days, Kemp said they decided to put Albert to sleep. He died on July 11.

“Truly, never a sweeter dog,” she said.

That afternoon, they brought Albert over to Heartland. Kemp, a professional vocal musician, who used to work in the veterinary clinic, had become familiar with the process. Its low cost at $300 was appealing as was the environmental aspects and the fact that Heartland was near their home.

And Hammond had been responsive, saying he could be available even on the Fourth of July when Kemp thought Albert might pass. Then she and Justin showed up.

“In a weird way, I sort of like that I got to see the machine,” she said. She knew what to expect from online videos. “That was kind of nice in a way, being able to set him down. You see the freezer. In that field, there’s always a freezer. It didn’t bother me, personally.”

Her husband, she said, liked seeing the machine, too.

“I’m happy, though, that he’s expanding his space,” Kemp said.A growing business

Hammond is glad, too.

Water cremation is expanding nationwide, and not just for pets.

The Cremation Society of North America notes that in 2024, 61.2% of individuals in the United States were cremated upon death compared to 54.8% in 2019. Water cremation, to be sure, is just a tiny fraction of that.

Samantha Sieber, the chief strategic officer for Bio-Response Solutions Inc., of Indiana, which is the main manufacturer of water cremation systems in the United Sates, said human water cremation is currently legal in 28 states and is being conducted in about 100 locations across the country, including Hughes Funeral Alternatives in St. Louis.

“It has been used for people, bodies donated for medical science since 1995,” Sieber said, at a hospital in Florida.

Pet water cremation is legal in every state. Some 450 locations exists.

In Kansas, Liberal Animal Hospital in Liberal and Cottonwood Animal Clinic in Arkansas City offer the service. In Missouri, Chillicothe Animal Hospital, Tranquil Tides Pet Aquamation in Nixa, Aqua Pet Cremations in Joplin, and Heartland offer it.

“I really feel like Jarrod was one of the first,” Sieber said of the systems in Missouri and Kansas. “We’re following a very sharp growth curve.”

Ready to relocate, Hammond has already bought his second Pet-550.

“The new place is going to be a monumental change,” he said. “I have outgrown many things about this.”

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