Getting your pet's paw print in New Brighton
By our estimate, about 8,150 households in New Brighton share their home with a dog or cat. Every one of those paws can be pressed into clay or ink, ideally long before goodbye. Here's how.
- Prints of senior pets while they're well
- Local finishing or mail-order makers
- Honest costs from real price lists
New Brighton, Minnesota
Home, clinic or crematory: paw prints in New Brighton
With townhouses and apartments common in New Brighton, compact memorials usually suit best: a palm-sized urn beside the television, a pendant, or a framed paw impression. Homeowners with yards might also set a stone in the flower bed. There's no hurry to decide, since the temporary box ashes arrive in is sturdy enough to stay put for a long while, even through a move.
Outdoor markers in New Brighton have to withstand frost heave and road-salt spray from busy streets nearby. Granite and cast bronze shrug that off, whereas painted concrete and resin fade, flake and crack. Always seat a stone on packed gravel to keep it upright after each spring thaw. Indoor memorials avoid the issue completely, and they travel easily whenever a job or family change takes you elsewhere.
Farm and country homes around New Brighton often have animals that city guides forget. A horse's hoof print is best taken after the farrier has trimmed and cleaned the foot, pressed into a thick clay slab or painted onto heavy card. Keep the last shoe as well. For chickens, ducks or a pet parrot, very soft clay shows the delicate toes far better than ink.
About 22,159 people live in New Brighton, which makes it the 54th-largest of the 67 Minnesota communities we cover. Minneapolis, roughly 7 miles off, is the closest larger centre, and a share of the providers who cover New Brighton run from there.
If you want to compare providers, look at Columbia Heights (2 miles), Fridley (3 miles) and Shoreview (3 miles). Distance matters because pickup fees and the time until the ashes come back both grow with the drive.
Our estimate
8,150
Estimated dog- or cat-owning households in New Brighton
How we calculated this
22,159 ÷ 2.5 = 8,864 households; × 53% (dog) + 39% (cat) = 8,150. Multi-pet homes count once.
Our estimate
680
dog and cat deaths per year in New Brighton, our estimate
How we calculated this
8,150 dog/cat-owning homes ÷ average lifespan (dog: 12.69 yrs + cat: 11.18 yrs) ≈ 680 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.
None of the figures on this this page are ours alone: they rest on American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2025 State of the Industry and Montoya et al. 2023, Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Burial, cremation and paw prints in Minnesota
About 68.5%[5] of people in Minnesota are cremated, so cremation and burial are both common. Pet owners are split the same way: some bury at home or in a pet cemetery, others choose cremation. Either way, a print should be taken first. With a burial you usually have more time and can do it yourself; with cremation, ask the vet or crematory when you book.
The Minnesota percentage above is from NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage) (2024) and refers to human funerals. Treat it as context for New Brighton, not as a count of pets.
Heat, humidity, cold and drying times
Indoor heating in January, February, March, November and December makes the air in New Brighton homes very dry, which is its own problem for clay. A print left near a radiator, wood stove or forced-air vent can shrink unevenly and split along the thin toe edges. Dry it in a cooler room, away from heat sources, and lay a slightly damp cloth loosely over it for the first day to slow things down.
With 5 months of freezing average lows, New Brighton winters are hard on posted parcels too. If you're sending a clay print away to be cast in metal or scanned for jewelry, wrap it well, avoid shipping over a weekend and send a photo or scan first where the maker accepts one. Then the original never has to leave your warm house at all.
Where the money goes: the print, then the finishing
If you'd like the print framed with a lock of fur, one Northeast crematory network charges $133 for that combination and $23 for a fur clipping on its own[6]. Some water cremation providers bundle a print in too: an Arizona aquamation service includes an ink paw print in individual packages from $75 to $349[7]. In New Brighton, it's worth asking every provider what comes with the package before adding extras.
We keep the detailed Minnesota price table on one page so it stays current: see Minnesota prices.
Free tool
Memorial budget planner
Add up cremation, urn, keepsakes and a farewell so the total holds no surprises.
What Minnesota allows after your pet dies
There are no rules about taking a paw print; it's yours to do at home, at the clinic or at the crematory. Where Minnesota does have rules is what happens next: whether your pet can be buried at home and where ashes can be scattered. Those choices can affect your print too, for example if you want it set into a garden stone or a grave marker.
