Calabasas Pet Cemetery Going Digital

Calabasas, California—

The nation’s oldest pet cemetery is tucked up north of the 101 off of Parkway Calabasas.

For years, the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park has been keeping track of the over 40,000 buried pets the old fashioned way, but that’s changing.

“We have been using three Smith-Corona typewriters, yellow pads and pens and 5 x 7 cards in an old card catalog that you see in libraries,” said purchasing agent Margie Sillman. “Some of these cards were handwritten 70 to 80 years ago and are barely legible today. Now we’re eliminating most manual and paper tasks and converting to a computerized system. It’s a historical moment for us.”

Sillman said besides updating and computerizing records for people who have buried their pets in the park, “we can track our current inventory of urns, caskets, head stones, and gifts, identify which are on consignment and which are owned by the park.”

The software, by Mobile BIS, also automatically sends duplicate pet burial records to the Mobile BIS computer database as a backup.

The park was founded and dedicated in 1928 and is open for visitation every day of the year.