Thanks to this 'rogue' taxidermist, a pet's death doesn't mean goodbye

“We had it planned, but I wasn’t ready,” said Tinsman. “She was just very patient and accepting of my grieving process.”

The work Beverly does is as individual as the animals and their people’s relationships with them. Often her clients will just want a part of their pet as a keepsake.

“I’ll ask clients, ‘What part of your cat or dog do you cherish the most? Do you like to hold their paws? Do you like the way their tail wags? Do you like how their ears flop?’” she said.

Even when she preserves the whole animal, her goal is to try to capture the animal’s spirit.

When Bensalem tattoo artist Alexandra Fische, 34, brought her pet rat Bijoux to Beverly to be preserved, “I just told her she was my spoiled little princess.”

Bijoux now stands on a purple velvet pillow Beverly sewed for her. She wears a tiara and rings on her paws that Beverly made for her. Her nails are polished.

Professional magician Lindsey Noel’s rabbit Herman had quite a personality. When he died, Noel, 38, told Beverly, “He was always a fancy little man.”

Stuffed Herman now wears a jaunty top hat and carries a cane, residing on the piano in Noel’s Cobbs Creek home.

“I like seeing him in my life still,” she said. “He was such an important part of the formative years of my life, and having him here as I grow and move forward is kind of beautiful. It’s a part of my old life that I’ve carried into this next chapter.”

The pet owners who turn to Beverly say there is solace in having part of their animal still with them.

Mars Orathshei, 27, and Rio, his American Eskimo dog/Pomeranian mix, had been constant companions since Orathshei was a young teen. The little dog’s favorite spot was riding draped across Orathshei’s shoulders.

When Rio died last year, Orathshei, who had researched taxidermists, sent his dog to Beverly from his home in Wisconsin.

Rio’s soft, white coat has been made into a shawl-like mantle. A neckpiece of Rio’s jaw and teeth complete the memorial.

“The one time he felt safe was when he was up on my shoulders,” Orathshei said.

Orathshei, a manager for an insulation company, said he hasn’t felt ready to wear the mantle yet. But the time will come.

“I feel like I’m going to come home from work one day, and I’m going to sit down and put it on and kind of think about everything.”

Once upon a time, Zuleyka Polanco, 34, never thought she would consider taxidermy for a pet.

“I was like, ‘No way, I would never do that. That’s so weird. I couldn’t bear to see my pet like that.’ But,” she added, “you never know how you’re going to react to something until it happens.”

What happened is her husky Keeko got sick and died young. Beverly prepared the dog’s skull, which is now part of a meditation area in Polanco and her wife’s Willingboro home. They keep Keeko’s fur in a woven basket.

“Mostly when I’m by myself in the house, I will sometimes open him up and pet him, rub on the ear,” the Amazon fleet manager said. ”Seeing him there brings me some kind of peace because I feel like I’m still taking care of him.”

Kate Swan didn’t immediately warm to the idea of taxidermy for Krusty Noodles, her family cat, when her husband first suggested it.

“I was like, ‘That’s disgusting! I just want his memory in my head. I don’t want the cat carcass. It’s a parade of death.’ I was just appalled.”

But her husband really liked the idea, so she started telling Beverly, a fellow artist she already knew, about her irrepressible hunter cat.

Now Krusty presides over the family’s dining room, prey and all.

“When my husband’s friends come over, they literally say, ‘What the [expletive]? Is that a real cat? And I tell them the story, and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, that so cool.’”

And more often than not, that leads to funny Krusty stories, in death as in life.

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