Chris Packham wants his ashes scattered with the remains of his late poodles.
Chris Packham
The 'Springwatch' presenter would like to be cremated when he dies and he'd find it fitting to have his ashes mixed with those of his dogs Itchy and Scratchy - who passed away in 2016 and 2019 respectively - after they helped him through struggles with depression.
He told the Radio Times magazine: "Itchy and Scratchy were there in my darkest moments – if they hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be here to write this.
“When I die, I’ll be cremated and my ashes will be mixed with Itchy and Scratchy, and scattered by a particular tree.
"My ashes will become part of the soil. I’ll become part of the fabric of my dogs, and of the woods that we loved so much.”
Chris explained he wants the ashes to be scattered underneath a tree in the New Forest.
He added: "[I like] the idea of our carbon molecules being mixed together, growing into a tree that gets eaten by a caterpillar that, in turn, is eaten by a blue tit, which is eaten by a sparrowhawk."
The 60-year-old star - whose first dog was called Max - got poodle Fish as a 40th birthday present in 2001, but he was sadly killed aged just one.
Chris recalled: "He’d been bouncing around the car like poodles do, but then he was gone.
"I fell into a deep and intense depression, into a dark place where everything seemed to fall apart."
After Fish, he had Itchy and Scratchy, and weeks after they died he got miniature poodles Sid and Nancy.
While he didn't initially have a connection to them, something clicked one morning when they jumped onto his bed.
He added: "I bond to them more tightly than I do people.
"Though Sid and Nancy have found a new place in my heart, the hole left by Itchy and Scratchy is still there. It’s quite hard to talk about."