Just south of Crissy Fields in San Francisco's Presidio district is a tiny cemetery bound by a white picket fence and dotted with miniature gravestones. The final resting place of the Presidio resident's beloved pets.

The cemetery isn't well documented, and there are various stories describing it's beginnings. While some attest that it has began as a burial plot for "K-9" guard dogs back in World War II, others believe it was a burial ground for nineteenth-century cavalry horses. What the accounts do agree on is that the cemetery dates back at least to the 1950's, when military families inhabited the base.

Whatever the case may be the Presidio's Pet Cemetery is a testament to the love and affection of owners for their pets. Tiny tombstones of wood and stone dot the cemetery with inscriptions of affection dedicated to the dogs, cats, birds, goldfish as well as hamsters and lizards buried beneath. Anyone who has loved a pet cannot help but be touched by the overwhelming sweetness of this place.

Tiny wooden plaques shaped like tombstones are stenciled with such sentiments as: "Skipper, the best damm dog we ever had. 1967" and "Loved, pet Stinky. Not really. By now. Love."

The most recent development in the history of this monument to pet love has come in the form of the massive construction project that was undertook in late 2009 in an attempt to overhaul the seismic nightmare that was much of the causeway area leading up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Community advocates managed to spare the cemetery from complete destruction as the Doyle Drive freeway ramp was torn down and rebuilt. It now exists as somewhat of an oasis amongst the hectic reconstruction efforts taking place all around it. Anyone planning on crossing San Francisco's most famous landmark should take the time to swoop down and check out a place made all the more unusual by its otherwise unseemly proximity to this massive build site.