STAFFORDSVILLE — A Johnson County woman is calling into question the lack of state laws that allowed a dog to be buried 6 feet from her parents' graves in a large cemetery.

The grave of a cocker spaniel named Rocky Fouts is 6 feet from the graves of humans in Highland Memorial Park near Paintsville Lake, Ky. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

        The state attorney general said no state or federal laws prohibit animals from being buried alongside humans in Kentucky cemeteries, a fact that Linda Montgomery said is upsetting her and her family.

        “Do you think they'd have sold the first plot up there if they'd said, "Oh, by the way, there's a chance you'll be buried next to a cow?'” Ms. Montgomery told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

        The dog, a 12-year-old cocker spaniel named Rocky Fouts, was buried beneath a walnut tree on a hilltop in Highland Memorial Park, a 25-acre cemetery containing 13,000 human graves, near Paintsville Lake.

        James A. Preston, one of the cemetery's owners, dismissed Ms. Montgomery's complaint as part of a “vendetta” against the owners.

        There are no plans to move the dog's grave, Mr. Preston said, pointing out that his company's incorporation papers describe its business as the development and sale of burial lots.

        “That's all it says,” he said. “It doesn't say a word about not burying dogs.”

        Mr. Preston said Rocky is the only dog buried outside a designated pet cemetery, which contains 82 small marked graves.

        The dog's bronze grave marker is 6 feet from a joint plaque shared by Ms. Montgomery's mother and father, who died in 1980 and 1995.

        Ms. Montgomery denied having a vendetta. She said she knew the dog because she once asked its owner, Dorothy Fouts of Wittensville, for a job — which she did not get — at a wood-products plant several years ago.

        When she discovered the dog's grave, “I got so upset, I had to leave,” said Ms. Montgomery, 53, of East Point. “Mrs. Fouts was a very nice lady, and the dog was precious. This is nothing personal against her or the dog. But I just don't believe animals should be buried among people in commercial cemeteries.”

        Jason Sauer, a spokesman for Attorney General Ben Chandler, said that in the absence of statutes, Kentucky courts since 1907 have allowed commercial cemetery bylaws to determine their burial rules.
       

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