About 120 grieving pet parents who have lost their beloved companions have taken them to PD Cagliastro, a Brooklyn woman who memorializes the animals in an unusual way: She mummifies them, the New York Post reports.
Cagliastro, who has mummified animals including racing pigeons to cats, studied embalming and read Egyptian texts to learn how to perform the procedure, according to the newspaper. She removes animals’ organs and then submerges the remainder of their bodies in a salt mixture for months, then plasters and paints them, the Post says.
"When my cat died, I had supreme sadness. I was completely destroyed by it," a 55-year-old customer told the Post. He had Cagliastro mummify his cat and mounted it on a black velvet cushion, which he keeps in a glass cabinet.
"It’s very personal. Even people I know well, I can’t say that this is my mummified cat in the corner. They would think you are crazy," he told the newspaper.