Not sure which office covers New Brighton? The Minnesota local government directory is the official list.
The Minnesota page sets out who oversees pet cremation and what the state says about burial and scattering. New Brighton's own bylaws can sit on top of that, so ask before you dig.
In order: the print, the aftercare, the keepsake
- For a horse, book the farrier to trim and clean the hoof first. Pick out the sole and dry it well.
- Press the hoof into a thick slab of clay laid on a board, or paint the sole with non-toxic paint and press it onto heavy card. Have someone hold the foot steady.
- Keep the last shoe and a length of tail or mane hair, since plenty of owners later have the hair plaited or cast in resin.
- For a bird or a very small pet, use very soft clay or inkless paper and the lightest pressure. Tiny toes show best in clay.
- For a fluffy cat or rabbit, an inkless kit avoids ink on fur they'll groom later, and clay shows the long shape of a rabbit's foot.
- Dry and store every print indoors, then take a photo so any maker can use the picture, not the original.
Remembering your pet through their print
Some families here plant a small tree over a share of the ashes once spring softens the soil, and keep the remainder inside. Others divide ashes among relatives living in different states, mailing a portion in a sealed container to a sister in Arizona or a son in Chicago. Mention it early if you'd like extra keepsake containers or a paw print, since both are simplest to arrange before the cremation itself takes place.
or see how other readers answered in our polls, use the free tools before you ring anyone, browse in-depth guides or recent articles, For a plain comparison of the choices, open services. More local pages: Rochester, Bloomington, Saint Paul and Duluth, the Minnesota overview and every city in the United States.
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.
Whose print are you thinking about?
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Where would your pet's print live?
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If you had to decide today, which aftercare would you choose for your pet?
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Free tools to help you plan
Memorial budget planner
Add up cremation, urn, keepsakes and a farewell so the total holds no surprises.
Paw print keepsake chooser
Match a print method to your pet's size, fur and the keepsake you want to keep.
Jewelry ash capacity guide
How much ash fits in pendants, rings and glass, and how many pieces one pet can fill.
Questions people ask
Where are the providers that serve New Brighton 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 Brighton and whether the drive is priced into the total, so ask both up front.
Does the New Brighton climate change what I should do first?
Only the timing. In July, with highs near 81°F, cool the body and book collection the same day. In January, February, March, November and December, when lows sit below freezing, a home burial may have to wait for a thaw, so cremation with ashes returned keeps your options open.
Is New Brighton big enough to have several pet aftercare providers?
Probably, on the numbers. By our estimate about 8,150 New Brighton households keep a dog or cat and around 680 lose one each year, which is enough steady demand to support more than one provider. We derive that from population (about 22,159), household size and national ownership and lifespan figures.
Is cremation common in Minnesota?
For people, yes: about 68.5%[5] of Minnesota deaths end in cremation, according to NFDA 2024 Cremation & Burial Report state projections (via Occasional Sage) (2024). Nobody publishes the same figure for pets, but in our experience pet choices in New Brighton follow the human pattern closely, so cremation is the default most families here start from.
How many households in New Brighton have a dog or cat?
By our estimate, about 8,150 households in New Brighton have a dog or a cat, and around 680 dogs and cats are lost there each year. We calculate this from the city's population, average household size and national pet ownership and lifespan figures. The method is shown on this page.
Why take a paw print in New Brighton if I already have plenty of photos?
Photos show what your pet looked like; a print records something you touched every day, at actual size. We estimate New Brighton has around 8,150 dog- or cat-owning homes and loses about 680 of those pets a year. Most of those owners have hundreds of photos. The difference is that photos can be found later, while a print only exists if someone makes it before the body is cremated or buried, which is why it's worth doing first.
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] Final Gift charges $49 for ink paw prints, $76 for a clay or silver-clay paw print, $111 framed, and $133 framed with a fur clipping; a fur clipping alone costs $23. Final Gift Pet Memorial Center – Memorial Products, 2026.
- [7] A Greener Place in Mesa, Arizona, charges $75–$349 for individual pet aquamation by weight, including an urn, nameplate and ink paw print. A Greener Place Pet Aquamation – Pricing, 2026.
- [8] Around 765,000 U.S. families a year are likely open to a personalized pet keepsake. Our estimate: 1.5M pet cremations x 51% interest in personalized memorials. How we calculate.
Get paw print options in New Brighton
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