When You Can’t Say Goodbye to Your Beloved Pets, Stuff ‘Em

Feb 27

Feb 27 When You Can’t Say Goodbye to Your Beloved Pets, Stuff ‘Em

When beloved cat Krusty Noodles concluded his earthly existence, owner Kate Swan just couldn’t let go. To keep Krusty’s memory alive, Swan enlisted the services of Beth Beverly, a Pennsylvania taxidermist, who stuffed the dead cat – along with an equally dead mouse in his maw – and mounted it for the wall.

“It’s the centerpiece over my table. It really is the showpiece of my home,” Swan tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I know that’s insane, but it’s like, ‘Ah, Krusty, what a champ.’”

Beverly, 46, is an artist by training who got into taxidermy for aesthetic rather than pet-preservation purposes, but she found there is enough of a demand for her services to sustain her shop, Diamond Tooth Taxidermy. Pet preservation is now the bulk of Beverly’s workload. “I love that people trust me,” says Beverly. “It’s a great honor.”

The artist has stuffed cats, dogs, rats, birds, and other creatures whose human companions could not bear life without them. Professional magician Lindsey Noel brought Beverly his dead rabbit (“He was always a fancy little man,” he told the artist). Today a cold, stiff Herman sports a top hat,carries a cane and sits atop Noel’s piano.

“If I can provide them with a tangible token to move through their grief, that’s what I want to do,” says Beverly.

We are reluctant to say what we really think about this strange craft (that it’s creepy and unhealthy), because that kind of criticism seems to be the first step toward embracing it. Kate Swan, for example, thought the idea was “disgusting,” at first. “I don’t want the cat carcass. It’s a parade of death.”

Over time, however, a wall-mounted Krusty Noodles, forever with a tasty mouse in his jaws, has become a conversation piece and a happy reminder of his life well lived.

“It’s such a comfort,” Swan says. “I love my taxidermy cat.”