Departed Dog Gets a Permanent Place--on the Coffee Table : Freeze-Dried Pets Leave Some Taxidermists Cold
Tasha the freeze-dried Pekingese is perched on a laminated redwood burl coffee table. The dog has been dead two years, but he looks as if he’s only napping. His coat is lustrous. His ears are slightly cocked. His pose is natural.
Tasha’s owner, Karen Nastasuk, has been harassed by friends and maligned by her family for holding onto her dog as a keepsake. But, she said, the dog was always such a comfort to her that she never considered consigning him to a pet cemetery.
“My mother still refuses to step foot in my house as long as I keep Tasha here,” said Nastasuk, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area community of Novato. “She thinks it’s grotesque.”
Nastasuk leaned over, stroked Tasha’s coat and shrugged. “I grew up with the dog. He’s been through two marriages with me. He’s always been there to comfort me. . . . I guess I just couldn’t let go.”
As a result of recent advances in freeze-drying techniques, Nastasuk and other pet owners now have the option of preserving their dead pets. In the past, most taxidermists refused to stuff and mount household pets. The process was expensive and time-consuming, and taxidermists were reluctant to do business with bereaved pet owners.
Traditional taxidermists preserve animals by skinning them and then painstakingly stretching and forming the hide over a plastic or wooden model. But the freeze-drying technique--in which the animal is dehydrated and basically left whole--is easier, cheaper and relatively without gore. And business is booming for the handful of taxidermists in California who have the expensive freeze-drying equipment.
But the process has caused a rift in the taxidermy community. Many taxidermists consider it unethical to take money from a grieving pet owner, said Michael O’Donnell, manager of Bischoff’s Taxidermy in Burbank. And a dead pet, he said, is simply not a trophy.
“You wouldn’t stick old grandma in the corner and have her perched by the hearth just because it makes you feel better,” O’Donnell said. “Well, you should also have a little respect for your pet. And clients who are crying their eyes out in front of you will pay anything you ask. You’re taking advantage of a nasty situation.
“About 30 minutes ago a girl in her 20s who had tears squirting all over the place came in. Her rabbit just died and she wanted it mounted. She even had a picture of Mr. Bunny with her. I wanted to say: ‘Why in the hell are you doing this to yourself? Why do you want a constant reminder of your grief?’ ”
Some taxidermists fear that as more hunters choose to have their trophies freeze-dried, their art eventually will become obsolete. But O’Donnell said only taxidermy stands the test of time.
“Freeze-drying is fine for coffee,” he said. “But like any dehydrated product, the animal can get damaged by humidity and water. You want to sit around and spend the next 20 years watching your pet decompose?”
Nastasuk does not plan to keep her freeze-dried dog for 20 years. When she is able to accept Tasha’s death, when she is able to let go, Nastasuk said, she will cremate the dog. But in the meantime, she will continue to care for Tasha every day by dusting him, blow-drying the hard-to-reach spots and giving him a light coat of hair spray.
So many pet owners are turning to freeze-drying that business had tripled in the last year, said Rod Shelton, president of Shelton Freeze Dry Taxidermy in Sacramento County. Shelton’s firm, largest in the western states, preserves dogs, cats, parakeets and tropical fish, as well as most game animals. Freeze-drying techniques are continually improving, and if the process is done correctly, he said, the animal should last as long as if it were stuffed.
Shelton, who has been featured in the trade magazine Freeze-Dry World, would never preserve his own dog, he said. He doesn’t even like open-casket funerals. But Shelton considers preserving pets for others a public service.
He will preserve any pet in any kind of pose and he only has one proviso: He requires full payment in advance. It can take more than six months to freeze-dry a dog, and some owners have a change of heart, or end up buying another dog.
Constant Mechanical Din
The front of Shelton’s taxidermy shop near Sacramento is a placid wildlife diorama filled with hundreds of fish and game animals frozen in time, staring blankly out the window at the traffic. But behind Shelton’s office, where his $50,000 worth of equipment is kept, the floor vibrates with activity. The stainless steel vaults filled with specimens, the vacuum pumps and the refrigeration units covered with gauges and thermostats create a constant mechanical din.
Museums have been freeze-drying animals for about 25 years, but the equipment only recently has been available to commercial taxidermists. Before an animal is freeze-dried, it is shampooed, disemboweled, dipped in insect repellent and injected with preservatives. After the taxidermist studies photos of the animal, he poses it with stiff internal wires, sets the artificial eyes and sticks it in a commercial freezer for a few days.
The animal is then transferred to a freeze-drying chamber, where it is weighed periodically. When the animal is completely dehydrated, which takes from a few weeks to more than six months, depending on size, it is touched up with paint, combed out and ready to be picked up. Shelton charges $400 for a small dog or cat and about $1,000 for an animal the size of a German shepherd.
Considered an Art
Most taxidermists consider their work an art and spend years refining their skills. Freeze-drying, many say, takes all the aesthetics out of taxidermy.
“All they do is prop the animal up and stuff it in a freezer,” said Joe Martin, a Santa Barbara taxidermist. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years and my father did it before me. I had to learn how to sculpt mannequins, how to use an air brush, how to model clay, how to make the animal look alive. . . . I could get rich too, if I bought a freeze-dryer, but that’s not the way I want to work.”
Because an animal is skinned before traditional taxidermy, Karen Nastasuk chose to have Tasha freeze-dried. She wanted her dog preserved intact. The dog still has his toenails, his footpads and the same “doggy odor,” Nastasuk pointed out proudly. And when he was alive, Tasha always slept with the tip of his tongue peeking out from between his lips--the pose, she said, the freeze-dryer preserved for eternity.
Veterinarian Froze It
When Nastasuk was shopping for a taxidermist, her dog remained in her veterinarian’s freezer. “He was getting ticked off at me and wanted me to pick up Tasha. I told him: ‘I’m not going to pay your bill if you so much as touch that dog.’ It was a very hard time for me. I couldn’t work; I couldn’t sleep. I took Tasha’s death harder than when my father died.”
Nastasuk’s voice broke and she began to cry softly. She paced the living room of her condominium until she regained her composure. “When I finally found a place that would do Tasha, I started to come around. I could finally get on with my life.”
After Tasha died, Nastasuk bought another Pekingese for her daughter. But he will not be freeze-dried when he dies.
“Nicky’s a good dog . . . don’t get me wrong,” she said, searching for the right words. “But it’s just not the same. . . . The closeness just isn’t there.”
After Nastasuk set Tasha on her lap and began to pet him, Nicky eyed his predecessor warily, barked nervously and quickly backpedaled.
“Don’t worry Nicky,” she reassured the dog. “You’re not going to end up on the coffee table.”
