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‘At first it was weird’: pet taxidermist – the last resort for grieving owners – gains acceptance for her work. Sometimes it gets personal
- Mounting roadkill and hunting trophies is one thing. But everyone Allison Doty met in the taxidermy business told her not to take grieving pet owners as clients
- She ignored them, and now has a thriving business in Florida stuffing everything from dogs and cats to snakes – including her own family’s long-deceased cat
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Allison Doty has washed her cat, Cakes, twice. Once, during her life, scrubbing Cakes in the bathtub when she was too dirty to clean herself. The other time was after her death.
Doty stood in front of the sink of her dimly lit kitchen, pale light streaming in from the window as she lathered Dawn dish soap into the white fur. She moved quietly, and quickly.
Cakes had died about a year and a half ago. She had been waiting in Doty’s freezer since then.
“She was a really sweet cat,” Doty said. “My kids have been begging me to mount her.”
I’m usually the last resort. By the time people have found me, they are losing hope
Doty, who bills herself as the US state of Florida’s only professional pet taxidermist, is used to helping others grieve. (A similar service was available in Hong Kong more than a decade ago.) She’s there at all hours when her customers drop off beloved hamsters, Chihuahuas and, once, a 2-metre (6ft) monitor lizard. She cries with them.
She knows it can be controversial, cutting up and stuffing man’s best friend. And she knows she cannot bring animals back to life. But what Doty can do is craft a convincing illusion.
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