A family business dedicated to fulfilling pet owners’ final wishes gave one of television’s most famous dogs a very special send off.

Dignity Pet Crematorium in Winchfield was the first choice of programme makers in need of an urn for EastEnders’ Wellard, whose character was finally killed off in the popular BBC1 soap last month.

A female member of the soap crew contacted Debbie Palmer, a partner in the crematorium, in June and requested an urn that would best accommodate a “large dog”.

The woman refused to confirm whether the urn was for Wellard, which has been played by three different Belgian Tervuren dogs since first arriving in Albert Square in 1994 — all of which are alive and well.

Mrs Palmer, of Queen’s Road, Fleet, was sworn to secrecy, but her suspicions were raised when she was asked to post the urn to the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood.

She said: “The call came completely out of the blue.

“When the lady asked what the most suitable urn would be for a large dog I asked her whether it was for Wellard.

“She said she couldn’t say anything.

“I posted it the same day and true to my word I kept my mouth shut.

“I was a little sad to think it might be for Wellard at first but then I remembered it is a fictional programme.

“I got a bit excited about it then.”

The mother-of-three man-aged to keep the secret from her three daughters Louise, Emily and Hayley, who are all avid viewers of the drama, and even her brother Kevin Spurgeon, who is also a partner in the business.

She eventually let the cat out of the bag when the urn appeared in an episode aired last month.

Mrs Palmer said: “I don’t watch EastEnders but apparently it was seen on television.

“It was exciting to think I had sent the urn off and touched it.

“My brother asked me why I didn’t say anything but it was never confirmed to me and they asked for discretion.

“I have no idea how they heard about us.

“The only thing I can think of is that they did a search on the internet for pet crematoriums and our name must have come up.

“We have helped celebrities and very high-profile people in the past, but of course I am not at liberty to say who they are.

“We respect everybody’s privacy.

“As a small family business one of the key things for us is that every crematorium is totally individual.

“We don’t do mass cremations and treat everyone’s matters with privacy and respect.”

Dignity Pet Crematorium was recently shortlisted for Cemetery of the Year and is the only pet crematorium in the running for the annual award.

Barry and Carole Spurgeon set it up 16 years ago after watching a television docu-mentary that showed pets being stored in a freezer for up to a week before being collected by a disposal firm for cremation.

The service offers pet owners the opportunity to have their loved ones treated with the same respect as a person.

They can bring their pet in themselves or have the animal collected from their home, laid in a dressed casket and transported to the crema-torium in a hearse.

It offers a garden of remembrance, a natural woodland area where a pet’s ashes can be placed and a farewell room where pet owners can say their final goodbyes.

A range of products — including photograph frames, clocks with a concealed casket behind the frame for pets’ ashes and slates on to which pet owners can have personal messages painted — are available.

Pets’ ashes can also be made into a necklace or diamond, encased in a glass or sent into the sky in a firework.

For more information about Dignity Pet Crematorium please call 01252 844572 or visit www.dignitypetcrem.co. uk.