“She was a really sweet cat,” Doty said. “My kids have been begging me to mount her.”
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.
She can erase that final image of death and swap it out for something happier: pets looking healthy and whole again.
This is the part Doty was excited for. Soon, Cakes would be back home.
Doty, 31, spent most of her life in Florida, fascinated by bugs and animals, but never hunting or fishing. When an old boyfriend mounted a deer that he killed, she wondered, “Why is that on the wall?”
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A few years ago she embarked on a side hustle, crafting jewellery with resin and insects. A barber friend asked her if she’d ever done taxidermy. He wanted a scene: two stuffed rats, one giving the other a haircut, inside a little barbershop modelled after his own. She tried it.
“Anatomically, they were not good,” she said. “But I had a lot of fun.”
Around that time, Doty and her husband had decided to quit their jobs at the bar where they worked together. Raising four kids, Doty wanted the flexibility to pick them up from school. She wanted to leave a legacy for them, something more meaningful than pouring drinks.
Inspired by the barbershop rats, she enrolled in Taxidermy Tech in Pensacola, Florida, in early 2020. She pushed through queasiness during the first cut into a bobcat, then enrolled in a deer class. Her classmates were mostly older men who hunted.
After founding her company, MorgueMade, she turned squirrels from the side of the road into koozies (also known as “squoozies”, US$40) and added long bangs and circles of eyeliner to feeder rodents to create “emo rats” (US$50).
On her mantelpiece she displays a skunk in a handstand, its belly stuffed with an air-freshener that spritzes out puffs of apple cinnamon. She takes pre-orders for US$400.
But mounting hunted animals and making creations out of roadkill to sell at oddities conventions, she found, is not as taboo as pet taxidermy.
Everyone she met in the industry, from her instructors to her peers, told her not to take on grieving owners as clients.
“Pets die at all hours,” Doty said. “I’m usually the last resort. By the time people have found me, they are losing hope.”
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Doty started slowly with pets, wanting to make sure she was ready before taking on something so sensitive. As word got around about her services, business picked up fast. Few people do this job.
She gives customers a six-month estimate, though she can often finish in four. Small dogs and cats are US$1,000 each. She charges US$10 an inch for snakes. (“People always exaggerate size until you charge them per inch.”)
Some clients ask for paw preservation or bone cleaning. Others request the heart or other organs suspended in fluid, saved as wet specimens.
She knows it is morbid to some but also hopes it won’t always be.
“It’s pretty common to get your pet cremated,” she said. “At first it was weird, but now it’s acceptable.”
Not everyone is a fan – Doty’s neighbour, for instance. She has called animal control and the health department, Doty said, reporting bones in the yard and bodies in the shed. It backfired.
Not only was Doty following the rules – one of the inspectors ended up becoming a client.
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She has a tag system and a log book. She reads up on the laws and regulations, and has her federal permit. She sits on the board of directors for the Florida State Taxidermists Association. Last year, she scored a first place and two second places at the state competition, plus best all-around taxidermist.
Doty understands the stigma. It can be hard to get expressions right, and seeing Fido frozen stiff can be unsettling. She poses most of her animals in a resting position, curled up with their eyes closed.
“When they see this beautiful sleeping animal, they’re just like, ‘Oh, that’s not weird.’ And it opens the door a little bit,” she said.
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Back at home that afternoon, Doty crossed her backyard, dotted with her children’s toys, to her workshop. Her she-shed is a lot comfier than the kitchen table she first started on.
There’s no electricity or water inside, so Doty ran a long extension cord and plugged in an LED strip to illuminate her work bench. The panelled walls are lined with finished mounts and hanging skins, plus her awards and shelves of craft supplies.
Inside a tackle box, she organised glass eyes for various animals, from alligators to pythons.
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In the corner, a cluster of wet specimen jars waited, labelled with marker on masking tape: Minnie. Chewy. Doctor. Yeti.
A full black trash bag sat behind the door.
“Sorry, that’s Joe,” Doty said. An Australian shepherd. “I don’t always know the people’s name, but I like to call the animals by their name to be respectful.”
There’s a plastic kid’s chair and a few toys where her youngest son sometimes plays or paints bones as she works. Her nine- and 10-year-olds have already started to practise taxidermy themselves. But for the bloody parts, or more emotional days, she works by herself.
She’ll listen to classical music – Brahms, after whom her five-year-old is named – or, if she’s frustrated, Rob Zombie.
That afternoon, she just talked about Cakes.
Her cat was almost 10 when she died, having lived with the Doty family for a little over a year. Cakes never bit or scratched the family. She had a soft spot for Kentucky Fried Chicken. And if you picked her up, Doty remembered, she would wrap her paws around you in a hug.
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After being skinned, Cakes had gone back into the freezer for a while. Doty’s task for that afternoon was to finally sculpt a foam and clay skull.
“I do have to take breaks. It’s hard on the soul,” she said. “Now that I’m seeing her come back to life, I’m getting really excited.”
Cakes had heterochromia – one green eye, the other blue. Doty had custom peepers made based off a picture. She pressed them into the foam skull and draped Cakes’ skin over the head, peeking at a reference photo to check the proportions.
Maybe Cakes will join the taxidermy display the Dotys keep in their front room. She could sit underneath the mounted deer heads. Or next to the two porcelain dolls with rabbit heads, which Doty created for her wedding table.
“Who knows,” she said. “I might even get her a little bed.”
She wouldn’t finish that day. The clay needed to dry on the mould, getting tackier so it could keep its shape underneath skin. Then there would be making the body form. Painting Cakes’ nose and lips pink again.
But after a long wait, it was progress.
“Hey, she’s finally starting to look like a cat! We’re getting somewhere,” Doty smiled. “Little Cakes.”
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